Ways you can give directly to projects, eliminating the middle man

Curious Cat suggests that Trickle Up is a good site for private giving to small projects in developing nations.

Founded in 1979, the Trickle Up Program's mission is to help the lowest income people worldwide take the first steps up out of poverty, by providing conditional seed capital and business training essential to the launch of a small business. Trickle Up has started over 135,000 businesses in more than 120 countries. Currently, Trickle Up is focusing its efforts in Cambodia, Bolivia, Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, India, Mali, Nepal, Nicaragua, Niger, and Uganda and the United States.

Trickle up reports that it "uses 82 percent of every dollar raised on our microenterprise development programs in the U.S. and internationally."

Global Giving can be used to provide funding directly to a small project in a developing nations. People seeking funds write proposals that are screened by Global Giving, and the ones it selects are posted on its website for selection by individual donors.

GlobalGiving was founded by two former World Bank executives who decided to use the Internet to create a highly efficient marketplace. The GlobalGiving platform enables more funding to reach projects throughout the globe, and, at the same time, provides a more transparent, engaging way for donors to give.

Because we enable donors to give directly to projects, they know exactly where their money is going. Donors can see progress updates on most projects as funding is received and goals are met.

Donations made through GlobalGiving are higher impact because:

* Money is going directly to a well-defined project versus supporting general operating expenses;

* Projects on globalgiving.com have exposure to thousands of donors, enabling us to aggregate multiple sources of funding for each project;

* Many projects on globalgiving.com are located in the developing world where a little money goes a long way.

Global Giving disburses 90% of online gifts (less transaction fees) to the project selected by the donor. Ten percent is retained by the GGF to cover operating expenses.

As a former Peace Corps Volunteer, I have donated through the Peace Corps Partnership Program website to an individual project. These are projects with a Peace Corps Volunteer on the ground, with the supervision and support of the Peace Corps staff in country.

All donations are tax deductible and 100% of your contribution goes to the project you select. Your donation may be eligible for a Matching Gift.

Should a project receive full support from other sources or be cancelled, any remaining funds will automatically be directed to the global fund. The global fund allows Peace Corps to allocate your donation to a community where it is most needed.

I also have donated via the Heifer Project. This organization is famous for giving livestock to small farmers in developing nations. It describes it individual projects on its website, and if you phone the project you can earmark your donation to a specific project, such as one giving rabbits to families in Uganda. Give.org reports that, for the Heifer Project, "fund raising costs were 19% of related contributions."

I think the Sarvodaya movement in Sri Lanka is very well known as a grass roots development program that really makes a difference. When the tsunami hit in December 2004m a made a donation to them via Sarvodaya-USA.

I am just an individual, and I strongly recommend that in chosing charities you use the services of organizations providing comparative data on charities. I note:

* Guidestar, the national database of U.S. charitable organizations.
* Give.org, the giving the database of Better Business Bureau (BBB) Wise Giving Alliance reports.