Editorial: It's hard to know which good cause to support

There are so many causes competing for our money these days. Almost every week is an appeal week for one charity or another.

Today is the annual pink ribbon street appeal for the New Zealand Breast Cancer Foundation.

It's a great cause.

But so is Daffodil Day and Anzac Day and Red Nose Day and all the other days and months.

I try to do my part by donating money to good causes but it's impossible to support them all.

I feel bad every time I politely decline to donate to a volunteer collecting on the street.

And it's not just street collections any more. Many shops ask if you would like to donate a dollar to their charity of choice when you are making your purchase. I feel stingy every time I refuse to add a dollar on to my already large bill but I can't afford to say "yes" every time.

Now there are websites such as Givealittle competing for our donations as well.

There are so many causes worthy of support.

We write about them all the time: the young woman fundraising to help another young woman in South Sudan go to university, life-changing overseas surgery for kids who have a tough road ahead, financial support for families who can no longer work because of a life-changing medical diagnosis or accident, or terminally ill people fundraising to pay for non-funded treatments that are their last option.

They are all worth supporting. They will all improve the lives of, not only the person at the centre of the appeal, but their family and friends as well.

I rarely donate to Givealittle because there are just too many good causes to choose between.

Because there are so many such causes, my criteria for a worthy one are high.

Tauranga man Allan Mitchell has a chequered past. A few weeks ago, the terminally ill man set up a Givealittle page to pay for a potentially life-saving drug. Soon after, he admitted his company was convicted in 2008 of selling pills that falsely claimed to make women's breasts larger and firmer.

In today's Bay of Plenty Times Weekend, he admitted being sentenced to three-and-a-half years of jail after being convicted of misappropriating more than $400,000 of client money in 1999.

Givealittle has investigated his past and has made sure all funds are paid directly to a bank account at Braemar Hospital.

He is terminally ill and in need of help as much as anyone else and his past shouldn't make a difference, but it does.

Faced with so many worthy causes to choose between, I would think twice about donating to someone with a past like his.

In saying that, I would feel equally guilty for not donating to them.

There are only so many causes you can give to but, unfortunately, the sheer number of options means you end up saying "no" more often than "yes".