Because I believe that it's always important to give to charity no matter my budget I have always done my best to give money to charity on a monthly basis. It's not always been a lot (sometimes just a couple of pounds) because my budget has not ever been particularly large, but I have decided that next year I want to give more. My budget hasn't particularly changed and is not likely to increase at all next year, but I do think that there are places that I can make changes to help give me the extra cash I need to be able to donate more. No matter how careful I am there are definitely times where I have spend money on things I really don't need or necessarily want in the long run, and having this extra commitment should help me curb these unwanted purchases.
At the moment I already give to the Bat Conservation Trust (BCT) and the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB), and I'm intending on carrying on giving money to these two charities (possibly increasing the amounts I donate to both) as they are still very important to me. However, I wanted to add some more charities and decided to do some research on what would best ones to go for. These are the criteria I was looking for:
- I want them to be charities that work in the environmental sector, especially ones that are working to combat climate change. As I believe that climate change is the greatest threat we will be facing and a factor that will affect a whole host of other things, including increases in poverty, warfare, and famine.
- I would like to be able to get a clear view of where all their money is going and to give money to groups to that give most of their money to what they are actually supposed to be fighting rather than predominantly administration and advertising. I know that these departments are important to the running of an organisation, but it seems strange to be that these would be where the main focus is.
- I want them to be charities that are not as well known as Oxfam, Greenpeace, or Friends of the Earth. Whilst these charities do do great work they already get a lot of support, and there are other charities out there that do great work but don't necessarily get the money or support they need and deserve. I would like to put my money towards them.
The first charity I decided to add to the list is Water Aid. Having lived somewhere where fresh, clean water wasn't available to all I know just how important it is and what affect this can have on all aspects of someone's life. The affect dirty water they have to walk miles to get to has on someone's body isn't just a health issue, it affects their ability to go to school and learn, to grow the food they need, and to look after their family. To me everyone should have safe water, it is the most basic of human rights and is usually pretty easy to achieve with the right equipment and knowledge. I really like the look of Water Aid, they seem quite open about where their money goes and what the work is that they do. They've also put out a Modern Slavery statement outlining the work they do to prevent slavery from occurring in any of the work they are doing.
The next organisation I want to add is ClientEarth. I had never heard of them before but this organisation uses law to help protect people and the planet we live on. In a statement about themselves they said that they believed that society needed to change it's relationship with the natural world (something I definitely agree with) and that they believed that law was an effective tool to use to do this. Their aim is to empower people and NGOs with their legal rights allowing them to put forward environmental battles of their own, hopefully taking Governments to court, forcing polluting industries to stop, protecting irreplaceable ecosystems. They are also using climate law and legislation to help with the fight against climate change. What I like most about them is that they seem very honest about their finances (making it very easy to find on their website) and that they start with science. To me the use of science is important as it is much harder to argue against someone who's using facts. Whilst doing further research into ClientEarth I also found an article showing that they had been voted the organisation which accomplished the most based on the resources that were available to them. This vote came from chief executives from other environmental organisations and helped me decided that they would definitely be an organisation I wanted to support. [Incidentally, the RSPB came second so I'm glad I'm sticking with them.]
The last charity was a bit more tricky. I've been umming and ahing over different charities that fitted the bill. Climate change is a big issue and I want to do as much work on it as possible, but it's also something that many people find overwhelming to begin with. I wanted to look for a charity that carried out work that didn't look like it was directly dealing with climate change, but whose outcome actual did help with the fight against global warming. In the end I've gone for Plastic Oceans.
Despite that fact that they produced the movie that I've written about before I hadn't actually heard that much about Plastic Oceans and decided to do a little bit more research. Their aim is to get people to reduce their plastic footprint and prevent anymore plastic from getting into our oceans. This is something that people can easily get on board with and feel good about, and as oceans play a large part in helping us fight climate change, protecting this ecosystem is hugely important. Plastic also release greenhouse gases as they degrade, so reduce the amount that we produce will also play it's part in the fight against global warming. The thing that I likes most about Plastic Oceans is that all their work is backed by scientific research and they produce educational packs that can be used by anyone to help promote reducing the amount of plastic we produce and throw away. In the future they are hoping to support more research into this issue and build on links with industries which have close ties to the ocean to help encourage best practises that will not only reduce the waste we are leaving in our waters, but also help reduce the cost to the industry. The only issue I had was that is wasn't that easy to find out about where the money was actually going other than to look at the annual review they have to release on the UK Governments Charity Commission website, but I would still like to support this organisation non-the-less.
And so that's it. Those are the charities I will be donating to next year and why. Which charities do you support and why? Let me know in the comments below as I would be interested in knowing why people like to support the groups that they do.
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