"To give or not to give that is the question?"

Shakespeare would certainly say this if there were charity organisations asking for money in his days. There are so many charity bodies out there and which one should you support?

I received a telephone call from OXFAM day before yesterday. "Good Evening Ms Hoh, I am calling from OXFAM, do you have a minute to spare?" The ever so polite me would never be rude to tele-marketeers as they are only making a living. "Yes, what is it regarding?" Then came the sales pitch..... something to do with Sudan and that villagers and children are drinking dirty water etc. I had to stop her there .... "Yes, I am aware and I have been supporting Save the Children. I'm sure that part of my money will also go to the same place". And then came the hard sell .... they are not the same and that blah blah blah. At this point, I said I prefer to support my preferred charity and thank her for her time. In such circumstances, what would you have done? I have limited resources and there are so many of them - which do I choose? I would love to help them all if I could but there are too many using charity as a product. I recently read an article in Reader's Digest about "Where does your charity cash go?" and found what I read quite disturbing. Some organisation, I won't say which - only used 66% of the fund for real charity work and the rest goes to administration and running costs for their shops. Majority of those working in the charity shops are volunteers - so where does the money go?