Q3 Charity Miriam's Kitchen

Vote for Q3 Charity

  • Habitat for Humanity

    Votes: 4 36.4%
  • Rebuilding Together

    Votes: 2 18.2%
  • Greater Chicago Food Depository

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Miriam's Kitchen

    Votes: 5 45.5%

  • Total voters
    11

Matt

Administrator
Staff member
Charity Recap:

  • I will donate an amount equal to my credit card affiliate revenue for the quarter. Additionally, anything else that pops up on an ad hoc basis will be added to the pool.
  • Use this thread to propose a charity, then we will open up a poll. The winner receives 100% of the money collected.
Please use this thread to nominate your charities for the Q3 category of HOUSING. The nominations will close on 07/13/2015 at which time the Mod team will examine, discuss and shortlist charities. These finalists will be put forward to a poll/vote with the winner being supported for Q2 2015

Criteria for nominations:
  • Must be nonprofit or equivalent
  • Must be at least 3 years old
  • Must meet our quarterly focus
  • Should be at least 80% efficient (% of money that goes to program expenses)
    • Note: If your charity is less than 80% efficient, you can still make a case for why they should be selected.
Template for nominations:
  • Name:
  • Physical Headquarters Location:
  • Web URL:
  • Starting Year:
  • Efficiency:
  • Type of Charity:
  • Basic Description/Mission Statement:
  • Why you are nominating them?:
Suggested Resources:
Note - please only post nominations in this thread - any discussion of the nominations or questions about the process are to be held in the discussion thread (this makes it easier for us to manage).
 

Sweet Willie

New Member
I would like to nominate the following charity, a charity I've done volunteer work for as well as have given monetarily to.
  • Greater Chicago Food Depository
  • Chicago IL
  • URL: http://www.chicagosfoodbank.org/
  • Founded in 1979
  • Efficiency: 94.4% (Greater Chicago Food Depository scores 97.14 out of 100 on Charity Navigator)
  • Type of Charity: THE food bank of Chicago, distributed 67 million pounds of shelf-stable food, fresh produce, dairy products and meat, the equivalent of 154,000 meals every day
  • Basic Description/Mission Statement: We have 1 goal, 1 mission. To fight hunger 1 dollar, 1 meal, 1 person at a time. Until the day no 1 goes hungry.
  • Why you are nominating them?: If one isn't getting food, a basic need fulfilled, there is little strength & hope one has to go out & better their lives.
Thanks for your consideration!
 

Matt

Administrator
Staff member
I would like to nominate the following charity, a charity I've done volunteer work for as well as have given monetarily to.
  • Greater Chicago Food Depository
  • Chicago IL
  • URL: http://www.chicagosfoodbank.org/
  • Founded in 1979
  • Efficiency: 94.4% (Greater Chicago Food Depository scores 97.14 out of 100 on Charity Navigator)
  • Type of Charity: THE food bank of Chicago, distributed 67 million pounds of shelf-stable food, fresh produce, dairy products and meat, the equivalent of 154,000 meals every day
  • Basic Description/Mission Statement: We have 1 goal, 1 mission. To fight hunger 1 dollar, 1 meal, 1 person at a time. Until the day no 1 goes hungry.
  • Why you are nominating them?: If one isn't getting food, a basic need fulfilled, there is little strength & hope one has to go out & better their lives.
Thanks for your consideration!
Hey Willie,

Thanks for the suggestion. Ideally we would like to see something focused on Housing this quarter, but since we aren't getting a lot of action here I will certainly consider your proposal.
 

Matt

Administrator
Staff member
Thread is behind schedule due to me being on holiday and y'all being lazy buggers. Got 3 new recommendations via Twitter:

Habitat for Humanity
http://rebuildingtogether.org
http://www.gridalternatives.org/

I'd also like to see a pure shelter if anyone knows of one. Wife volunteered in one on Myrtle Ave, Brooklyn but looking it up it seems to be part of a larger, amorphous mass of the city, so harder to target. Open to more direct suggestions.
 

smittytabb

Moderator
Staff member
  • Name: Miriam's Kitchen
  • Physical Headquarters Location: Washington, D.C.
  • Web URL: http://www.miriamskitchen.org/
  • Starting Year: 1983
  • Efficiency: 87.94%
  • Type of Charity: Human Services: Homeless Services
  • Basic Description/Mission Statement: Miriam's Kitchen works to end chronic homelessness in Washington, DC. We advocate for permanent supportive housing as a long-term solution, while meeting short-term needs by providing healthy meals and high-quality social services to 5,000 homeless individuals each year.
  • Why you are nominating them?:
As a native Washingtonian, I would like to suggest this long established charity that seeks to solve a problem that has been chronic in D.C. throughout my lifetime.

From their website:

The most successful intervention for ending chronic homelessness is permanent supportive housing, which couples permanent housing with supportive services that target the specific needs of an individual.

