roundup, 3

Welcome to the 2014 Charity Roundup. You can read about 2013 and 2012 in the archives.

What This Is

I tithe. I keep track of where money goes. It’s a party.

Differences from 2013

I actually did not tithe this year. Instead, I took the amount I would normally spend on my student loans, donated that, and used the tithe on my loans. I did not do a MollyGive Matching Program this year, mostly because it was a lot of effort last year and I’ve been busy. In general, I donated to fewer charities this year (I had not realized by how much until just now), largely because I was so busy I put it off until late December and did not have time to do much research. Instead, I donated almost exclusively to local charities and things that were on my mind the day I sat down to do it.

While I would not say my values have changed over the past year (though they have, as they do every year), I became much more uncertain about where my money could do the most good. For example, I really wanted to donate to an environmental group, but could not decide which one I thought was the “best” based on my interests.

My income changed in November. I did not account for that change. I will starting in January of 2015.

This Year’s Percentages

Charity	Percentage
Bikes Not Bombs	13.5
Electronic Frontier Foundation	11
Free Software Foundation	22
Girls Rock Camp Boston	43
Public Lab	4
Wikimedia	6

Drives v. Others

BNB and GRCB both included supporting the fundraising of others. The FSF and the EFF donations were part of membership drives.

How I feel about MollyGive 2014

I actually feel pretty negative about how this year’s donations went. I did not end up giving as much as I would have liked, and while I believe in the value of the groups I donated to, I think I could have put more effort into better researching and distributing funds in the future.

Hopes for 2015

I hope to return to full tithing. I would also like to try a MollyGive Matching another try. While it was hard to drum up the initial enthusiasm among those around me, once it was there, the results were very positive.