How To! | Give to a Good Cause—and Make It Count

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4 • 1.1K Ratings

🗓️ 2 December 2025

⏱️ 39 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

With the year-end giving season underway, you might be wondering how much to donate and where you can make the biggest impact. On this Giving Tuesday, How To!’s Courtney Martin brings on Grace Chiang Nicolette of the Center for Effective Philanthropy to explain how to pick the right organizations and ensure your dollar goes as far as possible—regardless of how much you’re giving. You can hear more of Grace on her podcast, Giving Done Right. If you liked this episode, check out How To Harness Your Citizen Superpowers and How To Lead Your Local Nonprofit. Do you have a problem that needs solving? Send us a note at [email protected] or leave us a voicemail at 646-495-4001 and we might have you on the show. Subscribe for free on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen. The show is produced by Rosemary Belson and Sophie Summergrad. Our technical director is Merritt Jacob and our supervising producer is Joel Meyer. Get more of How To! with Slate Plus! Join for exclusive bonus episodes of How To! and ad-free listening on all your favorite Slate podcasts. Subscribe from the How To! show page on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Or, visit slate.com/howtoplus for access wherever you listen. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Think about cheese.
0:02.0	Make your thoughts cheesier.
0:04.2	Now add 100% chicken breast fillet,
0:06.3	Chipotle sauce and Amadea cheese melt.
0:08.3	And it's giving the new cheesy chicken stack at McDonald's.
0:12.0	Did we mention it's cheesy?
0:13.9	Cheese.
0:15.8	Availments with the 4th of Jan, 226 from 11 a.m.
0:18.1	Plus and participation may vary.
0:19.2	Subjects availability.
0:22.8	Sophie. Your family, how did of Jan 2026 from 11 a.m. Plus, and participation may vary. Subject's availability. Sophie,
0:28.8	your family had a tradition involving charitable giving over the holidays. Tell me about that.
0:35.7	Yeah. Hey, everyone. I'm Sophie Summergrad, one of the producers here on How To. And when I was a kid around eight or nine, my parents would always try to get us some
0:37.9	kind of present for every night of Hanukkah. They'd be fairly small things, you know, a doll I'd
0:44.1	asked for, or some kind of toy. Maybe you're going to get like a gift card or something. Maybe I'll
0:49.4	get to go to Dunkin' Donuts and get a box of munchkins or something. My Massachusetts is coming out in terms of what I think is exciting.
0:57.5	And instead, you get this really, really lovely donation from my mom that was in my name
1:05.4	or my brother's name.
1:07.0	And almost always, this donation went to Heifer International.
1:11.0	Wow.
1:11.9	Where you're able to sponsor an animal for another family, but as an eight-year-old, you're a little
1:18.5	like, okay, thank you so much.
	...

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