What's the best place to donate/invest to make the most positive world change?

The best answer is .......yourself.

Take your 10% and use it for what you think lowers your impact on the planet the most. For example, you could donate 10% to solar advocacy organizations, or you could get solar hot water. You could donate 10% to alternative fuel organizations or add extra insulation to your house. Rather than support an organization, support the results you are after first hand.

By voting with your wallet on the end use answers directly, you will make a bigger statement than any middleman or organization.

(BEWARE-You may end up saving money rather than expending it, doubling your "problem".)

 

Its not the enviroment and maybe not 10% but if you have cash for helping change lives these guys make it possible for autistic kids to get ABA therapy and learn life skills their parents cant teach them. ABA is intensive one on one teaching 7 hours a day. The grant takes applications and interviews parents and children then helps pay for tuition which runs $36,000 a year. Out of reach for most families and not covered by insurance. The money is given directly to the school, the parents dont even touch it.

Autism Grant

 

The most important donation you can make is to a land conservation organization, perhaps your local land trust. If we don't conserve land now, it will be gone forever and we can't get it back.

And since several people have correctly identified clean water as a key world need, remember that undeveloped land is where we get our clean water from, for free.

Without a place to live, nothing else matters for humanity.

 

I don't see that it changes the sense of my comment if it was 1982, 1882, or 2082, but it's certainly harder to research things that happened, yes, more than a few years ago.

Although there wasn't an imminent strengthening of the bumper standard to 10 MPH, there had been a progression of strengthening up until that time. Your comment piqued my interest, and after doing a little internet research myself, I found the following. It fully supports my recollection that, "There was a move to raise it to 10 MPH."

IIHS The Highway Loss Reduction Status Report, May 17, 1979

IIHS Study Shows 5, 7.5 MPH Bumper Benefits

An insurance Institute for Highway Safety analysis of 32 bumper designs for 1978 and 1979 automobiles has indicated that the majority of the current 5 mph bumpers will produce substantially more consumer net benefits over the lifetime than would similar bumpers built to meet only 2.5 mph barrier impact requirements.

The benefits would be even greater for 7.5 mph bumpers, the study indicated.

The 32 bumper designs represent more than 50 percent of the bumper designs used by auto makers in the 1979 model year.

Filing comments in the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) review of the present Part 581 bumper standard (see Status Report, Vol. 14, No. 4, March 8, 1979), the Institute suggested three changes in the standard to make it more effective. Offered for NHTSA consideration were these proposals:
...
Adapting new test criteria to require that a bumper system "be able to prevent damage to itself and its car in 10 mph front-to-rear direct and angled car-to-car impacts, both with and without the pitch-dive effect of one or both cars being braked just prior to impact."
​

It goes on to criticize what might have been some auto-industry shill study, already in 1979 attempting to weaken the standard.

This might be a better summary than the nhtsa.gov one you quoted:

7. What happened to tougher bumper performance standards?
In 1982, the federal government bowed to pressure from automakers and rolled back impact test requirements from 5 to 2.5 mph for 1983 and later model cars. The 2.5 mph standard also allows unlimited damage to the bumper and attachments. The principal argument used to justify the rollback of federal requirements was that 2.5 mph bumpers would weigh less -- thus reduce gas consumption -- and would cost $18-35 (1982 dollars) less per car. The government argued that consumers would spend more money on a car with 5 mph bumpers and on gas than they would save from lower repair bills. In fact, Institute testing has repeatedly shown that bumper performance is not related to weight...
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Money talks. Therefore:

- Donate to the election campaigns of Congressional Democrats who are not from coal producing states. They will do the most to decide the future.

- Push the technology by using fossil-free power. Install your own Solar system, or buy 100% fossil-free power from your electric utility.