HOW DO YOU DECIDE WHICH CHARITY TO CONTRIBUTE TO?

Charity requests are everywhere. Just about every time I go to the local grocery store, they ask if I’d like to donate one dollar for this or $10 for that. I feel so guilty if I don’t contribute. I say “no thank you” with a smile but always feel the clerk is whispering something in their head like “yeah thanks – you had enough money for the BOGO soft drinks but can’t afford $5 for this charity?”

But, like many of us, we want to contribute and help but we quickly realize that we have to make a decision on where to contribute and we need to stick with and hold firm to that decision. Having 3 children and working with children through local associations, I’ve personally decided these 2 things:

1. I will concentrate my donations on helping children
2. I will donate only to established organizations with established giving rules

Save just one child

In the local not-for-profit athletic association, I am a commissioner. This job takes loads of hours but I continue to commission for one reason – the motto of the head commissioner – “every child we get playing sports in a gym or on a sports field is a kid spends less time getting involved in the wrong places with the wrong people at precisely the most important time – when they’re young“. But the thing my head commissioner says that plays in my mind as I deal with often difficult children is “these kids truly are our future leaders, just waiting to be discovered“.

So although it may seem futile to concentrate on helping or saving one child at a time, it’s not and it’s precisely what we need to do. That child is our future leader, just waiting to be discovered. That child is the future leader of their village. They are the future sage, the future financial contributor, the future parent, the future guider of other children.

It’s interesting that Mosquito Squad has teamed up with an organization that supports my donation strategy and beliefs so perfectly:

1. Save 1 child at a time
2. A reputable organization
3. Affordable

Number 3 is really important. Ten dollars is those 2 twelve-packs of soda. It is that one day this week we take a sandwich from home instead of going out to lunch. It can even be the gas saved in “camping in” one weekend and spending the whole weekend having quality family time. Ten dollars can save at least one child. For every $10 you donate, a net is purchased and delivered to a child in Africa. This net covers the child’s bed to keep Malaria-carrying mosquitoes from biting the child as he/she sleeps. Often more than one child sleeps in one bed or crib so our simple $10 contribution will ensure that a life-saving bed net is delivered to Africa and it will save the lives of future leaders in Africa.

As I type this message, I am humming Michael Jackson’s tune from We Are The World

We are the World lyrics

There comes a time when we hear a certain call
When the world must come together as one
There are people dying
and its time to lend a hand to life
The greatest gift of all

We can’t go on pretending day by day
That someone, somewhere will soon make a change
We are all a part of Gods great big family
And the truth, you know,
Love is all we need