Sunday, December 07, 2014

Christmas charity donations

Christmas treeChristmas comes but once a year, and for the past 7 years (2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013), I've asked readers for suggestions for the charity donations that I always make at Christmas. This year there's about £1000 to give away, so don't be shy, leave a comment and tell me about your favourite charities :-). The one rule is that because of the way I do my donations, I can only donate to charities that are registered with the UK Charities Commission. I'll make the final decision about who to donate to next Sunday 14th December, so don't delay, leave a comment today!

Update 16-Dec-2014: charity donation result.

Thanks for the comments :-).

One reader suggested Ben Cohen's Stand Up Foundation. I had a look, but unfortunately it doesn't seem to be a registered UK charity. Because I donate via an account that I have with CharitiesTrust.org, I can only donate to registered UK charities, so the Stand Up Foundation isn't eligible.

The information provided by another reader about "diseases we donate to versus diseases that kill us" was fascinating :-). That web site suggests that cancer charities get more than their fair share of donations. Nonetheless, two other readers suggested that Cancer Research (charity number 1089464) would be a worthy beneficiary, so I've given them £200.

For the rest, I've mostly gone back to charities that I've donated to in the past. Last year typhoon Haiyan had recently devastated the Philippines so I gave to the British Red Cross Philippines Typhoon Appeal. However, this year it's all about Ebola, so I've given £300 to the British Red Cross Ebola Crisis Appeal (charity number 220949) and £500 to Médecins Sans Frontières (Charity number 1026588). I come from a medical family, so the work of Médecins Sans Frontières has always seemed like a particularly worthy cause to me. I've also supported GMFA (charity number 1076854) again with a donation of £200, and as a result of a request from my sister I've given £100 to Fight For Sight (charity number 1111438).

Happy Christmas everyone :-). GB xxx