It’s the third day of my annual 12 Days of Charitable Giving. Each of the 12 charities that I’ll be featuring in the series was suggested by a reader as a charity that could use a boost this holiday season. I’ll be posting one a day for – well, 12 days (I’m clever that way).
Our third charitable organization is VillageReach. VillageReach was founded in 2000 by Blaise Judja-Sato. Their mission is “to save lives and improve well being in developing countries by increasing last-mile access to healthcare and investing in social businesses that address gaps in community infrastructure.” VillageReach aims to improve access to healthcare for remote, underserved communities around the world.
VillageReach was suggested by an anonymous reader who says:
It improves medical logistics, in particular the cold chain for vaccines, so that more infants receive a basic set of shots. Diseases like diphtheria, measles, and polio sound historical to us, but in Mozambique, about 1 in 15 unvaccinated children die from them.
Medical logistics doesn’t give anyone the warm-and-fuzzies, but the VillageReach approach works. Independent analysis by givewell.org shows that for $50, VillageReach delivers vaccines to one infant who otherwise would not have been inoculated. That works out to one child’s life saved per roughly $650 donated. Few if any other charities produce comparable bang for the buck.
You can make a donation by clicking here. You can also mail a check to:
VillageReach
601 North 34th Street
Seattle, WA 98103, USA
A search at irs.gov (which I highly recommend any time you are considering making a donation) confirms that VillageReach is on the IRS list of charitable organizations as a public charity.
For tax tips to keep in mind when making charitable gifts, check out this prior post.
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