Numerous cases of charities show that small charity efforts do not work well; you can help properly if you only do half of the task.

This is why charity organizations actually have to be official organizations and foundations, not just groups of volunteers. They have to handle buying stuff in big quantities, provide to many families or other organizations, get access to documents and provide their own spending reports.

For charities, being an organization that can hire professionals to do the work, or provides compensation to volunteers, means doing their work better, and seeing better results faster in the field they want to provide help.

But big organizations scare away potential donors because a big organization may look like a scam, or it may spend huge sums on charity so those who cannot donate big start believing that their small donations do not matter.

This post explains why small donations are the key to efficient charity.

Myth #1: Small Donations Don’t Make a Difference

Many people believe that you either do everything perfectly well or don’t do anything at all. This approach, being so perfectionist, doesn’t work in any niche or activity because it immediately limits the person’s desire to act at all. And even less it works when it comes to donations to charity.

Many people believe that only big donations matter; they feel that if they can’t donate $1,000 or at least $100, their donation is ridiculous. The charity organization will probably laugh when they see a donation so small!

But the reality is that most donations that come to big charities are around $4. Only 4$ but sent by thousands of people, weekly or monthly, actually makes a difference.

Even if a person can actually afford to donate $1,000 once, or even on a regular basis, they will think twice if they want to do that monthly. $1,000 is a lot of money that can be spent on other things. The person decides that they will donate from time to time.

A $1,000 donation may take place once or twice a year and then the person forgets. But donating $4 every week forms a habit, the donor gets used to it, and donates for years, even without noticing it anymore.

But in charities, regular donations matter. As a result, it is better to send $4 every week, than $1,000 now and then because people get used to doing stuff on a regular basis.

Myth #2: Only Wealthy People Can Donate

With myth #1 being debunked, myth #2 loses its power because people with a medium level of income feel that their donations are important, not ridiculous, but crucial.

By getting used to donating $4 – $10 a week or even a month, the person sees that charity is not that expensive, that they can afford to be a donor, and it doesn’t destroy their budget. They feel they live well enough to give a bit away to those who are in need, and their help matters.

Eventually, one doesn’t have to be rich to donate to charity.

Myth #3: Most Foundations Are Scams

Rephrasing a famous therapist, and foundations can be scams, but this fact of life doesn’t mean they all, or most of them, are scams.

It is not easy to check whether a foundation is a scam or not, but there are criteria that may hint

• Public social media pages
• Actual results of their actions (stuff bought, legal actions, protests, etc.)
• Open reports about income and spending
• Feedback from real people on social media

If one wants to donate to a charity one needs to find reliable organizations and make small research checking them for fairness and reliability. The approach the organization takes to its donors and donations also matters. There may be fixed sums of donation, from small to big, voluntary donations, or one fixed sum weekly or monthly. The most important thing to check is whether the organization really spends this money on what they say they do.