Miracle Mission Hope House http://mmhopehouse.org Thu, 22 Aug 2019 11:54:12 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=5.2.5 Five Reasons to Give to Charity http://mmhopehouse.org/2018/02/21/adopt-orphan-child/ http://mmhopehouse.org/2018/02/21/adopt-orphan-child/#respond Wed, 21 Feb 2018 04:42:51 +0000 http://pc2/wordpress/wp-k2c1-helpingpro/helpingpro/?p=672


So why is giving to charity so gratifying? We’ve taken a closer look at five reasons to donate to your charities of choice.


Donating to charity is a major mood-booster. The knowledge that you’re helping others is hugely empowering and, in turn, can make you feel happier and more fulfilled. Research has identified a link between making a donation to charity and increased activity in the area of the brain that registers pleasure – proving that as the old adage goes, it really is far better to give than to receive.

Our own research into why people give supports this. We asked 700 of our generous donors to tell us what motivates them to give regularly to charity; 42% agreed the enjoyment they receive from giving as a key influence.

Discover what type of charitable giver you are.


In our research, Why we give, a feeling of social conscience was the most widely-given reason to give to charity. Whatever type of charity work they supported, 96% said they felt they had a moral duty to use what they had to help others, a sentiment very much rooted in their personal values and principles.

Having the power to improve the lives of others is, to many people, a privilege, and one that comes with its own sense of obligation. Acting on these powerful feelings of responsibility is a great way to reinforce our own personal values and feel like we’re living in a way that is true to our own ethical beliefs.


Many people are concerned that their donations to charity may be reduced by tax or administrative costs, preventing the full amount from reaching the people or causes they really want to help. Thankfully there are ways to make the most of every donation to charity.

If you’re a UK taxpayer, you can boost the amount of every donation you make by giving through Gift Aid, an Income Tax relief created to help charities get the most out of the funds they receive. As Gift Aid enables the charity to recover the basic rate of tax on your donation, the scheme adds 25p to each £1 you give at no extra cost to you.

There are many other ways to give to charity tax-effectively too, such as by donating straight from your salary before tax is deducted through a payroll giving scheme, donating shares to charity or leaving a charitable legacy in your Will. These methods of giving ensure your chosen charities benefit as much as possible from your support.


Sharing the experience of donating to charity with your children shows them from a young age that they can make positive changes in the world. Children naturally love to help others, so nurturing their innate generosity is likely to mean that they grow up with a greater appreciation of what they have, and will carry on supporting charity in years to come.

Starting a tradition of donating to charity with your children is easy – try creating a family donation box that everyone can add to and nominate a family charity each year, involving the children in choosing which causes to support.


Your own charitable donations can inspire your nearest and dearest to give to causes important to them, and could even bring about a family-wide effort to back a charity or charities that have special significance to you as a group.

Family giving creates a bond, helping to bolster relationships through a shared goal and raising more money than could otherwise be possible through individual donations. Chances are, many of your family members are already giving to charity, so working together could help you to make even more of a positive impact. We can help you family to set up a family CAF Charitable Trust to make coordinating your donations simple and sustainable.

If this has inspired you to make a donation to charity, we can help. We make it easy to find a charity that’s working for causes important to you; whether you want to make a one-off donation, set up a donation plan or find out how to donate your time.

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Reasons Wealthy People Give to Charity http://mmhopehouse.org/2018/02/21/provide-healthy-food/ http://mmhopehouse.org/2018/02/21/provide-healthy-food/#respond Wed, 21 Feb 2018 04:36:59 +0000 http://pc2/wordpress/wp-k2c1-helpingpro/helpingpro/?p=669 What motivates people to give to charity? Surprisingly, the most obvious answers to this question have been difficult to prove. For example, having a desire to give is often not enough: many people who express a strong intention to make charitable donations often fail to follow through on their intentions. The research is also mixed on whether people with more money are more likely to give it away. While some studies suggest that wealthier people are more likely to donate money, other studies do not.

