By Dr. James M. Dahle, WCI Founder
There are five important money activities in your life, and it takes work to do them all well. These include:
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- Earning,
- Saving,
- Investing,
- Spending, and
- Giving.
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Today, we're going to be talking about giving. Giving to others and giving to charity without hurting people while also trying to make your dollar do as much good as possible is harder than you might think. We give money away every year, and from time to time, we enlist the aid of The White Coat Investor community to help us. We hope to inspire others in the community to also give generously of their means.
Annual Charity Meeting
Our family has an annual meeting where we choose the charities we want to support. Each member of the family chooses and advocates for a charity or three and then we split up the money we plan to donate between them. We hope this exercise helps our kids to become more charitable people and also teaches them how to give well. We expect that this tradition will continue even after we're gone since our kids will not be inheriting everything we leave behind.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays from our family to yours
Our selected charities this year took a more local focus than usual, for whatever reason. However, they were still guided by the scripture we view as a mission statement for our giving activities:
“Think of your brethren like unto yourselves, and be familiar with all and free with your substance, that they may be rich like unto you. But before you seek for riches, seek ye for the kingdom of God. And after ye have obtained a hope in Christ ye shall obtain riches, if ye seek them; and ye will seek them for the intent to do good—to clothe the naked, and to feed the hungry, and to liberate the captive, and administer relief to the sick and the afflicted.”
Here are the charities we decided to support this year:
Dad: Given the rapid rise of housing in Utah—both to buy and to rent—I felt like the homeless could use more support than usual this year. My choices reflected that.
- The Road Home (local homeless shelters)
- Fourth Street Clinic (local homeless clinic)
Mom: Katie also leaned strongly toward helping locally, but she also wanted to assist refugees, given their worldwide plight. Her choices this year were:
- Rescue Mission of Salt Lake (local homeless shelters)
- Catholic Community Services of Utah (soup kitchen)
- Utah Refugee Connection
Kid #1: Inspired by her trip to Ghana this year where she assisted with medical clinics, the establishment of a school, and getting a hearing impaired child into an appropriate school, she wanted to provide more financial support for the local charity making this all happen.
- Nurturing Nations
Kid #2: You never know what our free spirit is going to come up with at this meeting. This year, her favored charity buys medical debt—the leading cause of bankruptcy—from collection agencies for pennies on the dollar and then forgives it.
- RIP Medical Debt
Kid #3: Inspired by popular YouTubers, he again chose to try to help rid the oceans of plastic. We ended up choosing a different charity that does similar work this year. This one is focused on Hawaii and California.
- Ocean Defenders Alliance
Kid #4: She spent most of the meeting trying to do headstands or with her nose in the corner. In the end, she went with a charity we tend to support every year to help fight hunger locally.
- Utah Food Bank
We also reserved some money for the WCI community to help us give away. We thought about doing what Physician on FIRE does, asking each of our advertisers, partners, staff members, moderators, columnists, etc., for their favored charity and then donate $100 to each of them. But that sounded like A LOT of work.
We decided to just make fewer but larger donations as guided by our audience. Last year, we allowed people to vote for how we should give away $50,000 by commenting on a post. But there were very few repeated mentions of charities, so most of the winners only had one or two votes. This year, we're going to provide a little more guidance.
Below is a list of 30 relatively uncontroversial national and international charities. At some point in the next week, we'd like you to vote for one of them, and then, we'll donate to the top 10 vote recipients. If you think we should have included other charities on the list, please mention them in the comments and why they should be included. That will help other white coat investors to know about them, and perhaps they'll be on a list like this next year. We'll list your choices for 2022 in reverse alphabetical order.
What charities should the WCI Community support this year? (choose only one)
- YMCA (2%, 8 Votes)
- World Vision (6%, 24 Votes)
- World Resources Institute (0%, 1 Votes)
- Wikimedia Foundation (6%, 27 Votes)
- Volunteers of America (0%, 0 Votes)
- Vitamin Angels (0%, 2 Votes)
- United Way (2%, 10 Votes)
- The Rotary Foundation (1%, 6 Votes)
- St. Jude Children's Research Hospital (11%, 49 Votes)
- Shriners Hospitals for Children (3%, 15 Votes)
- Salvation Army (4%, 19 Votes)
- Matthew 25: Ministries (1%, 6 Votes)
- MAP International (0%, 2 Votes)
- Make a Wish Foundation (5%, 22 Votes)
- Heart to Heart International (0%, 1 Votes)
- Habitat for Humanity (9%, 38 Votes)
- Goodwill Industries (1%, 5 Votes)
- Givewell (5%, 22 Votes)
- Give Directly (3%, 11 Votes)
- Feeding America (9%, 40 Votes)
- Enterprise Community Partners (0%, 0 Votes)
- Easter Seals (0%, 2 Votes)
- Doctors Without Borders (12%, 51 Votes)
- Direct Relief (1%, 4 Votes)
- Cool Earth (3%, 12 Votes)
- Boys and Girls Clubs (4%, 16 Votes)
- Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (3%, 14 Votes)
- Americares (0%, 2 Votes)
- American National Red Cross (3%, 12 Votes)
- American Cancer Society (3%, 12 Votes)
Total Voters: 433

Feel free to campaign for your choice (or lament the fact that your favorite charity is not on the list) in the comments section below!
Are any of these charities oriented to foster care?
I am sorry to see Wounded Warriors is not on this list. They come back Emotionally, Psychologically and Physically broken. I would appreciate it if you can include them in your list
A great charity that we’ve given to before. But alas, there are lots and lots of great charities and we wanted to keep the list manageable.
