For the holidays this year, I will be making donations to various charitable organizations in the names of my family and friends. I’ve come across a few great causes, but am still looking for a few more.
What are your favorite charities/non-profits? If possible, please provide a bit of information about the cause and/or a link to the website.
Namaste,
Brett 
The Smile Train gives cleft-palate surgery to children who need it but can’t afford it, generally in poorer countries. There are things I really like about this charity. One is that all of your money goes to the surgery, as the charity has already been endowed by donors who pay for all promotions. Another is that they generally use (as far as possible) local doctors in those countries to do the surgery, sometimes training them I believe.
www.SmileTrain.org
Thanks David, that is a wonderful cause. It’s amazing to think that a small donation can completely change a child’s life.
For anyone else who may be looking, I came across this great site yesterday which has helped out quite a bit.
http://www.charitynavigator.org/index.cfm
Brett, thanks in return! That’s a good site to refer to!
The one I like is an Irish charity called Goal. It has had less than 5% admin expenses averaged over the past 29 years, which is quite a record.
http://www.goal.ie/
There are all the institutions run by Mother Teresa in India. And there’s one called Goonj, which, apart from money, collects everything that people junk,including old clothes, books and partially used notebooks, and sorts them and sends them to the poorest villages and places in India. They have volunteers who act as ‘collection centres’. They even make sanitary napkins out of old clothes for women in remote areas who cannot afford them. You can see http://www.goonj.org/ .
Then there is Friendicoes that does an amazing lot of work for stray animals with pitifully little resources (lot of voluntary work) and works with wildlife sos to treat and rehabilitate abused wildlife too.
I personally wouldn’t donate to Mother Teresa’s charity. Have a look at the following, and make up your own mind:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mother_Teresa
For me, the very fact that the destination of donated funds is not made public is enough for me to say no. No secrecy in the spending of my donated funds (to a large charity), thankyou very much!!
I have always liked Seva foundation. They began by giving eye operations in Nepal and have sinced expanded in many areas. Ram Dass and Wavy Gravy are closely involved with them
Might I suggest some folks consider donating some money to AYP this Christmas?
In the case of AYP, Yogani has gone to a number of expenses which are not yet covered. Yogani requested that donations are given only to an amount for which we believe we have received the equivalent already from AYP(don’t remember the exact words – better prose of course). That was one of the few times I really wished hard that I was a millionaire.
On my own side, I made a donation only with the request that Yogani spend it on whiskey and cigars if he wants to. From what he wrote back I think he has not spent in whiskey and cigars, but he has still covered the terms of my request – he spends it on whiskey and cigars – if he wants to. 
Thanks David. I was going to suggest this myself. Just wasn’t sure if I should… since the topic header was "Charities / Non-Profits "… but since you have brought it up…
Here is what Yogani has to say about it…
Shanti said: since the topic header was "Charities / Non-Profits
Well, if you generalize it to ‘things worth donating to’, we’re on topic.
Cool… AYP is my favorite “‘things worth donating to’,”
Just thought of one more thing to add for AYP… 
For those who are not comfortable using Paypal or a credit card online (like Me 
!!!), contact Yogani directly to make other arrangements.