Account of Donations We Made

[qesehmk]

gcseeker thanks for your thoughts. As you can see we are not doing anything very significant. But to be honest it makes all of us feel good ... and it doesn't hurt anybody or cost a lot to do.

Appreciate taking the time to pen down your thoughts.

Q

(general post about charities...can be moved to the charities section ..was not sure how to link the quote from here.)

Voted for Akshaya this time. I cannot stop myself from sharing one small piece of information. KIVA definetly does some good work in the african continent and is based on the concept of Microfinance ( pioneered by one good doctor from Bangladesh who later won the nobel peace prize ) . There are a lot of Microfinance based organizations in India as well and what started with noble intentions has now gone the wrong way. Looking at the vast potential of squeezing poor people with loans many wall street firms started forcing the microfinance firms to start IPO's in the Indian stock market. With the start of the IPO's the microfinance firms started charging equally bad interest rates as the local village money lenders.

OutlookIndia did an fantastic piece on Microfinance firms in India in Oct 2010 titled "Is it Micro Usury" . The malpractises of the Microfinance industry led to almost 50 farmer suicides in the state of Andhra pradesh in a single month in 2010 which prompted the local government to pass strict regulations against this.

http://www.outlookindia.com/article.aspx?267394

Original principles of Microfinance are good...treating people with dignity and beleiving in their abilities ...and filling in the vaccum of lending small amounts which no Indian bank is willing to do.

Please do not contribute to any of the Indian Microfinance firms at this time without researching them.Many of them have turned into commerical entities.

Just felt like adding one more piece of information.India has one of the highest farmer suicide rates and this problem is multipronged.

PBS America at one point of time did an nice documentary titled "the dying fields"

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/wideangle/ep...roduction/967/

This was the basis of the Aamir Khan produced movie " Peepli Live " too.

Agreed the gc process is very painful for most of us...but looking at some of this stuff puts things in perspective atleast for me.

That's also the reason I love this site ,the caring atmosphere of the posters and the noble intention of helping others along the way.

[grnwtg]

Thanks. As long as we can donate to a US registered non-profit, we can certainly consider this charity.

Hi Q,

You can donate throught either Sanatana Dharma or Lions Club. Only 3 people voted for this yet, this is like a healthy competition i guess

[10102007]

My vote is for St. Jude's Children hospital

[qesehmk]

Thanks. If more people like that one we will do that.

Hi Q,

You can donate throught either Sanatana Dharma or Lions Club. Only 3 people voted for this yet, this is like a healthy competition i guess

My vote is for St. Jude's Children hospital

10102007, thanks. We donated to St Jude a couple of months back. But come Dec, it would be a good idea to do again.

[grnwtg]

Just wanted to put in one sentence for http://nalgonda.bbnow.org/
Its a Deadly disease which has affected thousands of people but this can be curable with few thousand dollars ( for few thousand people).

Hi Q,

Here is a suggestion and also since topic came i just want to see if any one want to help privately also.
There is a place called Nalgonda in Andhra Pradesh which is one of the back ward district and few places of it are very badly hit by flourolysis due to which people in those villages have very very low strength in bones and also few people cannot even walk.
This problem can be completely solved for future generation with purified water( unfortunately Government is not taking any kind of action after it even after being major vote bank topic).

There is an Young Lady in Texas who want to help this people she already collected and built couple of plants, i believe she is very sincere in building the plants.
Thousands of people can benefit with few thousand dollars which she is planning to collect. Cost of each plant is around Rs.120,000 which will help probably few hundred people. Here is the website information ( please go through it)
http://nalgonda.bbnow.org/


As mentioned in Site, every Penny counts.


If any body want to look at sample photos of people affected this problem:
http://www.nalgonda.org/fluorosis/fl...ictim_pics.htm

[qesehmk]

Friends,

The results for voting on charity came in as follows: Akshay Trust and Udavum Karangal tied at 7.

We have donated as follows:
$36 - Udavum Karangal (to provide 1 student with school bag, shoes, & all books).
$25 - Akshaya Trust
$25 - Mahaganapati Temple, AZ

Kiva, AID, Nalgonda will be carried over to next month. We will also add www.sewausa.org & www.americares.org to that list.

Thank you for your involvement!

p.s.- Please understand that these donations are quite small and are given from the ad revenue which itself is meagre to say the least. But what's important is that people on this forum keep the spirit of "Good Karma" in mind. The objective here is not to boast what we do or dont but rather to just do one small bit that we can do.

[username]

Q, can you also add Akshaya Patra (http://www.akshayapatra.org/) in your future donation drive.

[qesehmk]

sure. absolutely. We will do so for next month.

Q, can you also add Akshaya Patra (http://www.akshayapatra.org/) in your future donation drive.

[qesehmk]

Guys ...

The votes for this month were -
AID - 7
Nalgonda Water Project - 6
Sewausa - 2
Kiva - 1
Americares - 0

Accordingly we have donated 80 dollars for AID (Specifically, Eureka Child Education Fund). We have 51 dollars more to donate this month. But Nalgonda hasn't confirmed their US registered non-profit status. If we don't hear from them we will donate to sewausa by next week.

For next month the poll is modified to add akshayapatra. Please vote and help us make a small difference.

