Before you donate to any non-profit organization please make sure they are:
1. Locally based and operated –
This means if it is based in Kenya it should be run by Kenyans, if it is based
in Mexico it should be run by Mexicans, you get the idea. People have a much
higher rate of success if they are intimately familar with the culture and
community they are operating in.
2. Small – Large non-profits have HUGE overhead that often eats up the majority of your donation. If the organization can’t tell you exactly what percentage of your donations will go to the program you are interested in supporting, don’t donate. I would say looking for NGOs that have an annual budget of under 1 million US dollars is a good guage for determining if an NGO is small.
3. Focus on community involvement –
All NGOs say they do this but true community involvement is time consuming and
often a protracted process. It is hard for NGOs to find support for the
countless meetings and travel to ensure a communities priorities are
incorporated into the work. The long term success of projects is entirely based
on community involvement from the first day of project. Ask questions of NGOs
about how they involve the community and if their answer is they hold
informational meetings to tell the community what they are doing instead of letting
the communities tell them what needs to be done, don’t donate. DO DONATE to
organizations who make the time and effort to let communities set the
priorities for projects.
Here is a list of some organizations that focus on saving sharks. !!!!WARNING!!! I have not vetted these organization and encourage you to follow the guidelines above before donating to these organizations.
www.saveoursharks.com.au/Save_Our_Sharks_-_About_Us.html
To learn more about sharks
and the crisis they are facing visit the links below. !!!WARNING!!!! These links
contain graphic foorage of shark finning and shark fishinging operation.