December 12, 2008 | Read Time: 1 minute
How should people who are bombarded with requests during the holiday season decide which charities to support?
Nathaniel Whittemore, director of the Center for Global Engagement at Northwestern University, is inviting philanthropy and social-entrepreneurship bloggers to offer some guidance.
“Every organization and their mother has some sort of matching offer or competition they’re promoting, and it seems like every one of them knows how to get to you,” he writes on the Change.org blog. “Even for the involved giver, it makes it hard to figure out what to spend your limited resources on.”
He is asking bloggers to offer “The One Thing You Need to Know Before You Donate This Holiday Season” — and linking to their responses.
Among the answers so far: See if a current or former beneficiary is on the group’s board of directors, ask what percentage of the group’s board members donated to the organization, set up a portfolio at a site that offers small loans to entrepreneurs like Kiva.org or Microplace.com, support charities touted by friends with good judgment.
What do you suggest donors consider when making their holiday gifts?
