If, in a given year, you’re both going to:

1) donate to charity, and
2) sell stocks (or ether, or bitcoins, etc.) that have gone up in value

You should donate the stocks (or ether or bitcoins) directly to the charity, rather than selling and donating the proceeds. This way the charity ends up with more money and you pay less in income taxes.

Example:
Suppose you bought $1000 worth of ether, and it’s now worth $2000. Consider two possibilities, 1) you sell the ether and then donate the proceeds, or 2) you donate the ether directly to a charity that’s set up to accept them.

1) Sell and then donate. You pay 15% on long-term capital gains tax (see the edit below for assets held less than a year), leaving $1850 left to donate.

You can take an income tax deduction on this $1850, saving you ~$550 on your income taxes (depending on bracket).

So the charity gets $1850, and you save ~$550 on...

Hate hurting animals, but love eating meat? Throw money at the problem!

Farm animals seem to live in pretty miserable conditions.

I’m confused about whether to consider animals conscious in the way that humans are conscious (or in a way that I should care about). But in the interest of ethical caution, I’d prefer not to contribute to animal suffering.

I like eating meat, and am in general quite convenience-motivated, so I’d prefer not to go vegan or vegetarian.

So what to do?

My preferred solution is to purchase ethics offsets by donating to charities that work for the welfare of farm animals. If I donate enough, I can alleviate more suffering than I cause, and come out on net as an animal Champion and Protector.

I am not sure how much money it takes to alleviate as much suffering as eating meat causes, but I’d guess that $1 per day of meat consumption is more than enough.

I last...