Bad news for chuggers

UPDATED POST: I have found a few new websites that provide an excellent channel for online giving and also corrected an earlier omission by listing Empower The Children (keep up the great work, Rosalie!)

It's great to see people getting more accustomed to online charity giving and far more civilised than being accosted in the street by a charity mugger (or chugger, as they are unaffectionately known in London's Tottenham Court Road area). Also interesting to note what many people have suspected for a long time...that the costs of direct fundraising are considerable, leaving far less money to channel to the eventual good cause.

If you are interested in online giving, here are a few sites I have used:

• UK (Give Now , All About Giving , Charity Giving , CAF )
• Australia (CAF Australia , The Australian Charities Fund, Our Community )
• Kiva allows individual donors to sponsor businesses in the developing world through micro-credit loans. Project progress is reported through the site and the donor can decide whether to reinvest their money once the loan has been repaid.
  
• Global Giving is an online marketplace for donors to connect with pre-vetted projects, according to their particular field of interest.
  

and sites for some for charities I personally know very well:

• ERDS - Economic Rural Development Society, based in Kolkata (or Calcutta as it used to be called), India, focusing on grassroots economic development, social work and awareness, health, agriculture, environment and literacy projects in over 100 villages in West Bengal state. Founded by the charismatic entrepreneurial spirit of Sri Madhu Basu, this organisation serves as a great example and resource for other smaller NGO's operating in the region.
  
• Tzedek - Tzedek is a Jewish overseas development and educational charity based in the UK and founded in 1990. It channels funding to small grassroots projects in Africa and the Indian sub-continent. Tzedek works regardless of race or religion with some of the poorest communities of the world, providing direct support to small scale, sustainable, self-help development projects for the relief and elimination of poverty. Projects are evaluated using project criteria. Click here to donate to Tzedek.
  
• Empower the Children - Rosalie is a very experienced special needs teacher who has spent many years working in the orphanages of Kolkata with Mother Theresa's Missionaries of Charity. She collaborated with her friend Janet to recently set up her own programmes and raises funds in the US through Empower the Children. Click here to donate to ETC.