Charity Suggestions

Charity Navigator lists 5 good candidates within 50 miles. (there's 6 on list, but one's rated rather low)

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Charity Navigator rates charities based on their financial health, which is generally a good measure of whether they will last and whether they will make good use of the donation. You can check out how much of their money goes to paying a CEO and raising funds versus actually doing something.

Of those, there's several animal rescue groups, one animal specific conservation group, and an aviary.

The Ruffed Grouse Society in Corapolis, PA would probably be a good choice as it combines an unusual focus (grouse and woodcock) with conservation and is very highly rated for financial health. It focuses on grouse, woodcock, and songbirds, along with preserving the habitat that supports them. They also hold seminars for private land owners on how to manage their land to benefit birds. It's headquartered nearby, but has lots of affiliates across the US. My father, head of a Land Trust here in CT, has gone to several conservation and wildlife management workshops here. So some of the folks that attend Anthrocon may go home and be able to find a local affiliate to work with.

The one downside, that might knock it right off the list, is that it does support limited, managed hunting. Some groups do work from the philosophy that it's better to have the hunters be allies and advocates of conserving habitat than get into a 'us versus them' mentality that conservation automatically means total hands off. Hunters and fisherman are often some of the largest contributors to conservation groups. This may not sit well with some furs, so may knock them off the list.

However, they could make for a very interesting choice for just that reason. Asking them at charity presentation to cover why they think hunting and conservation can go together might be very illuminating. From the cons I've been too, furs seem to go very much for the "big tent" approach that everyone is welcome. We may not agree with each other 100%, but we can all agree we love animals. The Ruffed Grouse Society would probably make a very interesting presentation and expose a lot of furs to a viewpoint that hadn't entirely considered. It would probably be one of the most educational choices since they deal with a lot of subjects most furs aren't as familiar with in anything other than an abstract way.

The completely non controversial choice would be Animal Friend of Pittsburgh, which is a no kill animal shelter. It's highly rated and everyone can get behind saving pets.

Something VERY local to Pittsburgh would probably be the best bet from all angles. I would recommend the Pittsburgh PD K9 unit, if they have any sort of support program, but because they are a government entity, I do not know if that would qualify per your legal definition of an acceptable charity.

If that is the case - does the county have a "River Keeper" program, or any sort of riparian habitat restoral, or anything meant to foster aquatic life in the rivers which bound Pittsburgh? The city has done a marvelous job of cleaning out the grime of its steel- and coke-making industry from the buildings, but I bet that the rivers could use something, and that there is probably someone or something of a community-based, non-governmental organisation working to do just that.

I might as well get this out of the way now. Gets the flames over sooner. WHy does the Charity have to be Animal related? Wouldn't it give us some good press if we supported something like BreastCancer research or a Children's Hospital?