It all began with a blog post in response to one of the more invidious Kickstarter projects around.

I’m trying to get some similar-minded individuals together to make a difference where we can. Lots of us give to charities, large and small, throughout the year. Do More Club brings us together each month so we can pool our charitable donations to make a real difference for one charity.

How do I join the Club?

If you are reading this, you might already be a member. We have no formal membership lists, no dues, not meetings, and no leaders. I am organizing things here, but that’s the extent of it.

Each month, we’ll throw open the nomination list for suggestions of charities and other organizations that are doing good work but could really use a boost.

You can “join” by registering a user account here.

What charities are eligible?

There are no hard-and-fast rules for what qualifies, but we do have two guiding principles.

• Smaller is better. We aren’t looking to support the big ones. The Red Cross, Amnesty International, UNICEF, Doctors Without Borders, and the like have huge marketing footprints and our meager contributions would be but a drop in the bucket. Instead, we want to support smaller groups doing good work on a smaller scale. Groups feeding the homeless, supporting reading in a rural school, or trying to keep a neighborhood park enjoyable for the community are just a few examples. We have no illusions about changing these organizations overnight, but we do want to be able to give them an influx of money that can make a noticeable, discernible difference in their work.
• No religious charities. This is our most contentious rule. We (or most of us) have nothing against religion per se, and applaud the work of several religious charities, but many of us are non-Christians or atheists and aren’t comfortable supporting groups that espouse a particular religion. Besides, those groups have a lot less trouble raising money on their own. That being said, if you have a particular charity you want to see the club support, propose it and support your suggestion. Convince enough members and it’ll come up for a vote. This isn’t Wikipedia.

How do you pick the charity?

For the first two weeks of the month, nominations are open. Any registered user can nominate a charity for consideration by the club. Discussions occur here on the site, on Facebook, and wherever our members happen to congregate.

In week three, voting opens. The eligible charity that receives the most votes is endorsed by the club.

In the last week of the month, we each make our way to the endorsed charity’s website and make a donation in the amount of our choosing. We then report back with our donation amounts so we can keep a running tally of our per charity and cumulative donations.

This last part is entirely on the honor system. For various reasons, we are not handling money directly. This is just a club, not a charity in its own right.

At the end of the day, we just want to make charitable giving fun, interesting, and perhaps a little more effective.