2012 Giving-in-Review

Salary: $32,523.50
Giving: $4, 361
Giving Percentage:13.4%

The breakdown--
my local church: $3500
World Vision: $416
Orphan's Tear: $250
local food pantry: $175
my alma mater: $20

So why is my giving all over the place?  Well, I started experimenting with giving to charity just last year.  At first, I gave money to a local food pantry.  My reasoning was that the most basic things in life are food and shelter.  I didn't want to give to a shelter because I've heard a lot of horror stories abut local shelters, so I chose a local food pantry instead.  But then after giving to the food pantry for a while, I felt the need to be more global in my giving.  I already work with the local poor Monday-Friday 9-5 through my job ; plus, not only is the need is greater in developing countries, my salary really isn't that great.  I needed to maximize my limited resources and thus, it made more sense to give to the poor in a country where dollars go much, much further.

And so I decided to work with an international humanitarian organization.  I decided it needed to be Christian so that my giving could be part of witnessing Christ's love and chose World Vision after reading The Hole in the Gospel, written by Richard Stearns, current President of World Vision.  The book gave me a good idea of how the organization was run and I thought it was one I'd be happy supporting.  Sponsoring a child had been on my bucket list for years, so I signed up as a sponsor and gave extra money on top of that.

But after several months of doing this, I became frustrated because I had no idea how my contributions were being used.  There wasn't any kind of feedback about that from WV.  Was I making an impact?  Were my charity dollars being used wisely?  I had no way of checking.  I wanted to be more involved then merely donating my financial resources.  So I thought deeply about the causes closest to my heart and decided that the cause of orphans resonated most with me.  So I googled organizations that served orphans, researched them as best as I could (I'll explain the importance of being a responsible giver in a future post), and finally chose Orphan's Tear.  They have a blog on which they post updates and  pictures of how contributions were used to better the lives of orphans.  I read through the blog, cried through the entire thing, and completely lost my heart to these orphans.  So both my heart and my brains were engaged in the choosing of this organization.

I had the option of sponsoring orphans but I chose not to do that because I didn't want all of my giving to be automated (My sponsorship money is automatically deducted from my account).  I wanted some of my giving to be more intentional.  So I donated money through their website every month.

I'm amazed by how much I was able to give.  Especially since due to special circumstances I had a job-related expense last year that came up to over $3000!  I had to stop investing but I was able to contribute a small amount to savings. I don't know how I did it.  I'm amazed by how God provided.