For hiking and biking try: Tyger, Tyger by William Blake; The Charge of the Light Brigade by Tennyson; The Road Goes Ever On from The Hobbit; and best of all –

Now shall I walk
or shall I ride?
“Ride,” Pleasure said:
“Walk,” Joy replied.
~W.H. Davies

I say this one in my head all the time when making choices!

Poetry! Love Shakespeare, Kipling, limericks . . . currently trying to Inanna, Lady of the Largest Heart – ancient Sumarian poems.

Thank for getting the exact point I was trying to make. Administration costs are what keep an aid project up and functioning and are just as important, if not more important, than the gifts where donors can “see” what they’re paying for. The developing world is littered with broken water pumps and non-functioning solar panels because people will pay to install them but not to maintain them.
Overheads are a false measure of an aid organization and the focus on them can actually lead to less effective projects that may actually do more harm than good.
Here’s a link to a joint press release by several charity watchdog’s on the topic.
http://www.philanthropyaction.com/nc/the_worst_and_best_way_to_pick_a_charity_this_year/

Among other things: A charity that actually is “fishy” is not necessarily going to be honest about its overhead ratio.

Your comments about the Lunch link are the same problems that occur during the reader mailbag feature — you don’t seem to have actually read what was written but instead respond to what you THINK was written. For example the woman who asked about make ahead meals for her family and you talked about making baby food. Maybe you really wanted to talk about making babyfood and were thinking about that and somehow misread what she said.

Or maybe you should cut back on posting for awhile so there is better quality.

I’m starting today! I have my new poem all picked out – Mary Oliver’s “Wild Geese.”

Thanks!

The article and Johanna are absolutely right: a lot of the time, nonprofits’ needs are neither obvious nor “shiny” to the donating public.

I love the message that you should not only ask what’s needed, but listen to and accept the answer.

“If I want your opinion, I’m going to want it for something where you might be wrong, for something that actually makes a difference and most of all, for something where you are putting yourself at risk. Not lunch.”

First, if a child is old enough to get something (like a toy) out, she is old enough to put it away, period. When “put away” time comes, she puts her belongings away if she wants to keep them. Period.

Second, don’t pose this notion as the child “helping” the parent. In a family each of us has responsibilities we shoulder to make the household run smoothly. Children who are not given their place in the household — for whom everything is done and who have no responsibilities — become alienated. You’re doing your children a favor to teach them how to do their part in the home.

Third, leverage your child’s desire to be with you and to emulate you.

There’s an excelleng blog called “Good Intentions Are Not Enough” that details some of the things that can go wrong when donors start thinking that it’s all about them. In one post, called “Making Merit,” the blogger says, “It is much more appealing to donors to fund the construction of a museum or a school than it is to pay for the janitor’s salary and repair bills to maintain the building…When was the last time you saw a building or park named after the donor that paid the janitor’s salary?” But the janitor’s salary and the repair bills are important.

It seems to me that the point of the ChristianPF article is that you should follow up on your donation in order to learn what the organization needs most. To which I would add: Be prepared to learn that what the organization needs most is different from what you’re most interested in giving.