A recent paper by psychologists Ashley Whillans, Eugene Caruso, and Elizabeth Dunn suggests a potential new explanation as to what motivates people to give to charity. When a donation request resonates strongly with our self-image, they argue, we are more likely to feel charitable. Across three studies, they found that people who earn less money are more likely to donate to charity when presented with a request that emphasizes social connection and community. In contrast, wealthier individuals are more likely to give money when presented with a request that appeals to their sense of independence and self-reliance. Whether you behave selfishly or generously may depend less on what you have and more on whether a request for help fits with how you see yourself.

The researchers’ first study examined the behavior of people who visited the website for The Life You Can Save, an organization that promotes charities dedicated to ending extreme poverty. Website visitors were asked to participate in a survey in exchange for a complimentary book, and a total of 185 (58% female) online visitors were successfully recruited for the study. The survey asked participants to report their gender, age, ethnicity, and household income. Participants then read one of two donation appeals. Half of the participants read an “agentic” appeal that characterized The Life You Can Save as an organization that spreads “knowledge of what each person can do individually to reduce poverty.” The other participants read a “communal” appeal that said the organization spreads “knowledge of what all of us can do together to reduce poverty.”

After reading one of these two appeals, participants were given the opportunity to click on a link labeled “Donate Today” that took them to a new webpage where they could make a donation. They found that the wealthier participants, as defined by those with an income of $90,000 or above, were more likely to click the “Donate Today” link when presented with the agentic appeal that talked about what each person can do individually to help poverty. Less wealthy participants, or those earning $40,000 or less, were more likely to click the donation link when presented with the communal appeal that referenced what everyone can do together to reduce poverty. The researchers found no relationship between clicking on the donation link and gender, ethnicity, or age.

The finding is telling, but the study was limited because they were unable to prove that the wealthier participants actually did donate money after seeing the agentic appeal that emphasized individualism. (Technical restrictions made it impossible for the researchers to determine whether those who clicked on the donation link actually gave money.) To try and make a stronger case for their hypothesis, they ran two additional experiments in public places. One study recruited 474 participants who were visiting a science museum in Vancouver, Canada. Participants first completed the same survey asking them about their background and income, as described in the previous study. And, as in the previous study, they were asked to read either the agentic or communal appeal to donate to charity. They were then told they were being entered into a lottery for the chance to win $100 and had the option to donate some of their winnings to charity.  It was explained that the decision to donate was binding if they did end up winning.

Approximately 87% of all the participants chose to donate at least some of their potential winnings to charity. Wealthier participants appeared more generous after reading the agentic appeal – it led them to donate more of their winnings to charity.  Less wealthy individuals donated more after being presented with the communal appeal. Once again, other characteristics of the participants, such as their age and gender, had no relationship with how much they chose to donate.

Why would wealthier individuals feel more generous when presented with the agentic appeal? Past research has shown that people with higher incomes tend to have a greater sense of personal control. Money allows people to meet their personal goals without needing to rely so much on others, and this may affect how they see themselves. Research also shows that people with lower incomes tend to see themselves as more connected to others, maybe because they need to rely more other people in their everyday lives. These findings have led some researchers to speculate that as people become wealthier, their caring and compassion for others decreases. However, the present research suggests this may not be the whole story. Wealthy people do demonstrate high levels of caring when a request for help resonates with their greater sense of personal control. By emphasizing individual impact, charitable messages might be more effective at motivating wealthier people to act generously.

Of course, more research is needed to figure out whether tailoring messages matters for other kinds of giving aside from donating money. It would be useful to know if the same type of framing also affects whether people commit to volunteering their time or donating blood. Still, these findings point towards new possibilities for helping non-profits and other charitable organizations figure out how to make appeals that have the highest possible chances of success.

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The 3 Criteria That Make a Charity Effective http://mmhopehouse.org/2018/02/20/school-for-poor/ http://mmhopehouse.org/2018/02/20/school-for-poor/#respond Tue, 20 Feb 2018 15:24:35 +0000 http://pc2/wordpress/wp-k2c1-helpingpro/helpingpro/?p=663 scale. In this sense, scale refers to how much suffering a problem causes, with the best charities focusing on the worst problems.]]> At MM Hope House, we want to achieve as much good as possible with our donations. We try to accomplish this by finding charities that are doing much more good than average. The amount of good produced by the best charities vs. average charities can differ by an order of magnitude depending on certain broad criteria. Research shows that the scale of the problem a charity is working on, its neglectedness, and its tractability are the most important criteria for overall effectiveness. There are many other giving opportunities besides official REG charities, and using these criteria can help one find charities that are doing more good.

