Charity is no longer charity if its not freely given ecercising ones own choices. Taxing or forcing people to give to something they wouldn't choose to is theft.

Charity must be a strictly personal choice. No matter how noble the goal is the use of violence to coerce participants is always wrong and destructive any moral or noble attempts.
Charity from any group that can use violence to acquire the property it wants to disburse is nothing but theft.

I volunteer three nights a week at our community, volunteer-run homeless shelter. Our little town has been snowed in for the past 6 weeks and there are people in need of a hot meal and a warm place to sleep. It is completely volunteer driven. A small church has donated part of it's space and many merchants have donated cots, sleeping bags, blankets and warm clothing. Even our town laundromat washes the bedding for us. We used our community Facebook page to put the call out for donations of hot meals and volunteers to man the shifts and everyone is kicking in. This is a temporary need and our little town of 1,500 people have come together to fill that need. We shelter and feed men women and children during this harsh winter. I have bonded with many volunteers and clients and I am filling a much needed void.

Public charities are in need and some actually produce results depending on their goal. Mercury One has many goals and excels on all of them.

We have seen that most of the really Big Charities, ie, Rockefeller, Carnegie,Clintonian end up doing Nothing but harm...all smoke and mirrors.

I would put this one in the same category as the latter.
Reading AJ's comment, I must agree and reiterate: NO GOVERNMENT GRANTS!!!!

De Blasthole's wife has explaining to do?
Like who? Slick Willie's wife?
Somehow me dino doesn't two-tiered justice system think so.
Most of us are not Animal Farm members of the more than equal elite like she is.
On top of that, she's as black as a recent Liar-In-Chief.
Oh, no! Half the USA will now point and call me dino a racist now.

The rules for recognizing charities need to change. Currently, a charity only needs to spend 5% of donations on the cause declared, which is why the Clinton Foundation got away with only passing along about 7% of its donations to the causes they supposedly support. By contrast, the Salvation Army spends only about 15% on overhead costs, with the 85% going directly to help the needy.

I believe charity begins at home, and I've spent tens of thousands of dollars helping family in times of serious need. As a result, those family members did not become wards of the state, draining taxpayer dollars. In return, I have been able to rely on those I helped to return the favor, now that I'm a "seasoned citizen" with health issues (mostly damage to a body no longer as athletic as I keep forgetting I'm not). Pride and self worth retained by both sides.

I used to give to charities. Then, I had a disabled son. Now, I rarely give. When I do it's often real simple, no receipt needed stuff. The last one was a bevy of golf clubs (including a pristine set of Taylormade irons worth hundred$) that I donated to an organization that provides golf activities to adults and children with developmental disabilities. I've bumped into some of the adults who receive help from this group and it always makes me think of my son...always hits me in the heart. I'm getting close to dedicating one night per week to this organization. These people need help and, for the most part, society has abandoned them.

About a year ago both FFA and me found an article about international aid.
Whether gov or private, many/most are remarkably ineffective except for one thing.
The problem is, they are set up with the spending of money as the objective, so what they do well is spend money.
There are some examples of charities knowing what they should do, getting the money, spending, measuring and noting results. This does not always work but at least the money flow can be stopped if there is no good outcome.

Comparing gov v. private- both can have the same failings and both can have good planning. Gov uses money not freely given. With gov schemes the scale is such that an industry develops to administer and perpetuate itself. The really big private foundations (as Old.. says) are much the same.

This just points out the need for Public funded Charities to be watched as xlosed;y as the private charities, say like the charity Don Jr. ran for St Jude Children's Childrens Hospital. Shut down as illegal because the signatures were not correctly placed on the documents. Millions of dollars lost to St Judes over signatures and yet acharitable funds from taxpayers resources not accounted for and it slides. I wonder how much money has disappeared from public coffers over the last 20 years. Most likely enough to fund St Judws in perpetuity.

Being able to choose which charity and how
Much should obviously be a personal choice. I had posted the idea of diverting a percentage as taxes more of a compromise. A way of moving inefficient govt programs to a private sector. On a side note I do not want to post a website but there is one or two great website that rate charities not on their mission but on their finances to help determine if you want to support them

We should be allowed to divert a percentage of income tax direct to private charities. This is not as a tax deduction. I think I should have the choice of my tax duty of going to the government or an approved charity of my choice. A lot of this corruption and waste can be used by the people who know what they are doing.

Di Blasio's goons will smooth this over.

What do you expect? Prosecuting the Mayor's black wife?

There will be plenty of documented "benefit". Mental health is an issue that is a favorite of left wing politicians with no discernible benefit recorded from billions of dollars thrown at it.

Egad!