Seasonal charitable giving - a sensible way to share and promote our favourite causes?

I'd like to run this one past the moderators.

I support a particular water aid charity that uses methods that many permies would recognise to build water security for communities in arid lands. They have a seasonal fundraising drive coming, as I'm sure many other worth causes do. I'd like to do my bit sharing and promoting, but obviously if we all do that with our favourite causes we run the risk of the board getting full of begging threads, gofundme pledges requests and the like. I know from managing other boards that this can be harmful (unvetted fundraising for causes of dubious worth, or outright scams).

I quite like how the book reviews are handled here - a central page that keeps track of the books, then a thread with a review. Could a similar process work for charity recommendations? Would there be minimum requirements for recommending a charity (eg must have a 5 year track record, must fit with some kind of permies ethos?)

Is there already a framework, or suitable location on the boards for thread like this?

I've seen many hat in hand threads, where the goal seems to be personal gain, so it's not a charity at all. To me, the most important thing is for us to make a clear separation between business propositions and charities. I spoke to someone who wanted to try crowdfunding as a means of buying a farm.

Around Christmas time we often see businesses beating their chest about some charitable offering where they give a percentage to the cause. Usually that percentage is so low, that it's really just there to beef up their advertising. Some of the worst ones I've seen involved a breast cancer charity, where they sell incredibly low quality tools with pink handles for about the same price as decent tools. Then 1% of the money goes to the charity. Almost any retail scheme is a very poor way to donate to charity.

It sounds like what you are talking about is an actual charity. So hopefully whoever does the vetting of these things, chooses the right category.

Yes, that is exactly what I'm getting at. The difference between "buy me a farm" and a genuine charity out there doing good things. I think the latter is well worth having proper discussion of, because not all charities are equally worthy (for want of a better word), efficient with how they use their funds, or environmentally sound.

Before opening this thread, I thought somebody was going to suggest making a thread for their favorite charity, and my first thought was "yeah, that's cool - in blatant advertising."  

(more on my thoughts on non-profits)



Back to the reviews ...

The software currently supporting having multiple review grids.   The idea was to have a different grid for:

  - books
  - movies
  - web sites
  - PDCs
  - PDC instructors
  - youtube channels
  - permaculture sites
  - gear

etc.  

I suppose charitable giving could be added to the list.  Each charity would need a thread so that people could post reviews.  Once there got be at least five threads with at least two reviews in each thread, we could set up a grid.

paul wheaton wrote:Before opening this thread, I thought somebody was going to suggest making a thread for their favorite charity, and my first thought was "yeah, that's cool - in blatant advertising."  
......
The software currently supporting having multiple review grids.   ....

I suppose charitable giving could be added to the list.  Each charity would need a thread so that people could post reviews.  Once there got be at least five threads with at least two reviews in each thread, we could set up a grid.

So to get the ball rolling we would simply start creating review threads? Is it worth creating a wikipage with a template structure? What needs to be included at the start to make sure it works with the review grid system?

Create a media rich thread or wiki that talks about the organization.  Provide links.  Invite reviews.  

Then reply with an acorn review.  

We would need a few threads like that.

Following are two excellent examples of media-rich threads: For The Love of Pawpaws, and Building a Better World in Your Back Yard...

And here is a tutorial for how to make your summary look great!

After the initial Wiki-summary about the charity has been posted, then you are ready to reply with your review. For your review to be spotted by the forum software and included in the yet to be charity review grid, please write as the first words in the post: I give this charity X out of 10 acorns.