[TravHatesMe]

My father mentioned that while working for banks, back in his day (~25 years ago), there were "guidelines" of how much you should donate to $bigNameCharity depending on your position. He was pretty much forced to donate $1500/year, a lot of money back then. Of course, way up the hierarchy, someone was friends with the charity's founders. And of course, these charities paid out huge salaries and expensed extravagant "business trips". Typical.

[thechao]

There's a lot of awful charities out there. I've used "https://www.charitynavigator.org" in the past to determine which charities are worth giving to, or not. However, I've personally interacted with three charities "on the ground" (in Hospital situations): Shriner's (burn unit in Galveston); McDonald's; and, St. Jude's. I 100% guarantee you that those charities are in the business of helping people (kids, in these cases), and doing so for the best-bang-for-their-buck they can. All three are non-religious (if that's important to you).

I think a lot of the people who read HN are probably in a life situation where they can help. Please do so.