Tips for Giving This Holiday Season
Charity Navigator offers the following guidelines to ensure your holiday contributions are well-spent.
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Roundtable Discussion
The drop in giving last year was the biggest in the 54 years that Giving USA has tracked the data --- leaving no doubt that the recession is having a negative impact on contributions. In Part 1 of our roundtable discussion, we asked ten nonprofit professionals to tell us how their charities are coping in these challenging times. In Part 2, we asked the executives to describe the characteristics of high performing charities.
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Giving Facts
- Most U.S. SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, also known as the food stamp program) participants are children (49%) or the elderly (9%). In 2008, 28.4 million people participated each month in the SNAP program.
- Americans carry an average of $8,329 in credit card debt per household. American consumers owed a grand total of $1.9773 trillion dollars (not including mortgage debt) in October 2003.
- 39% of the organizations evaluated by Charity Navigator have accumulated at least a year's worth of working capital to fall back on during economic downturns, down 10% from the year before.
- Approximately 40% of the world's population survives on less than $2 per day.
- Among organizations working to meet people's basic needs, including food, shelter and clothing, more than half report that they are underfunded or severely underfunded for 2009.
- Worldwide, 2.6 billion people do not have access to basic sanitation, and more than one billion people lack a clean and safe water supply.
Highest and Lowest-Rated Charities by Cause
We offer the following list as a quick reference guide to the highest and lowest-rated charity in each cause that we evaluate. In providing this list, our goal is to help you navigate the crowded charitable marketplace and make intelligent giving decisions.
View the List
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