Final Decisions on Charitable Donations FY 05
A while back I posted my list of potential charitable donations for FY 05. I’ve not finished my selections yet (I’ve still got three days after all!) but I’m in the process of making them now. Noon on 31-December is actually early as these things go for me.
I’ll list the lucky winners, and their normalized contributions. The normalized contribution value is the gift amount, divided by the largest single give amount given this year. Thus, a contribution of 1.0 is the largest single contribution I made; 0.5 is half that, 0.25 one quarter, and so on. This value serves as a reasonable indication of the extent to which I value the objectives of the organization and my level of confidence in the organization’s ability to efficiently further those objectives.
The final list:
- Institute for Justice - 1.0
- EFF - 0.83
- Reason Foundation - 0.83
- Federalist Patriot - 0.67
- NRA Life Membership - 0.50
- FIRE - 0.50
- Second Amendment Foundation - 0.33
- CATO - 0.33
- Heritage Foundation - 0.33
- VCDL - 0.07
Of these, the NRA, Patriot, and VCDL contributions aren’t tax-deductible, which is unfortunate, but their causes are just enough to merit the foregone tax deduction.
A few final comments:
Dear Charitable Organizations: Get with the program and go to the trouble of implementing a decent donation system. 2AF, I’m talking to you! I don’t care how strapped you are for cash; any teenage child of one of your staffers should have the HTML wherewithall to come up with a donation form that doesn’t look like something I might’ve used in 1995. If you want my money, you should make it easy and pleasant for me to give it to you. Witness, for example, the Institute for Justice or EFF donation sites; consistent UI, and after you make your donation they give you a receipt complete with their TID.
I would also note that I considered a donation to Catholic Charities, which does alot of the more traditional ‘charity’ work. However, Catholic social thought is somewhat inconsistent with my free market, limited government philosophy, which makes it hard for me to support these otherwise worthwhile programs.
This is an interesting dichotomy; my professed religion (or organs thereof) pursue political ends which I cannot agree with. I noted this most acutely in my study of the Jesuits, who are such militant activists that the Church has disbanded them a couple times over the centuries. While this is unfortunate, it doesn’t detract from the legitimacy of the Catholic faith imho; for example, opposition to immigration enforcement may be an activity funded by Catholic Charities, but it’s a long way from that to an ex cathedra proclamation from the Pope that illegal immigrants must be given amnesty.
And finally, I lament that, while BearingPoint has a 100% matching program for charitable donations, one of the restrictions is that organizations whose primary activity consists of ‘advocacy or litigation’ are not eligible. To my mind this elimates the entire spectrum of activist organizations, from MoveOn to Sierra Club to NRA.
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