#161 Charities I Like

I think this might be helpful for anyone who is looking for quality charities to give to that you can trust. Here is a little description of what each of my nine favorite charities do.

• Millennium Promise - This organization performance intensive economic development work on targeted areas seeking to build self-sufficient communities that can then develop on their own. Their goal is to cut extreme poverty in half by 2015.

• Christian Peacemaker Teams - Dedicated to mourning with those that mourn, suffering with those that suffer, and standing between victim and oppressor. They ask the question: What would happen if Christians devoted the same discipline and self-sacrifice to nonviolent peacemaking that armies devote to war?

• CARE - Economic development similar to World Vision but will not accept government assistance for Food Aid because of the damage this does to local markets. They focus particularly on the status of poor women.

• Wycliffe Bible Translators - The leading Bible translation organization. Their goal is to see a Bible translation program in progress in every language still needing one by 2025.

• Five Talents - They provide access to basic savings and microcredit services and provide biblically based business training to help the poor start small businesses and begin to build their future.

• The Chalmers Center for Economic Development - This organization, founded by one of my professors in college, trains the church to provide services such as those provided by Five Talents and microfinance institutions. It's one thing to have a few large organizations providing capital, but decentralization through the church is a brilliant approach and increases the flexibility of capital flows and speeds economic development.

• The Green Belt Movement - On my two trips to Kenya, I got a sense of just how much deforestation, due to lack of a better fuel source, is effecting the local landscape and thus the economic prospects and health of the people of the region. The place appears to be becoming a wasteland. This is where The Green Belt Movement comes in. They purchase seedlings from local growers, thus keeping the capital in the country, and hire locals to plant them, also keeping capital in the country and providing employment.

• The Center for the Study of New Testament Manuscripts - Founded by Daniel Wallace, CSNTM uses high tech photographic equipment to preserve NT manuscripts for future generations of scholars to study. As a side benefit, they often discover new uncatalogued, manuscripts. Material goods don't last forever, but if there's anything worth preserving, it is the earliest surviving witnesses to the gospel.

• CURE - The Citizens United for Research in Epilepsy was founded by Susan Axelrod, who is the wife of Obama advisor David Axelrod. I have a brother and a friend who suffer from the terrible private hell of seizures. It's a suffering that is so internal, so personal, that there is nothing I can do to help alleviate their pain other than pray and give what I can to find a cure.
  

As you can see from the links above, I believe that a) the end of poverty is possibility within our lifetime, b) peacemaking and the work of reconciliation is the call of the Christian and can be effective with broad support from the church, and c) language should not be a barrier to hearing the good news of Jesus Christ.