Don’t know for sure. What do you see as the best foster care charities?
International Justice Mission or IJM
IJM is working to end modern day slavery.
Children, women and men face the reality of modern slavery, exploitation and abuse every day because people in power prey on the vulnerabilities that poverty creates. We’re on a mission to partner with local communities to build a more just world where everyone can expect to be safe and protected.
We love organizations working toward that cause.
Love that you included the WCI community for this vote.
Please consider Integrate Health next year!
Thank you!
I will defer to my father who served six years in WWII in the British Army. He passed away in 1995 having emigrated in 1952 with $200 in his pocket.
He gave money to the Salvation Army for the rest of his life. This was his only chosen charity.
Interesting. Not sure I could support just one though with all the great causes out there.
I would nominate the Familia Dysautonomia Foundation which helps fund research for treatments of a rare, genetic, neurological disease.
https://familialdysautonomia.org/
Thank you!
I think you and all readers should donate to the kingdom healthcare system. https://www.kingdom-hcs.org/
It is a nonprofit that provides free health care to the uninsured and underinsured. It was founded by an amazing husband wife physician team that invests the majority of their own time and finances to serve others for years through their ministry and charitable foundation.
They inspire me and countless others to serve society rather than ourselves with our gifts and talents!
Thank you for sharing!
As a follow-up to my previous post. I feel that the charities listed in the survey while all worthy of your support; those charities that are not as well known and need support to continue their mission should be considered. NYU Langone is the leading medical center in the treatment of familia dysautonomia.
https://med.nyu.edu/departments-institutes/neurology/divisions-centers/autonomic-disorders
Thank you for sharing another great cause worthy of support.
I realize your chosen charities are to benefit humans however I favor a charity that rescues innocent animals that were abused, and or tossed out like trash, by humans.
This charity is a no-kill shelter in St Louis. Founded over 25 years ago by a flight attendant in a garage, Stray Rescue of St Louis is now responsible for finding homes, and providing much needed medical care, for thousands of dogs (and cats), including one of my 3 rescue dogs. https://www.strayrescue.org
Good idea.
Please consider The International Rescue Committee (IRC) ((https://www.rescue.org/)), The Equal Justice Initiative (https://eji.org/about/), and The World Central Kitchen (https://wck.org/). Each of these charities is helping significantly underserved populations with most of the donations actively helping those in need. Both the Equal Justice Initiative and World Central Kitchen have perfect scores on Charity Navigator.
Thanks for the great suggestions!
Great idea! Please put Lifting Hands International on your list in the future.
Please consider the following, too:
Tunnel to Towers Foundation
Gary Sinise Foundation
Folds of Honor Foundation
Wounded Warrior Project
Catholic Relief Services for services in international places like the Ukraine.
This is such a wonderful idea. I love getting young people engaged in charitable giving. There are so many deserving organizations on your list. One to consider in the future is Lazarex Cancer Foundation. They believe that a person’s bank account shouldn’t dictate whether they can participate in FDA-approved cancer clinical trials, so they reimburse patients (and a companion when needed) for travel costs to clinical trial sites.
First Descents- providing opportunities for those under 40 diagnosed with cancer and MS to learn an outdoor adventure activity (also supported First Responders over the pandemic)
Or Samfund grant through the Expect Miracles Foundation – helps young adults get their financial footing following cancer treatment.
Now that’s a charity I could get involved with personally.
My suggestion is not a specific charity, but rather to include links to the charities in the future. Otherwise the most well known charities are likely to be chosen via name recognition. Also, many of us are trying to think through our own year end giving and links would allow us all to learn more about some worthwhile charities that we may want to donate to. Thanks!
Good thinking!
Thank you for highlighting charity! So many of us are so lucky, while so many others have such monumental challenges.
Please consider Project Peanut Butter in the future. https://www.projectpeanutbutter.org/
Provides ready to use therapeutic food to malnourished children in Malawi, Sierra Leone and Ghana. They help put extremely vulnerable children on a correction course for health that pays dividends for decades to come.
Second vote for Project Peanut Butter
For the last 5 years I focused all my donations on Doctors without borders. Meanwhile, these donations are also part of my written investment plan. I try to increase the donations every year, probably I will switch to monthly donations in the year coming.
Merry Christmas to everybody!
A great charity we love supporting. My only beef with them is they spend 10% raising more money. Price of “doing business” I guess. Clearly it has a good ROI for them, but I just hate seeing my money going toward glossy charity porn. Same way I feel when I see Vanguard ads.
I like to support The Conservation Fund. This is an excerpt that they sent me thanking me for my donation and it explains why I donate to them:
With your gift, you are helping combat some of the greatest environmental challenges facing communities and landscapes in the United States — from climate change, resource depletion, habitat loss and more. With over 35 years of experience, The Conservation Fund has led local, state, and national land conservation efforts — protecting over 8.5 million acres of America’s most important landscapes.
Not only do our conservation projects protect important wild and green spaces, but we work with local partners to find solutions that help uplift the communities we work in. When we come together, whether in large cities or rural areas, we know we are building a more sustainable future and providing innovative and inclusive solutions for protecting American communities and landscapes.
I recommend CMMA (Christian Medical Ministry of Alabama) which exists to help those in medical training survive intact and even thrive during training. Therefore it helps students and residents deal with many life issues, including finances, and thus often refers people to WCI for financial advice.
Cool. Haven’t heard of that one.
Here are the winners by the way:
Doctors Without Borders
St. Jude’s Childrens Research Hospitals
Feeding America
Habitat for Humanity
Wikimedia Foundation
World Vision
Make a Wish Foundation
GiveWell
Salvation Army
Boys and Girls Club