Do you want to give back to society in this season of giving? Struggling to choose the right charity?

The season of giving is upon us. After getting your finances ready for the holidays, you would have surely also thought about giving back to society and are now trying to determine the right charity to do so. It doesn’t matter whether it is Hari Raya, Chinese New Year, Deepavali, Christmas, or Gawai, giving back is a trademark of everyone.

This could be daunting if you do not know where to start as you are worried about whether your donated money is reaching the right people and used in the right way. Do not worry, start by taking the six steps below to get started.

Step 1: Determine the Amount of Money to Donate

Firstly, the most important thing when it comes to giving back and donating is how much can you give. Give what you have, and not beyond your means – a similar mantra when it comes to managing your expenses and spending.

You can start by taking stock of your current income, savings and investments, and determining a percentage of them that you can donate. A safe percentage could be 5% of your total savings or income, but if you are feeling generous, 10% is probably the maximum you should go for.

Anything more than 10% is probably too much for your finances. You would need to spend on other obligations such as housing, car, food, and other necessary expenses. The act of giving is important but it is more crucial to take care of yourself first.

Step 2: Identify the General Causes that You Want to Support

Go where your heart tells you. In this case, identify and support the general causes that you feel most passionate about. Your own experience in life would ultimately shape where your interest lies. Let this guide you in your journey to identify the causes that you want to contribute to.

Start by thinking about the most important even in your life. It could be a simple field trip to a museum, a hike in the jungle, or a volunteer event to help the needy or poor. Which experience do you remember the most? What kind of feeling did it invoke in you?

Look for feelings of fulfillment and gratefulness. Then, consider whether you feel the urge to wake up in the morning to contribute to the cause that you have identified. If you feel strongly about it, that is probably the cause that you should consider giving back to, whether through money or volunteer work.

Step 3: Research the Appropriate Charities and Organisations

Once you have identified the appropriate cause to contribute to, start researching on the various charities and organisations. In today’s world, there are so many choices to choose from that you could have serious problems identifying the right one.

There are several key factors that you should research about a charity such as the effectiveness of its programs, efficiency in using the donated money and the tracking of the deliverables. Take the time to pore over their reports and look for data on how many people your money has reached and the progress of their programs.

Determine also whether they are spending most of the money on running the company or administration. If they are, this is concerning as they are not that efficient in administering the programs and the money is not reaching the people who needs it. A good charity or organisation would always invest in tracking the progress of their programs in a clear and concise manner.

Step 4: Give a Call or Talk to Representatives of the Charity

There is no better way to know an organisation or charity than talking to one of the people in them. You can research them thoroughly on their financials and projects but the most important thing is to connect with them on a personal level and find out about their culture.

In some ways, this is similar to how you research a company to work for or invest in. You want to know the people behind them, the passions and motivation they have in driving their cause and projects, how they treat other people, and whether their values align with yours.

Go to their fundraising or networking events to get to know the people better. If you can, talk to the founder or the CEO. The next best thing is to give a call to the organisation and ask to speak to the people working there. If that is not possible, drop an email to inquire about the company.

Step 5: Volunteer to Help Out

Take the opportunity to volunteer in some of the charities’ and organisations’ projects or events. You want to see how your donated money is helping the people on the ground and what better way to get your eyes, ears and hands directly on the ground.

Apart from knowing the people, you get to experience what it feels like to do what they do and your contribution to something bigger than yourself. More importantly, you can understand what are the struggles the charity or organisation is going through, rather than question them on how they are spending your money from the comforts of your computer without understanding the context.

In this regard, you can probably only volunteer for local charities or organisations within Malaysia, as doing so in another country will be too costly. Be practical in this approach and volunteer according to your own capacity and capability.

Step 6: Set Up a Simple Tracker

After deciding on the right charities, invest some time to set up a simple tracker to track their progress. This doesn’t have to be complicated as spending a lot of time in updating and managing the tracker will induce burn out, and that is not how it should be when it comes to giving back.

The best way is to set up a simple excel file that has the dimensions of time, key events, and some simple metrics like how many people the money in the organisation has reached. Every charities will have different metrics that they keep track of. Read up on the news or email the organisation every 6 months and update the sheet. If this takes up more than 3 hours, focus only on the key events that the organisation has done. If you have the time, read up on their quarterly or annual reports on a regular basis to extract the key information.

Conclusion

It is important to choose the right charity and organisation to enable you to give back to society, as ultimately you want to see this money contribute to making someone else’s life better. Take the time to decide on it as you want to commit to it long term. Giving back is not just about the intention, but also about how you can best make a difference to the cause you are passionate about.

 

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