I was really impressed with a personal response I found on another blog to one of the featured questions about what charities do you support, so I'm going to add to that.

I've knocked myself out for the CF foundation for years, and it really burns me that other charities will shell out actual money for advertisements and real actors (yes, they get paid) instead of sending every penny possible to research and helping patients pay for services and equipment they can't afford.  It's all a big sham.  Seems like no one has heard of the CF foundation because they DON'T do that, but it's so common that the U.S. is starting to do routine testing for it on all new babies.

Charities are far too easy to shrug off as 'I tossed a can of old sauerkraut to a food collection box at my kid's school...'

It's easy to shell out 5 bucks for a 'jean day' at work for breast cancer or something, without questioning the fact that your money was itemized into staff fees and publication costs and etc., not even going to the charity itself.

If you want to actually donate real money to a place where it will be USED for the actual CHARITY, find someone in your home town who has a real disease, has bills coming out their ears, and is needing help getting something done around the house.  In our area we used local fundraising to help pay for the rooming services for the pre-prep and recovery around a double lung transplant for a young lady with cystic fibrosis.  If you want your money to really be used for GOOD, that's that kind of stuff you do.