[JohnFen]

Following my first successful business, I realized that no business can be successful without the support (knowing or not) of the community the business is part of.

So I started a kind of tithing, giving 10% of my gross revenue back to my local community as a form of repayment and thanks.

From years of doing this, I have evolved rules about it in order to avoid various problems.

1) The organization must be one that is usually overlooked for giving. So no big guys.

2) The organization must be local.

3) The organization has to have an obvious and tangible public benefit.

4) The organization must not ask me for money or engage in splashy fundraising.

5) The organization must keep my identity a secret. If they can't promise that, no donation. If they break their promise, no further donations.

That's about it!

[MaiaIva]

Thank you so much for sharing your approach. It’s incredible that you are donating 10%, I do the same percentage as it doesn’t really affect your way of living and enjoying life.

I wonder how do you usually find out about your local, overlooked but impactful organizations?

[JohnFen]

> I do the same percentage as it doesn’t really affect your way of living and enjoying life.

Exactly. It's an extension of the "pay yourself first" principle (which I also do).

> I wonder how do you usually find out about your local, overlooked but impactful organizations?

These days, I'm active in my local community in various ways, so I'm pretty aware of the various organizations in it by default. That also helps me to choose: I have a good idea of which ones are good and which ones are dubious.

When I started, though, I chose organizations that had helped myself or people that I know in the past. That gave me the confidence to get going, and things evolved from there.

[MaiaIva]

“Pay yourself first” is 100% a way to a sustainable giving. The moment you start sacrificing your basic needs to help others, you are on the path to become the next one needing help, imo. Curious about your “good charity” indicators: do you take a close look at their financials? Read their impact stories? Or is it more intuitive, based on your experience?

[JohnFen]

I don't do a deep dive into financials, no. I focus more on the smaller operations that don't have large budgets or complex finances, so I tend to go by reputation, "smell", and my personal knowledge of the people running the operation. Part of the reason why I want to see them providing tangible services (and why I don't want to see a lot of money being spent on fundraising) is so that I can see that at least a significant amount of the money is going toward their purpose.

I'm talking things like free clinics, food banks, etc.

There's certainly a nonzero chance that some of my donations are wasted (in my view), but I've chosen not to worry a huge deal about that. If I spent too much energy on that sort of thing, I wouldn't donate at all.