But first, what do we mean by ‘doing more good’?

We believe that charities are doing good if they are reducing suffering for sentient individuals. Charities that do more good are, when compared to other charities, reducing suffering for more individuals, reducing suffering to a greater degree, or doing some combination of the two.

While intuitive, this definition upends some common assumptions about charitable giving. It is often assumed that the best charities are ones that have a low ”overhead”, enabling them to spend most of their donations on programs that help others. Using the above definition, overhead is irrelevant when choosing the best charities; it does not matter if a charity is spending 90% or 50% of its funds on program expenses, what matters is the results of their work. Focusing on low-overhead can often lead charities to skimp on funds for training, advertising, and self-evaluation, which in some cases, can lead to decreased future impact. For a more in-depth explanation, see our blog post How NOT to pick a charity.

The Criteria

1. Scale – The number of individuals a charity can affect and the degree to which it can affect them

Charities can affect vastly greater numbers of individuals than others by focusing on larger-scale problems and problems that cause more suffering. Problems that affect large amounts of people in extremely negative ways have a greater scale. In this sense, scale refers to how much suffering a problem causes, with the best charities focusing on the worst problems.

For example, malaria affects a disproportionately high amount of people when compared to other diseases. Around 3.2 billion people – almost half the world’s population – are at risk of contracting malaria. Malaria infection also causes extreme suffering. Malaria causes shakes, chills, nausea, and diarrhea in typical cases, and kidney failure, seizures, comas, and even death in severe cases.  By focusing on preventing malaria through insecticide-treated bednets, the Against Malaria Foundation has been able to affect many more individuals to a much greater degree than by focusing on a different, less prevalent disease.

2. Neglectedness – The amount of other charities working in an area

Charities can contribute more when the problem they’re working on is more neglected. Neglectfulness is a key feature in a charity’s counterfactual good, or the good that wouldn’t have been produced had a charity never existed. For most problem-areas, there are many charities that could have likely created the good produced by a specific organization had it never existed. However, for neglected problems, there are often no other charities working in the area, meaning the good these charities do cannot be replaced.

As an example, consider the Humane Slaughter Association (HSA), which promotes the humane treatment of farmed animals worldwide. The Humane Slaughter Association is one of the only organizations researching and promoting humane slaughter practices, meaning that if it had not existed, the good it has done could not have been produced by a different organization. The HSA played a significant role in standardizing the mechanical stunning of pigs before slaughter, the adoption of Canada’s 1960 humane-slaughter regulations, and the improvement of animal transportation standards in the UKConservative estimates say that the HSA prevents one asphyxiation experience per $50 spent, with the actual ratio potentially orders of magnitude higher.

3. Tractability – The likelihood that a charity can solve its given problem

Organizations working in more tractable (solvable) areas have higher chances of success, which translates to them producing a higher amount of good. For any problem, there is a chance that efforts to solve it will fail. Working on tractable problems reduces the risk of failure, making it more likely that the resources invested in a charity will yield positive results.

An example of a charity working in a tractable area is the Schistosomiasis Control Initiative (SCI), which helps implement treatment and prevention programs for schistosomiasis, a type of parasitic worm. Schistosomiasis is an extremely treatable and preventable disease, making it a highly tractable problem. Properly implemented treatment and prevention programs for schistosomiasis have a high likelihood of success, meaning that SCI is unlikely to waste resources on failed efforts.


Doing well in one area alone is not enough to be a top charity. Although the best charities vary in respect to these area, all of them fulfill each criterion to some extent. A helpful analogy is to consider each criterion a factor in a multiplication problem, with the final result being a charity’s total good. A charity working on an unsolvable, yet large and neglected problem is unlikely to do much good. Likewise for charities focusing on comparatively small problems that are both neglected and tractable.

By evaluating charities on the scale of the problem they’re working, its neglectfulness, and its tractability, we can gain a good estimate of how much good they are doing. There are other factors besides these three we should consider when we decide where to give (e.g. room for more funding), but these criteria are the most important, broad criteria for effective giving.

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