I’m happy to support by purchasing from businesses that support charity, or are produced by charities & will pay an extra 10-15%, but have a caveat re how much goes to charity &, what format that charity is provided.
I tend to give religious based charities a miss as they often have proselytising as one of their major focuses.
I still don’t think there is a way, in Australia, of rating charities that is transparent enough.
A charity may raise millions but give thousands, or nothing.
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My concerns are quite well summarised by @panlezark I lack the tools by which to compare charities. I would like to think that a high proportion of my donation goes to the actual cause but charity ‘expenses’ can cover a multitude of sins. With ThankYou I was impressed with the information I found on their website, particularly the number of high profile partners. I also rely on studies such as your own to shed light on the workings of individual charities. I have formed the impression that there are far too many charities in Australia, many of which are little more than businesses using the charity label to gain competitive advantage.
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It doesn’t appear to be supported in the Australian Amazon website, but I have a browser extension called ‘Smile Always’ that directs any Amazon US requests to smile.amazon.com. Why do this? Because Amazon will then donate a portion of what I spend (on some product lines only) to a charity of my choice.
Similarly, if you buy computer games - as well as occasional bundles of digital or audio books and comics - then Humble Bundle allows you to nominate a charity when shopping there, and is expressly focused on making sure 5% of all revenue goes to charity.
Both of these are focused on US and international charities, and only give a portion of the sales price to charity, but every little bit (over $129m since 2010 according to Humble) helps.
There are other, similarly charity-focused groups popping up all over the place. I heard recently of a US mattress company that donates every 11th mattress to homeless charities.
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The only independent charity comparison org i know is GiveWell.org but their charities are specifically health related overseas.
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Thanks to everyone who contributed to this thread. @AliceRichard’s article on social enterprises is here: https://www.choice.com.au/shopping/everyday-shopping/ethical-buying-and-giving/articles/social-enterprises
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