Matanah       

Most people define a philanthropist as a generous person who gives away money or time for a good purpose.  But if you are serious about philanthropy, you realize that there isn't enough money or time to solve all of the problems you can think of.  So you have to have a plan about how to give.  You have to decide among many different charities that need your help.

Some organizations advertise what they do, and while their cause may be important, it is up to a good philanthropist to decide how well they do it.  Two different organizations might both feed hungry people in your town, but if we gave them each one hundred dollars we would need to understand how they would spend it.  How much of it would they use to run their organization and how much would they use to feed the hungry?  How would we decide if they were doing what they said they wanted to?   How would we know if they were achieving their goals? 

We would need to do some research by asking them directly what they would do with our money.  Some philanthropists use websites like www.charitynavigator.org to compare charities--it's free, but you need an adult to use it.  Mostly, we ask people what they will do with our money, and that is what we will ask you to do; find an important cause and tell us why you think they would do good things with your money and ours!