Tithing: Creating a giving plan

This weekend, M and I finally got around to making a giving plan. We have been giving money to various organizations as we come across them and as we can afford to, but M wanted to think of overall categories of institutions we want to support, and write donations into our regular budget.

Here are some categories we came up with.

1. Multi-disciplinary groups that give grants to smaller organizations (RESIST, others)
2. Education (scholarship funds, youth groups, support for public education, etc)
3. Public media (our local public radio station, primarily)
4. Aid for low-income folks (like funds to help pay for heat in the winter)
5. Disaster relief (Red Cross, Common Ground Collective)
6. Women's health and abortion providers
7. Legal groups (CCR, Lambda Legal)
8. Labor organizing
9. Environmental groups, or environmental justice groups
10. International (MADRE, others)
11. Domestic violence prevention and education
12. Gender equality (Sylvia Rivery Law Project, for example)

We also wanted to make sure we had a balance of local groups, national groups, and international groups. Our list lacks some international flavor at the moment. We also had a hard time coming up wtih environmental groups we felt good about, and there is no labor organizing group on the list. I figure my AFT member dues are enough for me.

After we identified groups we want to give money to every year, we tallied up the total. Most groups are getting $50 annually, but one is getting $100 and and several are getting only $25. The total is about $550, and we agreed we could each give another $100 per year if new opportunities came up. This was really important to me, since I'm always finding things I want to support and having to negotiate with M about whether or not I can write them a check.

So, including the $200 of discretionary donations we're planning to make every year, our total planned giving is about $750. This is only about 1.5% of our gross income, which is a paltry amount considering many church-going types and others aim to give away 10% of their incomes. We also usually end up giving a few hundred to friends over the course of the year, which is of course not tax deductible and so in a separate category. In 2005, for example, we kicked down $20 for a friend who had been robbed and laid off in the same week, and was trying to raise the money to pay his rent. We have also been giving another friend whose loans are maxed out a few hundred a year towards her college tuition.

Has anyone else created a giving plan? Do you have certain groups you give to regularly, or is it more spontaneous? What percentage of your income do you give to charity every year?

If anyone feels moved to write their own tithing post, let me know so I can link to it.

Update: Related posts from other bloggers.

Free Money Finance on Looking at your giving as an investment
Penny Nickel on her giving plan.