Groups to Inspire Your #GivingTuesday Decisions

By now, I’m sure you’ve seen #GivingTuesday trending everywhere. This relatively new holiday, following our shopping binge of Black Friday and Cyber Monday, inspires us to think about other ways which we can use our hard-earned dollars (other than a 50%-off Instant Pot). #GivingTuesday gives us the chance to take a step back and think about how to balance our spending with our giving. (Although by all means, don’t pass on the 50% off Instant Pot.)

As advocates for limited government and personal responsibility, we know that our local charities help those in need in our society better than the bureaucratic government can and that private educational groups seeking to improve our knowledge and understanding of the world often succeed better than a state-controlled curriculum. We know these groups do great work, but we don’t always stop to remember that in order to carry out their missions, they need funding. Here lies the beauty of #GivingTuesday.

Although giving year-round is highly encouraged (help out these groups’ budgets in the summer too!), #GivingTuesday is a great place to start. If you feel so inclined, we’d be so grateful for a gift to us at America’s Future Foundation, so that we can open more chapters in cities across the country and empower more people spread the message of liberty.

We also want to encourage you to give to other missions that are important to you and your community, so that our society can continue to be strengthened through personal responsibility and people helping people. From other free-market groups to groups helping veterans and the homeless, here are some organizations providing critical services to our society to get your philanthropic ideas rolling.

Disclaimer: I have a large soft spot for animals…so there’s a couple of animal-related groups in here. However, they’re groups that help animals and people at the same time, so I feel justified in including them here.

Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation (VOC)
In a society where young adults are forgetting the atrocities of communism and socialism throughout history and are identifying with these ideas (52% of millennials say that they would prefer to live in a socialist or communist country than a capitalist one!), the work of VOC is increasingly important. They seek to educate Americans about the history and legacy of communism and socialism and the destructive failures of these regimes throughout the world. They also produce an annual survey on the country’s views on communism and socialism, which provides useful insights about Americans’ attitudes and understanding of these ideologies.

Donate to Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation

Foundation for Economic Education (FEE)
Our close friends at FEE provide educational content and programming designed to make the principles of free-market economics, entrepreneurship, and limited government accessible and engaging to the next generation of leaders. As is obvious from the stats above from VOC, FEE’s work is critical to the future of a free and prosperous America.

Donate to FEE

K9s for Warriors
This group provides post-9/11 military veterans with PTSD and traumatic brain injuries with service dogs, completely free of charge to the vets (and free from dealing with the VA). Not only that, but 90% of their service dogs are rescues from shelters and owner-surrenders, dogs at high risk for euthanasia, that they then train. As they put it, “With each graduate pair, we save two lives; we rescue the dog, and the dog rescues the warrior.”

Donate to K9s for Warriors

New Leash on Life USA
Similarly to K9s for Warriors, the impact of New Leash on Life is two-fold. They work to “save the lives of at-risk shelter dogs by training prison inmates to care for and socialize them to enhance their adoptability. Inmates attend workshops on life skills and job readiness, and many receive opportunities for paid internships in the animal care field when they are paroled.”

Donate to New Leash on Life USA

Shelters to Shutters
This non-profit tackles homelessness in a unique, entrepreneurial way. Through partnerships with local non-profits and with apartment owners and operators, they provide opportunities for both full-time employment and affordable housing. Employees, then, “become self-sufficient, gain housing and employment, and cultivate a sense of pride and ownership.”

Donate to Shelters to Shutters

Though #GivingTuesday might be new, philanthropy has been in our blood since the American Founding. Alexis de Tocqueville notes in Democracy in America, “in the United States, there is no limit to the inventiveness of man to discover ways of increasing wealth and to satisfy the public’s needs. The most enlightened inhabitants of each district constantly use their knowledge to make new discoveries to increase the general prosperity, which, when made, they pass eagerly to the mass of the people.”

All of these groups and the impacts they’ve made are only possible through the creativity allowed by the free market and the generous giving of people like you.

Editor’s note: We encourage you to do your own research on any group before donating.