[Fillmore]

Does anyone know if Care India is a good NGO ?
They have been making multiple calls for donations , thinking of going ahead with some donation.

[perty]

Originally Posted by Fillmore

They have been making multiple calls for donations

My thumb rule is, if they are calling and pestering me repeatedly for donations, they are probably frauds. Calling repeatedly usually means they have hired a call center, who have a database of phone numbers of potential donors/bakras (I get two to three such calls daily, so obviously I am present in multiple such potential bakra databases). The call center people get a cut from the donations made. They will promise 80G deduction certificates and vanish once the money is in their hands.


One NGO (Cancer care trust, IIRC) ran a fantastic looking website and kept pestering me for donations. When I checked their PAN number against what was registered on IT department website it showed that they had quoted the PAN of some other trust. When I confronted them about it, they gave some lame excuses such as "printing mistake" of PAN on their website. They eventually quit calling me when they realized that I was good at keeping them on the phone call for several minutes each time without parting with any money.

If you are keen to contribute, I would recommend asking for their address and visiting them in person to see if they do indeed run a genuine place with children/patients (or the claimed beneficiaries) being properly taken care of. Do not trust their websites as putting up a genuine looking website is an easy job.

[nowwhat?]

Originally Posted by Fillmore

Does anyone know if Care India is a good NGO ?
They have been making multiple calls for donations , thinking of going ahead with some donation.

I second what @perty said. Understanding how this business model works (See my previous post on this), I wouldn't give a single paisa.

Charity begins at home. Is everyone in your extended family well to do? How 'bout your domestic help? If not, visit your nearest government or low-budget private school, meet the principal and pledge to pay whatever amount as school fees to a deserving student.

[hserus]

I have an ironclad rule of not donating to any NGO or buying any product that is pitched to me through spam or unsolicited telemarketing. So while that NGO is legit and just has a marketing budget to raise money, they're out of luck as far as I am concerned.

If you pick a good NGO that has a well run program your money will actually go farther than if you donate to your domestic help etc - bulk purchase deals for food with local merchants, negotiated cheaper fee rates at schools etc will be part of what they work on.

[perty]

Originally Posted by Fillmore

thinking of going ahead with some donation.

If you are keen on donating, I would suggest going through the fundraisers at ketto.org. I periodically donate to the health related causes put up there. I believe that they (ketto) too take a small commission, but I'm happy that there is no call center business involved and most of the money reaches the needy.

Just be wary of choosing the right currency while donating, as some campaigns default to using USD instead of INR and it's very easy to end up punching in 500 USD while your intention might have been to donate 500 INR, for ex.

Also consider Karunashraya. I have visited them personally and they do a fantastic job in taking care of terminally ill patients.

Newspapers often carry stories (note, stories and not adverts) of people who have met with unfortunate circumstances and are in need of help. I tend to donate to them too, assuming that the reporters have actually verified the circumstances of the needy.

[Ik.Singh]

Hello everyone,
In the last couple of days, I have observed that wikipedia is asking for donations to keep the website up and running.

Now they haven't been asking for a huge amount, one can donate ₹150 also. Clearly this isn't a huge sum for a majority of people who read wikipedia.
My question is pretty simple, how do I know where my money is being utilised? What is the credibility of this appeal wikipedia is making?

A quick google search on why wikipedia needs money reveals that since they dont host any ads and they don't have any shareholders (which was news to me), so they have to rely on donations made by readers to pay their staff and for operational costs.
Some people on quora have commented negatively for the same saying the money we donate is used for other purposes as well.

So can anyone share some insights on this?

@mods: Please move it to a relevant thread if required. I couldn't find one.

[hserus]

What is the point? Quora is full of people who believe for example that vaccines are unnecessary and harmful and that 5g is a secret government mind control technology. Plus no shortage of world experts in everything under the sun who should have received a Nobel prize years back for their wonderful gyan posted on Quora. Please do donate to Wikimedia if you wish, their sterling work speaks for itself.

[Sutripta]

For donating to Wikipedia, be prepared to disclose your PAN! In this case it is a GoI requirement.
Though i have donated, I'm always afraid that one more piece of personal information might suddenly find its way on the web, courtesy a security breach at RazorPay, the entity handling Wikipedia India donations. (Wiki says that they don't hold PAN information.

Sutripta

[v1p3r]

Originally Posted by Ik.Singh

My question is pretty simple, how do I know where my money is being utilised? What is the credibility of this appeal wikipedia is making?
...

Some people on quora have commented negatively for the same saying the money we donate is used for other purposes as well.

So can anyone share some insights on this?

Wikipedia has near-zero downtime (comparable to Google / Twitter), the most exhaustive curated data set on the planet, and is free to anyone with an internet connection. I think that should give you an idea of where the money is being utilised.

Quora, on the other hand, is a great example of unfiltered and uncurated opinions masquerading as data.

