The proceeds from the sale of my art goes to one of five charities. Each of these charities are doing an excellent job helping people help themselves and have received the highest marks given by Charity Navigator Rating.
ACCION INTERNATIONAL - providing small loans for hardworking families so they can work their way out of poverty. For example, clients can purchase laying hens for eggs to sell at the market or used sewing machines to enable a seamstress to make clothing to sell.
NEPAL YOUTH FOUNDATION - bringing hope through education to the most destitute children in Nepal.
FISTULA FOUNDATION - provides care for women with childbirth injuries. Women in the poorest place on earth suffer from fistula due to unrelieved obstructed labor. Fistula causes incontinence; forcing formerly vibrant women to lead lives of shame and despair. Fistula surgery costs about $600 and about 90% of them are repairable. It is estimated that 30,000 to 130,000 new cases of fistula develop each year in Africa alone.
PRAJWALA or ETERNAL FLAME - rescues women from brothels and educates their children to prevent second-generation prostitution. Prajwala runs 17 schools for 5,000 children and has rescued more than 2,500 women from prostitution in India. Sunitha Krtushnan co-founded Prajwala and has personally liberated 1500 women. She established printing and furniture shops that have rehabilitated some 300 survivors. Krishnan works closely with the government to define anti-trafficking policy, and her recommendations for rehabilitating sex victims have been passed into state legislation.
ESPERANZA WOMEN'S SHELTER (SANTA FE, NM) - shelters those threatened by domestic violence and helps shape their lives.
The only money I take out of the total cost is for taxes and cost of the frame (if there is one). The cost of materials -- paint and canvasses - is never deducted.
