Top 3 #7

I've been working on some things for my church. At the same time, I've been looking into ways and places I can have the greatest impact on people, especially as I look to make a few year end donations, volunteer, and plan to do more next year. Since these are front of my mind I decided to make this weeks list...



Top 3 Charities



Since there are so many great organizations doing great work, it's a pretty daunting task to whittle it down to three. With that in mind, I've decided to make several lists of three, one for local charities (within a 30 mile radius), one for national (U.S.) and one for international. A couple places I check when researching whether or not to financially support a charity are online. I'd also like to point out that these rankings are even more subjective than usual since my rankings are directly reflective of my own priorities.



Top Three Local Charities



3. Habitat for Humanity



2. New Hope Pregnancy Center



1. Your Church

The link happens to be to mine, but the local church is the hope of the world, supporting it with your time, talents, and treasure are crucial.



Honorable mentions go to The Caring Place, Chattanooga Aquarium, Chattanooga Rescue Mission, and the Museum Center at Five Points. I also support Lee University.



Top 3 National



3. Smoky Mountain Children's Home

Just one of many great children's group homes, this one happens to be 4 star rated by Charity Navigator.



2. Gideon's/American Bible Society

These are two separate organizations but both have a primary mission of putting bibles in the hands of people who otherwise might not get them.



1. Susan G. Komen/American Cancer Society

As above, these two different organizations have similar goals of eliminating cancer.



Top Three International



3. Compassion International



2. Water Missions International



1. World Vision


Beyond volunteering and direct gifts, an increasingly popular trend is to buy many of your normal purchases in a way that they benefit charities of your choosing. For example, Gideon's (the hotel room bible people) sells Christmas cards for around $2 each that help fund the placement of Bibles, the product (RED) campaign for Africa, and TOMS shoes gives away a pair for every pair that you purchase, there are dozens more and the list is growing every day, allowing us to be more diligent in ensuring that more of our purchases affect positive change. Check out my blog on the topic of good purchasing.