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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC and we're going to wrap up the show today with a Giving Tuesday call-in. This is not going to be for me to spend the last 15 minutes this morning asking you to donate to the station, though obviously, we hope you'll donate to the station as one of your non-profits on Giving Tuesday. I want to do something different. I want to use Giving Tuesday as an opportunity for you to say how you decide what kind of non-profits to give to and if that changes with the news from year to year. Those of you who give to non-profit organizations or give to charities of any kind, how do you decide how to split up your charitable giving budget? 212-433-WNYC, 433-9692.

I mentioned earlier when I was doing a Giving Tuesday pitch for the station that I hope you give something to WNYC today and I also hope you give elsewhere. I think about, for some of my own giving, donating some for immediate needs charities like for hunger relief or refugee resettlement, and this might vary for me personally from year to year depending on things that seem urgent in the news where they might really need some money.

I donated this year to a particular Ukrainian-oriented GoFundMe. Maybe you also donate for some longer-term causes and for some not-for-profit arts and cultural institutions. I'd say we fit broadly into that category, but the question is, how do you decide where to give your charitable donation money, whether it's for today in particular, Giving Tuesday, or at the end of the year, whenever you do it, however you do it? 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692.

When there's so much tragedy and hardship or just need, how do you decide who to help, or to put it more positively, when there are numerous groups fighting for what you believe in? I guess political donations are not tax deductible. Generally, they're in a different category than what they consider charitable giving. That's from the IRS standpoint, but maybe you don't make that distinction. Maybe when the end of the year or whenever your giving season comes around, you just ask yourself, "Well, what good causes do I want to give to?"

Maybe that's something that is technically a tax-free non-profit or tax-deductible non-profit, if you itemize your deductions and hunger relief or whatever it might be, and you also give to some causes that are more political that are fighting for whatever you see as your good causes, but in general, how do you split it up? Maybe this will help other listeners on this Giving Tuesday or as they think about their charitable giving generally and to do it in maybe less haphazard a way. How do you figure out where to give your charitable dollars to? 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692, or tweet at Brian Lehrer, and we'll take your calls right after this.

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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC as we're asking on this Giving Tuesday how do you decide what organizations, what kinds of organizations to give your charitable donation to or donations? How do you split it up? Randy in Hastings-on-Hudson, you're on WNYC. Hi, Randy.

Randy: Oh, hello, Brian. Good morning. Listen to your show a lot and I like it. Thanks.

Brian Lehrer: Thank you.

Randy: As I get to the end of the year, I find myself wanting to donate to non-profits that offer services or even sometimes goods, products that I make use of and that I feel if I wouldn't be contributing to them, I would just be freeloading on the back of the service. For instance, we listen to WNYC a lot here, we donate to them. I live in a very small village. A local library could not survive without donations. I'm a heavy user of them, so we donate to them. There are just other places that I feel like if I'm going to be making use of the services that the non-profits offer, that you're really just freeloading if you're not also contributing.

Brian Lehrer: That's one guide, making sure you're contributing to non-profits whose services you use. Thank you for starting us off that way, Randy. Eugene in Weehawken, you're on WNYC. Hi, Eugene.

Eugene: Hi.

Brian Lehrer: Oh, his line dropped off. All right. Well, call us back if you want. We'll try to get you back on. Charlotte in Jersey City, you're on WNYC. Hi, Charlotte.

Charlotte: Hi. I still contribute to UNICEF, which I collected pennies for when I was a child on Halloween. I just think they're a worthy organization, so that's somebody I give to. I do a lot of 12 times a year repeating ones. I give to Doctors Without Borders because they're an organization that rushes to disaster and deals with things in the immediacy of things. I think that's why I've donated to a lot of abortion organizations this year because that's a crisis. A lot of my donations go to something-- There are a lot of worthy things that are ongoing, but people and organizations that are really rushing in as disasters and terrible situations.

Brian Lehrer: Yes. Do you find that for you you're giving follows the news to some degree each year?