[neeraj0272]

I donate to wikipedia. It's the most deserving candidate providing info on everything under the sun and beyond for free and without ads.
I also pay voluntary contribution(in effect donation) to some online media organisations to help them keep standing given the state of mainstream media in the country.

[roy_libran]

I have, many times in the past, and now again donated to Wikimedia. Given the fact that I or someone in my family opens up that site multiple times every day to look up something or for reference makes them deserving enough of my contribution. It would be a great loss to me at least if the site were to go down for paucity of funds.

[sagarpadaki]

Originally Posted by v1p3r

Wikipedia has near-zero downtime (comparable to Google / Twitter), the most exhaustive curated data set on the planet, and is free to anyone with an internet connection. I think that should give you an idea of where the money is being utilised.

Quora, on the other hand, is a great example of unfiltered and uncurated opinions masquerading as data.

Yup, Wiki needs to be kept afloat. I donated to them because i am benefitted by their content many times in these years.

Quora has truly gone down the drain. The effective content is hidden so much that it is like searching for needle in a haystack! Most of then content is page 3 types and a whole bunch of intellectual garbage!

[sachinayak]

+1

I too donated to Wikipedia. This has been the go-to place for most of unbiased (at least in my opinion) content. And doing it without advertisements or corporate sponsorship is quite commendable. I think, their pitch was perfect. If you think you have received information that you worth more than Rs. 150, then please donate. I didn't think twice before donating (of course not the minimum amount) and so did my wife, independently. A good source of information, in this world of bantering and WhatsApp gyaan certainly deserves our support.

[DigitalOne]

I too have donated because Wikipedia is a treasure of knowledge.

But I am also aware that Wikipedia is not without faults. It is edited by humans with bias, and that bias will seep through into the content, however much anyone tries to avoid it.

I read developing news events, or historical topics fully aware there will be bias in the content.

[rohitoasis]

This post is not about any questionable organizations. This is case of two genuine NGOs i have been making donations to and something something that is burdening my mind for the last few days.

I was not able to find an appropriate thread to post this. But i have been losing sleep over this and had to vent it out to someone and i am posting here. If there is another appropriate thread where this belongs, please help push this to that thread.

During the pandemic, i have been thinking of how privileged i am in getting a salary every month while lots of people suffer. We all did our bit in donations to the many funds either through our organizations or directly as well.

Somewhere in between, I was first contacted by a charitable organization, Child Help Foundation.. They were asking donations for treatment of some children. I made a few donations. I realized i should have checked at least once before making donations. I did a check in our forum (Fake / Fraud / Scam Calls) if it was legit or a scam. Ever since then every month i have been doing monthly donations to this organization.

I have not maintained habit of saving the contact from their end and usually as soon as the call or link comes, i make the donation. I had not bothered to remember the name of the contact at their end as well. This has led to few of the following situations. Nothing wrong or illegal. But somehow i feel bad.

In between i got a call from someone and i assumed i had got from the same organization. (Remember i am dumb enough not to bother to remember the name or number of the caller anytime). I realised in the payment page that i had the caller was from another organization. Child Support Foundation. Seemed legit and i ended up making donation to them as well.

Now i know i have no right to feel morally superior for making donations as this. I also get tax waiver certificates for each of these donations.

Now comes an event that left a sour taste for me. Not through anybody's fault but mine alone. November 29th i get a call from someone from Child help foundation and this being the original NGO i had checked in this forum as well. I heard out. I was made to understand that the fees for the treatment for a kid was to be paid immediately the same day and it was urgent. So i made the payment immediately. December 1st i get a call from a familiar voice from the same organization and asking for the same kid. This time the donation i made was fresh in my memory and i ask why the bill which was urgent was not paid till now. Yes i do realize that it is a struggle for people to collect the amount and chances are my small donation would not have been enough to pay the bills. But here i was acting high and mighty that i made donation to the kid considering it was urgent and i am getting a duplicate request for the same kid within two days. The caller now is the one who usually handles all my previous transactions, checks my receipt and realizes one of her colleagues had called me on Nov 29th instead of her and informs me to make payments only if i get call from her. Now i am not a very emotionally sound guy and i ask her if all this is actually for the kids or is it to meet monthly targets. (I actually typed this message out in anger, again i realize these volunteers struggle a whole lot to make these collections). Finally i decide to save this number and now i am so guarded before making any donations at all.

I have been getting call from Child Support foundation for the past few days for a treatment amount which is even lesser than what i usually donate. But my mind is so much on the defensive now, that i am hesitating to make the payment.

I was really happy to set apart this small amount for something good. I am not happy with the current mind space that i am now feeling so guarded against making these payments. I have been expressing these doubts to the the people who call about the donations and they have been understanding enough. I am not sure how to get out of these self doubts. I am looking for some external motivation to push me out of this mind space (as internal factors have not kicked me out yet).

Also if i may ask something of this forum. Does anybody out of Bangalore have experience with these NGOs. Has anybody else interacted with them and/or made donations.

I have no affiliations with either of these organizations and am not promoting them here. The only link i have is that i have been making some monthly donations to them.