Consider a Donation to Sustainability in the Holiday Season

Like me, you are inundated with requests for financial support.  We write annual checks to our old schools out of a sense of loyalty, and profound gratitude for what we took away.  But beyond that, where does smart philanthropy go?

Obviously, we try to give where it makes the most difference.  And to that end, here are two good candidates you may want to consider:

Amazon Watch.  The Amazon rainforest is the source of 1/5th of the total oxygen and fresh water on the entire planet, yet we’re hacking and burning it down at the rate of 1.5 acres per second.  The folks at Amazon Watch have both the raw guts to tackle the problem, and the teeth to get things done; they use the international legal system to halt the devastation of this region, on which all seven billion of us depend, whether we know it or not.  I hope you’ll check out the video linked above; I found it truly inspirational.

Turimiquire Foundation.  This is perhaps the best example of a group whose work symbolizes efficiency, as more than 93 cents of every dollar you donate goes directly to addressing real-world issues.  Their efforts also get at the very root of a key source of human misery on this planet:  a skyrocketing population of desperately poor, uneducated, and malnourished people, who themselves bring into the world many times more children on a per capita basis than those in the developed world.  For three decades, Turimiquire has proven its effectiveness in breaking the cycle of poverty, largely with education and family planning.

As you contemplate your gift list this holiday season, I hope you’ll consider a donation to one or both of these fine institutions.