A Kid's Guide To Giving

Making A Difference
A Kid's Guide To Giving - Review
By Cynthia Kirkeby
Oct 25, 2007, 10:53am

Freddi Zeiler is a teenager with a mission: teach other teens some of the basics of philanthropy to help them learn to give to charity in a responsible manner. Her book, A Kid's Guide To Giving stresses the need to research the organizations you donate to before you spend your time and money supporting them. In some cases the group may not be a valid nonprofit organization at all, in other cases you may find that you don't like the organization's tactics or politics, or you may find out that the organization spends too much on overhead and not enough on its chosen venture.

A Kid's Guide to Giving discusses why kids should get involved in philanthropy, how to donate money or in-kind gifts, and how to go about contributing their time and energy while maximizing their donations. Freddi has learned that you can earn a lot more for your chosen organizations if you work with sponsors and organize fund-raisers, and she takes you step by step through a number of strategies for doing just that.

There are a number helpful "worksheets" in the book, although they're more of an outline for a worksheet than something you can directly use. In many cases there isn't nearly enough room to fill out the section, or a particular item may need to be filled out multiple times and there is only one space available, however, if you think of them more like a checklist to making your own forms the information is quite helpful.

A large section of the book is a list of charitable organizations that Freddi has researched and profiled to save the student the work. She gives the mission statement for each organization, a rough idea of how they'll spend the money, a breakdown of how much of your money actually reaches it's goal and doesn't get eaten up by fees and overhead, contact information and unique things to keep in mind. My favorite part of her profiles is the "Break it out" section. I think everyone should keep in mind exactly how efficient their charitable organization are in handling their funds.

This was a surprisingly well organized book for such a young writer. I recommend this for anyone interested in getting involved in charitable endeavors, whether they are young or old. She has assembled excellent information in this charitable primer.