My personal feeling is that setting up your own foundation is going to create administrative costs that persist after your death. In addition, it seems to me that there are SO many charitable organizations, many of them small and struggling, that there must be inefficiencies created because of duplication.
So I would choose to select a few organizations that use funds with low administrative costs and that focus on my particular interests. I also like to give where my money goes directly to the work in question.
Some of the smaller local organizations may be somewhat obscure, but you may find them in your community. The larger ones are listed on CharityNavigator.com, where they are rated by the percentage of donates that go to the cause rather than administrative and fund raising efforts.
I agre with Ann. I give locally and to select groups (usually church related and not necessarily my denomination) as I trust them and know they will use the funds wisely. I also give to local schools. Unless you are dealing with a very large amount of money I can't see the costs being worth setting up your own foundation.
I give to local charities or charities that help a lot of people in my area that have combined fund-raising and administrative costs around 10% or less. A lot of times the smaller ones have a higher fund-raising and administrative cost.
There is a local branch of a charity that we work with to make houses more handicap accessible for kids.
