Give your money to strangers

(photo via progressdaily.com)

Today I gave like 65 cents to some lady on the subway who played what looked like a cross between a bagpipe and a recorder. (It sounded horrible. I like the mariachi guys way better.) It's something I try not to do, because as a hard-working American, I feel like I have the right to determine whether or not people "deserve" the money I've worked so hard for.

My recent unemployment stint has taught me a lot about how much money I really need to get by (answer: not much) and now that I'm working, I suddenly feel like I have all this extra cash laying around. And I want to spend all of it. I realized that I still dress like a college student and I could use a new pair of running shoes and omg I need a $5 latte right now.

So I need to figure out something better to do with my money. My current blog-crush, Jen at Daily Mitzvah, has started a charity piggy bank, which I will be appropriating in short order. I'm also verrry open to other ideas. Can you think of another way for me to do something good with my money?

Fiscally responsible charity

A while back, I lamented on my lack of knowledge of charities, namely which ones are worth giving to. Jean Chatzky wrote an informative piece in Money Magazine with some answers from a dry, financial perspective. She says, "Fiscally sound groups are more likely to be effective." So right. Now if only I understood WTF else she's talking about.

Non-profits I like: RAINN

(A semi-regular post that features, duh, not for profit agencies and organizations I like and support.)

The Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network (RAINN) is one of those non-profits doing the really shitty work that absolutely needs to be done. They're the largest national anti-sexual assault organization.

Here are some scary stats:

• Someone is sexually assaulted in America every 2 and 1/2 minutes.
• 80% of rape victims are under age 30.
• Almost 60% of sexual assaults go unreported.

RAINN runs a national sexual assault support hotline and has an online support line in beta. They run educational programs that reach over 120 million Americans each year. They're considered the go-to source on sexual assault statistics, prevention and information. Donate here. Check out the whole site though, because the people at RAINN are a huge reason why sexual assaults in the US have dropped almost 70% since 1993.

I was going to put a feminism tag on this post, but chose not to because issues RAINN deals with are not confined solely to women, although we do make up the majority of the victims. Again from the website, "About three percent of American men — a total of 2.78 million men — have experienced an attempted or completed rape in their lifetime according to the 1998 Prevalence, Incidence and Consequences of Violence Against Women study." Men are also much less likely to report a sexual assault.

It's easy to be against rape and sexual assault. It takes some effort to do something about it. RAINN has volunteer opportunities here. Be a good human and do it, please.

BRR!

(February 2007: That's me. And my old neighbor in the full length camo snowsuit Yeah, the snow is as tall as I am.)

I'm originally from Western NY. You know, by Buffalo, where it snows a lot. Then I went to school in Oswego. Maybe you heard about it on the news? I'm intimately familiar with the dreaded lake effect snow. What I'm trying to say is, it gets really cold. And snowy. And sucky.

And now that I live in NYC, the weather has been a lot better. But this week it's been freaking cold! And I haven't fully unpacked since moving here (don't judge!) so I couldn't find my winter coats. That blue one in the photo is so warm and awesome. I've had it for years and it's held up to some brutal winters.

I thought, "This is no problem; I'm from Upstate! I've lived with snow and bitter temperatures all my life! Only the locals (or what I used to imagine the locals looked like) would need a coat down here. I'm too tough for this." And so on.

But I was wrong. As it turns out, without my awesome Columbia Bugaboo, I'm no tougher than the locals. I found it today and I was soooo relieved.

I started thinking, what if I didn't have a winter coat at all? Lots of people don't. So this woman in San Francisco (do they even need coats there?) started One Warm Coat, which is where you can donate warm winter outerwear, find a coat drive in your area or start one of your own. They even get sponsors like the Burlington Coat Factory and The Gap to pitch in. Awesome right? So look them up, then be a good human and look in your closets and donate! One Warm Coat makes sure that the coats and mittens that they receive are given away for free to those who need them.

Jim Jams

I recently found out about the Pajama Program. They donate pajamas and books to kids in foster care throughout the country. Boring right? Did I lose your interest? While this charity doesn't exactly provide life-saving services, I think it's really important.

There are over 800,000 children living in foster care in the United States.

Think about that.

That's 800,000 kids who were pulled from their homes because their parents were unable or unwilling to provide a safe, loving and nurturing environment.

They don't have pajamas to wear to bed so they sleep in their jeans. They don't have the nightime ritual of taking a bath and snuggling under the covers for a bedtime story. 800,000 kids who don't get to experience this simple and enduring form of love.

That's why this charity is so great. Their purpose is very specific - give kids pjs and a book to read for bedtime, just a small homey comfort in an otherwise confusing and hurtful world.

Charity begins at home

Charity is important. Giving to those in need feels good. But I have some misgivings about charitable giving. Like why the hell are there so damn many charities in the first place? I can't even figure out what issues matter most to me, let alone which organizations I want to give to.

I used to send $20/month to Greenpeace, but I recently stopped because I have no idea what my donations were being used to finance. What does Greenpeace actually do?

So here's a goal: find a charity whose endeavors I believe in and donate as much as I can. The second part is going to be hard because I'm fresh out of college and my living room furniture consists of a chair, but I know that comparatively, I'm way better off than most.