Charlotte: Yes, definitely. It's the news and also friends. My sister got very involved with Afghan women needing help, and so she forwarded me something, and so now they're on my list of repeated donations. It's either friends or the news or a gut, something just comes across the airwaves and I go, "I have the money, I should just give to this," and of course, to WNYC. Your first caller, who I think I'm going to start thinking about how he does it, that if I use a non-profit, I should donate to it. [crosstalk]

Brian Lehrer: Charlotte, thank you. Thank you for your call. Thank you very much. Bob, in Central Jersey, you're on WNYC. Hi, Bob.

Bob: Hi Brian. How are you today?

Brian Lehrer: Good.

Bob: I give through the prism of hunger, so that I give to straight-out food organizations. Then I give to my university, which is Michigan. I give to a free food store, as it were, in Flint, at the Flint College. I give to a group called HomeFront here in Mercer County. That is a holistic approach to poverty, but also features a food store, so to speak. I give to MAZON, which is a Jewish response to hunger. I'm covering myself religiously, educationally, and the whole gamut.

Brian Lehrer: Focusing on hunger relief, it sounds like-

Bob: That's correct.

Brian Lehrer: -is your main interest.

Bob: -yes, which I find appalling. Yes.

Brian Lehrer: Bob, thank you very much. Right, it's appalling that there's hunger anywhere in the world and it's so appalling that there's hunger in the United States. Laura in Manhattan, you're on WNYC. Hi, Laura.

Laura: Hi. How are you? Thanks for taking my call. I work it out at this point in the year-- I give to many organizations throughout the year, but at this point in the year, I work out what-- I'm a freelancer and I work out what my total income was for the year. I take 3% or 4% of that and I make a spreadsheet. I'm a bookkeeper. I make a spreadsheet and I work out between about 12 organizations how much I'll give to those individually. I pretty much split it between animal rescues and feeding the hungry, food banks and soup kitchens.

I do also always make sure that there's something for Visiting Nurse Service because they were wonderful with my mother when she was dying. They were terrific and I find them a very worthy organization. I have a few non-animal rescue and hunger-related organizations that I donate to, but I split them up pretty much through the same every year at this time.

Brian Lehrer: Yes, it sounds like you've got a real system. Does your giving follow the news at all within that framework?

Laura: That's interesting. My news-related giving is through the year because I would give to NERO when the [unintelligible 00:09:51] news came out. When things happen during the year, I tend to give spontaneously at that time. I think my giving leans more toward hunger-related things. At about four or five years ago when I feel like the homeless population exploded, that started getting more-- it started skewing more towards that at that time.

Brian Lehrer: Laura, thank you so much for your call. We appreciate it. We'll get probably just one more in here, and Faye in [unintelligible 00:10:28] is going to be on a theme that a lot of folks we're not going to be able to get to for time are calling to say similar things too. Faye, you're on WNYC. Hi.

Faye: Hi. I was saying that one of the organizations that I took an interest to due to my mom having lung cancer was St. Jude's. She seemed to find strength in the last four or five years of her life watching the children. That was a big deal to me that she [unintelligible 00:11:04] I'm starting to get teary eyes, but it meant a lot to her to see the children. She said, "If the children can do it, I can do it." She had a very hard time with cancer.

The other is that, as a young child [unintelligible 00:11:20] my parents had a house in Jamaica, Queens, and I would always sneak the stray cats and dogs that I'd find that were sick or needed some type of help. I would sneak them to the basement and I would just nurse them back to health. That was a big deal for me too.

Brian Lehrer: Now to animal-oriented organizations. Thank you, Faye. What she said that a lot of people are calling to say, and the previous caller mentioned the Visiting Nurses Association in this respect, things we never knew about until we had needs personally and then learned about wonderful organizations. There you go. Well, there's a little sampling of your Giving Tuesday calls and how you figure out where your charitable dollars go. Thanks for sharing that.

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