Bushfire crisis - make sure your charity goes to the right place

While crisis usually brings out the best in people, those who are horrid take it as an opportunity to prey on goodness.

The ACCC Scamwatch service recently released an alert about scams being run on the back of the current bush-fire crisis in Australia:

https://www.scamwatch.gov.au/news/bushfires-and-scams

Everything you need to know is in there, but it isn't anything I haven't already told you - go straight to the target so that you bypass any "links" that may be only pretending to be "that" charity.

If you want to go give money to the Humane Society, then ring them up or go straight to their web site: https://hsi.org.au/

In this way you can actually to the effort of the scammers into a good result!

Another way of maximizing your donation was pointed out to me by my wonderful wife.

The company she works for has a policy of matching employee donations to registered charities.

So it may be worth checking if the company you work for does something similar.

We donated, and donated a bit more just BECAUSE her employer would match it!

Lastly, I used to work for a very large charity it I learnt that a lot, read most, of the money donated did not actually end up where it was supposed to go. It mostly disappeared into overheads.

So my default charitable policy is to give things that can only be useful to the intended recipient e.g. blankets, clothing, food etc. But that isn't always practical and isn't always what is needed.

Sometimes the expensive admin' has to be done to get the stuff where it is needed. So every now and then I try to help those doing the helping.

There are a lot of volunteers out there dipping deeply into their own pockets.

Thanks and take care.

David