Picking Charities

It’s Relay for Life time again, so I’ve been thinking a bit about how charities raise money and which charities I’d like to support with a college student’s meager donations. More than twice as many Americans participate in Relay each year (3.5 million) than get cancer each year (1.5 million); Relay has become so widespread that participants can raise money for “Relay for Life” without ever mentioning cancer (of course, more than 3.5 million are affected with cancer each year, but I don’t think that that diminishes my point about Relay’s popularity).
I often wonder how limited the overall pool of charitable donations is. Does Relay compete for funds with other charities, or does it get people who would otherwise buy a burger give $20 to cancer research? I haven’t done enough research to answer that question, but based on the chart on page 53 of this NBER report, I suspect that only the very rich make huge changes in their giving based on the solicitations they receive (the giving rates for the other income groups are much steadier). As Relay is decidedly middle-class–it takes place at tracks all over the country, not the Plaza–I fear that it displaces other charitable giving rather than increasing the total.
For my part, I prefer to give my peanuts to worse-promoted charities or ones with a bit more personal meaning; events, as fun as they are, don’t sway me all that much. And I do like that Relay is pretty low-cost for the charity in its event and its solicitations. How do you choose where to donate on a tight budget?
*I hope that I haven’t made fundraising seem futile; certainly there is some elasticity to effort and creativity in fundraising.  If you’re mad at me for not being too kind to Relay, you can show me by donating here to my friend Fabian. I hope that the following isn’t hypocritical: if I’ve inspired you to donate to underpromoted causes, but you don’t have ideas for which to give to, I like (a) giving gift cards to the homeless; (b) the Crohn’s & Colitis Foundation of America; and (c) the Harvard Square Homeless Shelter.  And the Harvard Political Review.
Photo Credit: Flickr (Jeffrey Simms)