When it comes to giving to charity, most of us would love to be able to support all the charities that we believe in, and would really love to be able to give more.

However, due to also needing money for our own living costs and to support our own families it’s more often than not quite difficult to give to charity as much as we’d perhaps like to.

It’s certainly not impossible to be able to give to charity in a way that feels good to us if we truly want to, so in this post we’re going to share with you how to choose which charities to give to, so that you know that you’re making the best decisions, not only for yourself and where you’re giving your money, but so that you’re able to make the biggest impact with the charities that you’re choosing to give to and that you know that your money is going towards a good cause that’s truly helping to inflict change in the world in a big and positive way.

Choose what aligns with you:

When it comes to giving to charity, there’s certainly no right or wrong, and everyone has certain causes that they believe in or support more than others, so for example, you may choose to support things like charities that work towards supporting women’s education through building schools and raising awareness on the issues that women face when it comes to education in developing parts of the world and even in the developed world.

Or you may equally choose to support things like children’s charities, environmental charities, or animal charities, or you could support a combination of all of the above.

It really doesn’t matter which charities you choose to support, as long as they align with your values and that you feel that you’re giving to the charities because that’s what you want to do and not because anyone else has convinced you or made you feel guilty about not supporting these particular charities.

Do your research:

As much as we would all like to believe that corruption doesn’t exist within charitable organisations, it’s unfortunate but it simply does, and so like with anything when it comes to where we are giving our money, we have to be careful and ensure that the charitable organisations we’re giving to are going to be honest about where the money is going and that they’re actually going to be using it to support the causes that they stand for.

This means that you should be researching the charities that you’re giving to – you could even go and visit them yourself if you want to learn more about the work that they do, and offer to volunteer in some way, so that you could perhaps see some of the direct impacts that people who work with these charities are seeing on a daily basis to the people who they support.

Think of the impact you want to make and where:

When we think of charities, we often think of charities that exist for supporting countries in the third world to combat things like starvation, disease and other causes, however, it’s also important to remember that just because we live in western society where we have many privileges and many advantages, doesn’t mean that people in these societies don’t also struggle with basic things, such as accommodation, food and other necessities to get through life, so it’s important to understand that there are charities on our own doorstep that we could also be helping, and if you choose to help those and make an impact locally then you could do that as well.

Decide if you want to give time or money:

One other thing that often comes up when it comes to charity is that people think that automatically it always comes down to money, and that’s not always the case.

For example, giving your time at a local soup kitchen or donating things to homeless charities can actually be a much bigger and more impactful way to see the work that charities do and offer your help as well, so it’s not always about giving money, but about working directly at the core of these charities to help drive the cause and drive awareness around the the cause that they are trying to promote – another way that you could do this is through running, walking or having things like yard sales to raise money for the charities that you support.

Set a budget on what you can afford to give:

As with everything else ,you can’t just go throwing money around when it comes to charities and they certainly don’t expect you to either, so it’s important that you’re able to decide what you can afford realistically and then give that each week or month or just whenever you’re able to, and again as above you can always use other methods of donations, for example, by donating your time, donating clothes or other goods, but if you are looking to donate financially then it’s important to understand that you can only give as much as you can give, and most charities who are legitimate will fully appreciate and understand this and that’s really why they only ask people to donate a small amount at a time, because they understand that it’s not about how much you can give but about spreading awareness about the charity itself and getting more people to give a little than it is about raising a huge amount of money from one person.

We hope that this post has given you a little bit of insight into how to get started with choosing which charities you want to give to and of course the fact that you want to give to any charity at all is always going to be appreciated, and it’s something that you should really admire and be proud of yourself for since it’s really going to make a bigger impact than you probably even imagine, so keep giving in the way that feels right for you.