Last Minute Charity- Soup Kitchen?

Darkewolfe

A friend is getting remarried (second marriage), and he and his fiance are both pretty solidly set up in their lives. Rather than buy the usual wedding gifts, my sister and I plan on donating to charity in the couple's name, since I think that's what he'd want. Unfortunately, I completely spaced and forgot to research my charities ahead of time. The wedding is at the end of the week, and I'm not particularly familiar with making charitable donations as gifts.

First off: thematically, we were hoping to find a charity that involved food. The wife-to-be is a restaurant owner, so we figured it would be appropriate to find some sort of hunger charity or soup kitchen. Any similarly related ideas are welcome, though.

Can anyone recommend a charity as well as tips on making a gift out of this? Thanks!

Darkewolfe

In a quick search, the first thing I turned up is:

https://www.alternativegifts.org/projects/project6/

What are the best ways to evaluate whether a charity is one of the good ones (most of your donations go toward the cause and not propping up the charity/organization itself)?

VisionOfClarity

I donate to local groups I'm familiar with and many of whom I've worked with or have friends who work with. Most of them have options for Gift Donations or Tribute Donations on their websites.

Szechuanosaurus

There was some guy on Jamie Oliver's American Roadtrip who has basically devoted his life to feeding homeless immigrants. That guy seems pretty cool and pretty much relies on handouts I guess. Lemme see if I can find his name.

Szechuanosaurus

Here he is. I think this is the same guy - http://anangelinqueens.org/

Although C4 were calling him George and that guy is called Jorge but that might just be Channel 4 being retarded and British.

But I mean, look, he's got an endorsement from one of the biggest celebrity chefs and restaurateurs in the UK. So that's pretty cool. See if you can get Jamie to send a signed photo for the gift card or something.

AtomBomb

I work for a nonprofit. ANY nonprofit will let you give them money and put someone else's name on the gift. In my town we have this cool place called Cafe 54. It's a nice downtown restaraunt/caterer that hires folks who are recovering from mental illness. I try to get my place to order from them whenever I can.

Darkewolfe

Alright, so the other half of the question. What are the best ways to evaluate a charity's history of using money the right way?

DeathPrawn

Charity Navigator is a great resource for both finding charities to donate to and getting more detailed info on ones you're interested in (i.e. how/how quickly they're going to use your money)

FightTest

I've been volunteering at a soup kitchen for about 2.5 years now, I know we certainly take any monetary donations and as far as checking the place out our website gives info on how long we've been around, how many breakfasts/lunches we serve on average per day, how many food bags we give out, number of families/children, etc..

Shouldn't be that hard to find a charity in your area with something similar. Just type in your local decent-ish sized city area and "soup kitchen" or whatever in Google and you should find something.