Describing a Charity

Do you have a favorite charity? In this post I’ll talk about how to talk about charities and what they do.

This is topic 21 from the self-assessment guide called "30 Topics to Gauge Your Fluency and Practice Your Use of English in Conversation.” It says, “Tell Me About a Charity You Would Donate To.” If you want to talk about donating to a charity, here are some things you might mention. First, name the charity or organization. Often, a charity is affiliated with a larger organization that it serves. For example, there are charities associated with hospitals and medical research organizations or organizations that provide support for colleges or universities.

You’ll want to describe what the charity does and who they help or serve. Usually a charity will serve a specific segment of the population, like children, or a minority group, or veterans, or people with a certain illness. Some charities are in place to help animals. Sometimes a charitable organization helps people during or after an event such as when they’re attending college or when a natural disaster occurs. 

To continue describing why you would want to donate to your charity of choice, you should explain why it’s important to you. You could include the goals of the charity and explain how you came to know about it. It might be because of an interest in the organization’s mission or due to an experience you’ve had in your life. 

Finally, you can talk about how or what you donate. Usually people donate money, which is obvious, but you can also volunteer your time or influence to a charity, especially if they have special events. You might work with the organization in their offices, or interact with the people they help. Or you could use your influence to help bring in other donations. And if you donate money, you can explain how someone else can do that. Do you give once, or every year or every month, even? You should explain how someone can get in touch with the charity if they want to make a donation, or if they themselves need help. 

So let me tell you about a charity I plan to start donating to. It’s called St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital and it’s a hospital and research center that helps children with cancer. They treat the children and don’t charge the families for the treatment. The families never get a bill for medical expenses, which, in the U.S. are normally astronomically high. But not only that, St. Jude helps the families of the sick child with travel, housing, and food expenses as well. Their mission is that the families can fully focus on helping their child live. 

Also, St. Jude shares their cancer research with other organizations, in the hope that a cure for cancer can be found. If they make a discovery, they don’t keep that information to themselves for gain, they share it for the good of humanity. 

I think this is a wonderful organization because when you have a sick child, the last thing you want to be thinking about is money. These families already have so much to deal with, that adding expenses for the treatment of their child shouldn’t be a concern. St. Jude obviously takes care of the children, but they also care for the families, and I think that’s super important for the well-being of the kid. Their parents shouldn’t be stressed out about how to pay the bills because they are with their sick child and not at work. I also love that St. Jude gives them a place to stay during treatment, so that the family can be together. 

Thankfully, I haven’t had to experience this personally, but I love the mission of St. Jude. I believe that families should be together, especially in hard times like an illness. And of course the child needs his or her parents with them during a scary time like fighting cancer. 

If someone wants to support St. Jude, there are many ways to give. On their website, they state all the ways someone can donate money, either as a one-time gift, or through monthly donation. You can also organize a fundraiser to raise money for St. Jude, or you can find an event hosted by St. Jude and participate or donate there. I just saw on their website that there’s even an option to raise money through video game streaming. I’m not exactly sure what that means or how it works, but they offer a lot of opportunities to be able to support them. 

Do you have a favorite charity? Can you describe it? Remember, you can get all the fluency topics for this blog series on our website morefluentenglish.com. You can also listen to the podcast episode of this topic on the website or wherever you listen to podcasts.