When giving to charity, time can sometimes be more valuable than money and sometimes money is more valuable. For instance, if an attorney that charges $400 an hour donates 10 hours of legal services, then that donation is significantly more valuable than a $1,000 donation. In some cases, it may even be more valuable than a $5,000 donation. Conversely, however, that same attorney may get more personal value from volunteering in a soup kitchen where they are somewhat anonymous and just like any other volunteer. When determining whether to give your time or your money, here are three things to consider.
Needs of the organization
Almost all non-profits can benefit from financial donations, but not all organizations can properly utilize the same size of the gift. For instance, a large national or international organization has the infrastructure in place to easily use a donation of over $1 million, but a small, local organization may not. Conversely, however, a $1 million donation would simply be swallowed up as a drop in the bucket of an international organization, whereas a $1 million influx may be a major boon to a mid-sized local organization.
Your personal needs
The more of a personal stake you have in a cause, the more it can help you feel like you are personally making a difference. This is why it is important to also evaluate your own needs, rather than just those of the organization. There is nothing wrong with just giving money, and most organizations can use it, but sometimes being more hands-on provides more personal value.
Constraints of the organization
As much as your personal needs are important, there are also sometimes legal and logistical constraints that need to be considered. For instance, volunteers may want to become personally involved and invested in relief efforts after a major disaster. In order for those efforts to do more harm than good, they need to be coordinated by an organization that has the infrastructure in place to do so. If they get more volunteers than they can successfully coordinate, it can create chaos and simply exacerbate the damage. In other cases, there may be legal issues, such as working with abused children or individuals coming out of sex-trafficking. Wanting to be personally invested is always good, but your own needs still have to be balanced with those of the organization.