Monday, June 29, 2020

july 2020 donation

my donation comes a little early this month because PayPal was having a promotion where if you donated at least $5 thru their app to a non-profit, they would add $5! I picked Planned Parenthood South Atlantic (North Carolina, South Carolina, West Virginia, and the Blue Ridge of Virginia) rather than planned parenthood of america cause of the $10,000 limit per charity. :) i figure a smaller branch would likely get fewer donations.

fine print: Donation: PayPal will give up to $1.5M dollars in total donations and $10,000 per charity over the course of the promotion. Must use your Valid Account to complete a donation through the PayPal mobile app to PayPal Giving Fund. Ends 6/29/2020 at 11:59:59 p.m. PT or when the donation cap has been reached, whichever is earlier. Limit: 1 donation per person and per Valid Account.Donations will be made to PayPal Giving Fund, an IRS-registered 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization and granted to your recommended charity pursuant to its Donation Delivery Policy. Contribution may be tax-deductible to the extent allowed by law. Consult your tax advisor to understand your specific circumstances. No goods or services will be provided in exchange for your donation. PayPal reserves the right to deny a donation for any reason at its sole discretion. 

news and social media the last month has been awash with news of police brutality and the black lives movement. accordingly, i've been reminded of the ACLU and have learned about many orgs doing great work!

in april, starting with my first donation, i had listed out a bunch of orgs that i liked and would want to eventually donate to: NPR, Radiolab, PBS, Planned Parenthood, Compton Initiative, OC Food Bank, Second Harvest, Food Finders, Harvest Partners, Food Forward, and Seed Savers. they were mostly food related. probably because we were in full swing with the pandemic so much of the news was about food banks running out of supplies. plus, i've worked directed with a few of the orgs listed.

Tuesday, June 2, 2020

june 2020 donation

if you read my last post, you know that for june 2020 I donated to Equal Justice Initiative. there have been a ton of recent lists of Black Lives Matter groups to donate to, which was helpful tho I kind of randomly found this group on google. what cemented my decision is that they have a 100% rating on charitynavigator.org.

it's always a good idea to do some research into the group you want to donate to. and I know that a lot of people heavily weigh salary expenses when looking into non-profits, but you should be careful to find actual numbers rather than percentages (you can find this info on their 990 tax forms, which are public). for instance, about 30% of algalita's annual expenses goes to our staff of four, which sounds like a lot, but we all make under $65k a year before taxes. my annual take home pay is well under $40k, which is really not that high, especially when you figure that I have no medical or retirement benefits offered thru work.

relevant article from refinery29: How To Make Strategic & Impactful Donations, According To A Personal Finance Expert

#blackouttuesday

got a bit fired up this morning seeing all those blank black rectangles on instagram. that doesn't DO anything! I get that you're showing solidarity with the BLM movement, but are you really? this has been said a lot lately, and I'm all for it: it isn't enough not to be racist; you have to be ANTI-racist. and if posting this on your insta is all you're doing, you're doing it wrong.

after some thought, i posted an amazingly still relevant quotation from writer Ta-Nehisi Coates from his book Between the World and Me. 



do you remember Eric Garner? he too was suffocated to death by a cop. his last words were "I can't breathe." that was 2014. the cop, Pantaleo, was finally fired in 2019. AND "A state grand jury declined to press criminal charges." in fact, NY police commissioner James O'Neill actually said that "had I been in Officer Pantaleo's situation, I may have made similar mistakes." um... Pantaleo isn't the victim here. and he broke rules to kill Garner; chokeholds are banned by the NYPD. (short article)

there were a couple other slides from my post, but below is my caption. 

DO MORE. join a protest, help cleanup the next day if looters/rioters hijacked that protest, sign a bunch of change.org petitions, watch a documentary, read a book (Ta-Nehisi Coates @tanehisipcoatesis amazing), EDUCATE yourself, support family owned black businesses, boycott companies that exploit black people (that exploit anyone really!), DONATE! as someone who helps with fundraising for a non-profit, i can tell you that every donation, no matter how small, is appreciated. 
this year i'm donating about $25 a month to a different org/cause. this month i'm choosing Equal Justice Initiative @eji_org which "works to end mass incarceration, excessive punishment, and racial inequality." I found them on charity navigator @charitynav and they have an incredible 100% overall rating. 
#blackoutuesday