Q&A: Consultation Regarding Donations
Consultation Regarding Donations
Question
Hello Rabbi,
I wanted to consult with you about donations from tithe money. I have substantial sums that I can donate every month, and I want them to make the most significant impact. At the moment I donate to the Animals association (formerly Anonymous), which works for the welfare of animals on farms. The issue of abortions is also something I sometimes donate to. The question is whether there are other/additional things you would recommend considering donating to.
Best regards,
Answer
Organizations like Paamonim seem effective to me (they teach people how to manage properly).
The question is a bit beyond me.
I think that if someone doesn’t want to do research and spend a lot of time on it, I would donate it as designated money to one or two organizations, not many. To choose the organizations, I would run a kind of tender process and ask them to convince me why this mission would not be carried out without me (and/or has not been carried out until now), why it is very important, and what the cost proposal is. Of course, expanding the scope of an existing mission (supporting more people) can also count as a mission that has not been carried out until now.
Personally, the directions I wrote to you about (including animal suffering) are the directions that seem important and meaningful to me. There is also work with at-risk youth and youth in distress, rehabilitation villages, shelters for battered women, and the like, so perhaps it would be right to issue a tender regarding those directions. Someone who proposes a mission over a span of years is preferable, because then your review process becomes more efficient and you don’t have to issue new tenders every year.
After writing this, here are a few important additions:
I now remember that there are various studies around the world on the effectiveness of donations (there is even some foreign term for it. My in-law dealt with this. He is a serial startup entrepreneur and a wealthy man). They identify goals where the benefit is maximal per cent donated. I remember people saying that buying a mosquito net for a person/child in Africa is the most efficient donation. You save lives for just a few cents. Compare that to donating millions that slightly improve the situation of a few people.
But here, of course, there are already targets all over the world, and you need to decide on a donation policy. Are you willing to spend money abroad?
See here for something like that in Israel, “Midot”: http://www.midot.org.il/ It really seems like exactly what you’re looking for!!!
Here I found a list of associations that, according to them, were examined very rigorously:
https://www.igul.org.il/?gclid=CjwKCAjwtfqKBhBoEiwAZuesiNa8Xk13BYdEOEpI2m1SJ-VKEf6pH9Eh9uLkGob3Tagc-ogaN4u4yhoCWk8QAvD_BwE#footer
I hope this was of some help. I still wasn’t really concrete, but I would start with the Midot website.
Discussion on Answer
I thought about it a bit more, and in my opinion the consideration that the poor of your own city come first is limited if in other places you are literally saving lives, whereas here in Israel it is usually a matter of improving quality of life or Torah study and the like. If with a few dollars you can save lives, in my opinion that is a very significant matter.
Following up on this question, do you also donate your charity money to causes like these? And if not, why not?
I usually donate directly to urgent cases that I know personally. A direct need that comes your way personally takes precedence, something like majority and proximity.
Following up on this question, are there also charity causes you recommend during this period? Or even in this period, in your opinion is it still preferable to donate to organizations in Africa?
If there are people whose existence is in danger, then the poor of your own city come first.
So to what causes would you recommend donating?
I don’t know specific places. As a rule, if there is no concrete information, then the possibility of saving lives with a few dollars is preferable.
Following up on this topic, I came across an Israeli organization operating in Africa called NALA. The advantage of an Israeli organization is that it provides a tax credit under Section 46 for donations. This is the link to their website:
https://www.nalafoundation.org/
I’d be glad to hear what you think of this direction if you have time to take a look.
At first glance it looks perfectly fine. I haven’t checked in depth, and I’m not familiar with other alternatives for comparison.
The truth is, I’ve come across similar websites before in parallel, especially their American counterparts:
https://www.effectivealtruism.org/
https://effective-altruism.org.il/
https://www.givewell.org/
These sites really do recommend, as you said, donating to distress related to disease in Africa (mosquitoes, malaria, vaccines, etc.). I also recall that Bill Gates’s charity foundation focuses on these goals. They (the above sites) claim that in terms of cost-benefit, this is the most effective. Even though there is no income tax credit for these donations, it is still far more effective than other associations, even if you reduce the donation amount so that you donate less in exchange for the tax credit you would otherwise have received. There is an organization called GiveWell that knows how to transfer funds automatically to the most effective places. The problem with this is that these sites do not take into account the rule that the poor of your own city come first. That is, sometimes it is preferable to donate to more local causes, even at the price of somewhat reduced effectiveness. Another problem is that effectiveness is measured more by the metric of saving human lives, and issues of animal suffering are not so measurable on that scale. Another advantage of donating to the Animals association is that there you can receive a tax credit, unlike for foreign charities. And one more thing: matters of advancing Torah study are also not so measurable on that scale. I forgot to mention that the Israeli Effective Altruism website recommended the Animals association as an effective organization (though not the most effective by their standards).