What's the output of your donations?

[Nik]

It's pretty popular among the super-rich to donate some of their money to charities, establish charity funds, finance projects for public benefits, like hospitals, stadiums, etc...
Related or not, but tax laws in many countries envisage tax incentives for charity, allowing a donor to enjoy a tax exempt up to a certain % of his taxable income. So, to some it doesn't really hurt to contribute a little instead of paying the same amount in taxes -:)
Now, on a much lesser scale, what happens to the money that we contibute, be it 10$, pounds or rupee? Somehow, I'm always aghast to hear what salaries top executives of some charities have. Makes you wonder. It's not really hard to understand that only a certain percent that we donate is being spent, as we intend. It's not hard to find on the internet some data about how it goes. Here is an example, however I can't really know how accurate this is:
http://metro.co.uk/2015/12/13/worried...

There are also examples when the charity money is simply stolen under this or that scam. One of former Israeli ministers of finance did time in jail for exactly that.
I was thinking that if I want to help someone, I don't really need intermediaries, so rather than contributing money to organizations, I try to help people I know when they are in need. Of course, this way it can't be a tenner, but at least it's delivered net and I know who and why I helped.
What do you think?

[Nik]

Since charities were mentioned on one of the threads recently, I thought people might want to express their opinions on this thread sitting here for a while.

I personally don't see that much problem with tax deduction. After all, the message is - you get to decide for what charitable cause to spend your money in the amount of tax deduction, which would otherwise go to the common pot. I think the bigger problem may be the percent of the money (often low) reaching the intended cause

[Tara Woods Turner]

Since it is possible to do one's homework in regards to the efficacy of a charitable organization there is little excuse not to give. I believe local charities are the best, with a few exceptions.

Tim
By vivisection do you mean disection? I think Judaism forbids dissection.

[Nik]

I remember Tim mentioning him being an atheist -:)

[Tara Woods Turner]

Oh my God!! Now I remember back in the 90s a lot of people boycotted Tide detergent and maybelline cosmetics because they put products into the animals' eyes to see how caustic they were. How can companies still do this, legally?

[Nik]

What's the percent of each donated dollar that actually reaches the needy?