Sunday, January 5, 2020

2020 Donation Guide

2020 charitable giving time has arrived. We truly enjoy annual giving research. We are able to learn about so many interesting organizations and incredible work being done. During the search I add the feeds for these great groups to my social account regardless if we decided to donate to them.

Last years monthly donation plan did not work out as well as we hoped. Life became chaotic and there were many months that we simple let making a donation fall off our priority list.

This year we are trying something different with three gifts, each under $500 to three non profits in January.

The focus is on combating climate change with non-profits that have action beyond research. Not being environmental scientists I turned to google to help us find our three. The first question we had was what are the biggest environmental issues facing our planet? Schooled by Science listed 10 issues, the three that we picked from that list are biodiversity, water pollution & pollution



In reading about biodiversity we learned that habitat protection and restoration are key to biodiversity. The great lakes region is one that we both love so we narrowed our search and found Michigan Nature Association, They were referenced by several other conversation groups as a key partner. The end of year report had a great blend of land acquisition for preservation, education and natural area stewardship - creating public access.



Pollution was the next issue we wanted to impact. Carbon capture having been in the news was where the google search started. Reading about the controversies and challenges with carbon capture I noticed a next article link about the risk faced in Tongass forest. This is a very concerning risk and we found several groups doing advocacy around the logging threat but we could not find any direct action organizations. Keeping in this part of the world we found Litter Free a non-profit who put on regular litter clean up days and provide ongoing education and advocacy about litter free actions and recycling.



Final issue that we want to make a positive impact on this year is water pollution. Google results showed that dynamic habitat protection and restoration are important elements to address this issue. With the help of Charity Navigator we narrowed to another area we both love and looked at many Washington based organizations. The decision was Northwest Watershed Institute. Northwest Watershed Institute leverages land acquisition, public/ private restoration and education to improve water quality in areas of pacific salmon natural habitat.


As in years past we will provide in kind gifts to the Red Cross & an annual donation to our local United Way.  We have just started to volunteer with a local animal rescue (Houston Pets Alive) and are keeping an open mind that we may add them to our in-kind donations list in 2020.


The goal in sharing this each year is to give light onto some great organizations and to hopefully encourage you to make a positive impact as part of your plan for the year.