The past few years, I've been donating to a charity that focuses on helping children who have cancer. I did a fair amount of research and feel confident that they use the funds better than most charities.
I also look around for local charities and donate a bit for things like sports equipment and whatnot.
Just thought I'd see what others are doing and maybe change it up this year.
Direct donation to individuals or fairly small orgs. Local food bank is about as "big" as I go.
I find even the local food banks are horribly corrupt.
The bigger ones are infiltrated with partisan apparatchiks and toadies.
The smaller ones are run by boomer AWFLs who make access impossible & collaborate with local jeet businesses to run scams.
Any suggestions on good ways to find individuals who are worthy of donating to?
Talk.
And not just to the money-collectors. Talk to the recipients and would-be recipients, if at all possible. See how much of a result is made. Obviously if you're doing something like supporting local authors/artists/scientists, the collector is often the recipient, it's direct, but for other things, you can learn a lot with even a passing conversation. The "friendly" homeless prefer one soup kitchen, apparently the others get the crazies too often and the operators don't stop the bad behavior.