Permanent supportive housing is the solution because it:

  • is cost-effective;
  • improves health outcomes;
  • reduces costs associated with emergency services, like ER visits, hospital stays, first responsers and shelters;
  • provides individuals with the tools they need to get their lives back; and
  • has a 92% success rate in keeping people housed.
"Miriam’s Kitchen is committed to ending chronic homelessness in D.C. by establishing meaningful relationships with chronically homeless individuals, connecting them with permanent supportive housing, and ensuring they have the necessary support to remain in housing. We advocate for permanent supportive housing as a long-term solution, while meeting short-term needs by providing healthy meals and high-quality social services to more than 4,300 homeless individuals each year."
 

Matt

Administrator
Staff member
OK we have 5 potential charities, can we do a short list from here, any to exclude (will ping Charity Mods to help)
 

Annie H.

Egalatarian
OK we have 5 potential charities, can we do a short list from here, any to exclude (will ping Charity Mods to help)
I volunteered for Rebuilding Together (back when it was called Christmas in April) for a half dozen years. It's a wonderful organization that utilizes almost all volunteer labor and accomplishes miracles in very little time and not a lot of money. They do projects for individuals and community resources also I can highly recommend them. They're nationwide if that helps. Do I need to write them up in the normal way or are they already totally nominated? Arghh-- I've forgotten how the charity thing works.

http://rebuildingtogether.org
 

Matt

Administrator
Staff member
Arghh-- I've forgotten how the charity thing works.
Did you read the first post in this 9 post thread and then forget, or are you skipping a post or two and cannot recall whats happening?

PS - wasn't it you that made me bring back credit card links in the name of Charity?
 

Annie H.

Egalatarian
http://www.charitynavigator.org/index.cfm?bay=search.summary&orgid=3668#.VbVVs_m6deg
Did you read the first post in this 9 post thread and then forget, or are you skipping a post or two and cannot recall whats happening?

PS - wasn't it you that made me bring back credit card links in the name of Charity?
Yes it was, how kind of you to remember :). Jeez-- since when to I have to read every single post in a thread-- it that some new regulation you put in since I haven't been paying attention or some @DanR rule (j/k, Dan, as you did get me to stop being lazy for awhile, it's hard now since I'm not here that often)? :p. I'm too busy wasting time on psychological egoism.

Here's what I had forgotten: " at which time the Mod team will examine, discuss and shortlist charities. These finalists will be put forward to a poll/vote with the winner being supported for Q2 2015"-- Sure enough, in the first paragraph, -- at least I didn't nominate Habitat for Humanity, how come you didn't ding him for not reading all the posts, huh, huh, huh-- are you some kind of sexist?:rolleyes:

Can you clarify what you mean by "pure shelter"-- something like these?:
http://www.cots-homeless.org/
http://samaritanhousesanmateo.org/what-we-do/shelter/
https://hamiltonfamilycenter.org/
 

Matt

Administrator
Staff member
I just meant somewhere that takes people in and gives them a bed to sleep in, vs improving existing conditions.
 

Annie H.

Egalatarian
I just meant somewhere that takes people in and gives them a bed to sleep in, vs improving existing conditions.
You mean a place that will let folks come in drunk or high-- to get off the streets and stay warm and dry? Not many places like that if that's what you're talking about because too hard to manage. If you're talking about something else "vs improving conditions" I'm not sure what you mean and I'm curious.
 

Matt

Administrator
Staff member
You mean a place that will let folks come in drunk or high-- to get off the streets and stay warm and dry? Not many places like that if that's what you're talking about because too hard to manage. If you're talking about something else "vs improving conditions" I'm not sure what you mean and I'm curious.
Wife helped a shelter that took in abused women and their children, when they broke away from the husband.

They need a place to sleep until something more permanent can be secured.
 

Annie H.

Egalatarian
Wife helped a shelter that took in abused women and their children, when they broke away from the husband.

They need a place to sleep until something more permanent can be secured.
In my experience, especially volunteering for domestic violence orgs., there is always going to be a component of trying to provide further help and counseling and not just "a place to sleep." That said, domestic violence is such an individual thing and I've never heard of an organization that will turn a woman away or not provide a bed if that's all she wants. One of the big issues with DV shelters is secrecy. Law enforcement personnel knows where the shelters are and yet LEO's have a much higher rate of being abusers than the general population. Clients that are sheltered swear not to reveal details but sometimes if they don't like the rules there are cases of them calling their abuser to pick them up. Volunteers are sworn not to ever reveal shelter locations.

The majority of larger organizations will provide hotel vouchers for a couple nights if the shelter is full and larger organizations do temporary housing for a specified period of time and then move certain clients to transitional housing.

If you want another recommendation in the DV area the SF Shelter is excellent.
http://www.lacasa.org/

The organizations I linked to above that serve the general homeless population provide similar services to Miriam's Kitchen.
 

Matt

Administrator
Staff member
We broke though the $1000 mark for the first time! I'm asking one of the Charity Forum team to review the numbers I have before releasing the final amount, and sending the payment.

Thanks everyone for your help and support, Miriam's Kitchen in DC will be feeding a lot more people with this donation!
 

Annie H.

Egalatarian
We broke though the $1000 mark for the first time! I'm asking one of the Charity Forum team to review the numbers I have before releasing the final amount, and sending the payment.

Thanks everyone for your help and support, Miriam's Kitchen in DC will be feeding a lot more people with this donation!
Congratulations. What a great idea, "pimping" for charity :).
 
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