Don’t do checkout charity

by Jen (March 10, 2008)

More and more stores lately are asking, “Would you like to donate a dollar/five dollars to Something Or Other?” when you check out. There’s nothing necessarily wrong with saying yes, but when you consider there are plenty of other ways to make charitable donations, checkout charity is not ideal.

1. You can lose track of how often you’re donating how much and end up blowing your budget. Also, if you don’t track these little donations carefully, you can’t add them to your tax deductions (if you donate enough to make claiming those deductions worthwhile).
2. Sadly, a lot of charities are not so noble. The combination of tax exemption and really sympathetic bait is too perfect for scam artists to set up so they can pay themselves way more than you’re earning and call it an “administrative” cost.
3. It’s a guilt tactic - they rely on you feeling embarrassed at the thought of publicly denying a noble cause a single dollar. You can send that very same charity a check for $25 or whatever on your terms, when you have the money.

I’m also a big fan of making donations local. Instead of sending money to big national and international charities, look around your neighborhood for rescue missions helping people who lost their jobs when a big employer shut down its facility in your town. Look for charities helping local kids. Donate to local universities or extracurricular programs for schoolkids. There’s nothing wrong with donating to international charities - but with local charities, it’s often easier to check out whether the money is really going where it should. And you have the added benefit of investing in your own community.

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