[essenel]

Q, Kiva only requires a $25 donation per lender. You choose the person that you would like to help and it pools together several lenders to get that person the loan that they need.

GK thank you for the recommendation. I will keep that in mind and will check out Kiva.org.

p.s. - I did check out Kiva. Its fantastic. I guess the lending part will be tough for us given the accounting overhead in it. But we can certainly donate sometime in future.

[qesehmk]

Friends December donations made to Akshaypatra for $75. Another $75 donation is available and will be made to some local charity in Arizona.

[essenel]

Q, try charitynavigator.org. This website evaluates and rates charities based on several criteria and is a great resource for figuring out who you want to donate to. It might be a good idea to do a some independent checking before actually donating.

http://www.charitynavigator.org/

Friends December donations made to Akshaypatra for $75. Another $75 donation is available and will be made to some local charity in Arizona.

[username]

Friends December donations made to Akshaypatra for $75. Another $75 donation is available and will be made to some local charity in Arizona.

Akshaypatra: http://www.rediff.com/news/slide-sho...s/20111110.htm

[qesehmk]

Essnell, username thanks for your thoughts.

Friends - we donated $75 today to Make a Wish. By end of Dec 31st we will donate at least $100 more. So if there are any suggestions please provide in next 5 days.

[essenel]

Here are some suggestions for members to vote on:

1) My friend does a lot of work for Ashraya Initiative For Children in Pune and can vouch for this charity. This charity was started in Pune by an American college student, Elizabeth Sholtys in 2004. They currently support 260 children in Pune in residential and outreach programs, but have been struggling recently because of the economic climate and are in dire need of help.
http://www.ashrayainitiative.org/doku.php

2) Direct Relief International
Credentials: http://www.directrelief.org/AboutUs/...edentials.aspx
This is an international charity, highly rated for efficiency and transparency. One can donate to US programs, International Programs or Emergency Programs. They do work in several countries: http://www.directrelief.org/WhereWeWork.aspx

Essnell, username thanks for your thoughts.

Friends - we donated $75 today to Make a Wish. By end of Dec 31st we will donate at least $100 more. So if there are any suggestions please provide in next 5 days.

[qesehmk]

Friends, The voting for Year end charity is open. Please vote. We will donate at least $104 to the charity of your choice on Dec 31st from our Ad Revenue.

[immitime]

Suggestion for charity.

http://www.aimforseva.org/

[jackbrown_890]

just voted:
I like essenel's suggestion..Ashraya..i checked their site,,and they also have program called sponsor a child, and i liked their educational outreach program..... i have come across other similar programs in the past,,but this does look like more grassroot effort..i would definitely support it..
we all are here b'cuz we were lucky enough to have good education....and so i would actually request everyone to, once in their life time, sponsor 1 child's education for at least 1 year.

[qesehmk]

immitime,

Thanks for your suggestion. Will certainly add for next month.

Suggestion for charity.

http://www.aimforseva.org/

JB, thanks a ton for your thoughts. I wholeheartedly agree.

just voted:
I like essenel's suggestion..Ashraya..i checked their site,,and they also have program called sponsor a child, and i liked their educational outreach program..... i have come across other similar programs in the past,,but this does look like more grassroot effort..i would definitely support it..
we all are here b'cuz we were lucky enough to have good education....and so i would actually request everyone to, once in their life time, sponsor 1 child's education for at least 1 year.

[essenel]

just voted:
I like essenel's suggestion..Ashraya..i checked their site,,and they also have program called sponsor a child, and i liked their educational outreach program..... i have come across other similar programs in the past,,but this does look like more grassroot effort..i would definitely support it..
we all are here b'cuz we were lucky enough to have good education....and so i would actually request everyone to, once in their life time, sponsor 1 child's education for at least 1 year.

jackbrown, I completely agree. Sponsoring a child's education or at least providing some level of sponsorship can be extremely helpful to that child and it doesn't cost that much either. It's usually a small monthly amount like $25, but it can go a long way for that child. Most good charities do not directly give the money to the child's family (because it can be misused). Instead, they buy educational supplies, clothes, etc and pay tuition fees for the child.

[qesehmk]

Friends,

We donated $121 to Ashraya Initiative today as majority of you voted for this month.

Thanks for your involvement and votes. For next month if there are charities of your interest...pls feel free to mention.

Happy new year!

Regards,
Q

[qesehmk]

Friends for the month of January we donated $100 to planned parenthood. In case some of you are not following what happened today, here is the news:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/46228814/

Thanks to all for their support of this forum.

ps. - Also donated $20 to 247sports.com - an organization that works for tobaccofree youths.

[Pundit Arjun]

Excellent choice, Q.

Friends for the month of January we donated $100 to planned parenthood. In case some of you are not following what happened today, here is the news:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/46228814/

Thanks to all for their support of this forum.

ps. - Also donated $20 to 247sports.com - an organization that works for tobaccofree youths.

[qesehmk]

Friends,

From our February ad revenue we donated $100 today to Blakes Miracle

It's a charity that supports children health and drowning prevention.

Thank you all since your visits allowed this!

[nishant2200]

Friends from our February ad revenue we donated $100 today to blakesmiracle.org.

Its a charity that supports children health and drowning prevention.

Thank you all since your visits allowed this.

keep it up!