Fazana Ismail throws birthday parties for kids she doesn’t know. Why? Because they are homeless, and she wants them to enjoy the simple pleasures of childhood, feeling like stars for the day the way her own children do.

This is charity at its best — straight from the heart. Ismail asks for nothing in return. Her reward, she says, is the joy she sees in the children she celebrates.

Like many charities, the givers are recipients, too. Ismail told us about the many helpers she has at the party she hosts in four area shelters — some of the helpers are Scouts or kids from church groups. “Parents says it’s hard to explain the concept of poverty to their children,” Ismail told us. “A birthday is something all kids can relate to.”

She said of poverty, “It becomes a lot more real when they help with these parties. Parents are often nervous, not sure they want their children to play with homeless children.” But then they come to the party, she said, and both parents and children realize, “These kids are just like them.”

That realization is priceless, and one that would serve all humanity.

Ismail, as a busy working mother, has not had time to take her mission to the next level, incorporating as a not-for-profit. Maybe one of our readers will be moved to help her with that. We hope so. Many donors want a tax write-off.

Fund-raising is big business in New York State. Every year for the last 12, Attorney General Eric Schneiderman has put out a report called “Pennies for Charity: Where Your Money Goes.” This spring’s report called New York “the Silicon Valley of not-for-profits.”

New Yorkers benefit from this robust giving, the report says, with the highest total number and the second-highest workforce percentage of not-for-profit employees in the nation. As of 2010, over 18 percent of New York private-sector employment was in not-for-profits, which employed more than 1.25 million workers and paid out more than $57 billion in wages. And the numbers are growing — the job count at not-for-profits in New York grew by 17 percent from 2000 to 2010 while, in the same decade, the state’s for-profit sector lost 6 percent of its jobs.

The attorney general’s report focuses on telemarketing for charities. Last year, for-profit telemarketers registered in New York reported raising more than $302 million for charity, a 20-percent increase over the year before and the most ever reported by the attorney general.

The surprise is that not quite half — 48 percent — went to the charities themselves. That is the highest percentage of total funds raised by telemarketers that went to charities in the last 12 years. How many people realize that half of what they are donating isn’t going to the charity itself?

While the United States Supreme Court has ruled that charitable solicitation is protected by the First Amendment, it remains an expensive way to raise funds. The attorney general’s report notes that telemarketing encourages “me too” charities, with names that sound like established charities, and that typically anonymous telephone calls come from staff often at a remote call center.

The “Pennies for Charity” report, available online by searching for that title, is useful because it lists 573 charities and the percentage of funds each received. If you get a call soliciting funds, you can easily check the report before donating. For example, if you’re someone that wants to help animals and are considering a donation to Adirondack Save-A-Stray, you could see that just 20 percent of its collected funds actually went to the charity. On the other hand, 78.72 percent of the funds collected for the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals went to that charity.

The Leukemia and Lymphoma Society Inc. was the charitable organization receiving the most funds, $50.6 million, and also gave the highest percentage to charity, 99.67 percent; the report notes that, unlike most telemarketing campaigns, this percentage was likely the result of work done by unpaid volunteers.

The report also breaks down, by counties in eight regions, the gross receipts with the net to charity and the percentage retained by charities. The Capital District, with $4.95 million in gross receipts had just 30 percent go to charities. The region with the highest percent — 85.5 — going to charity was the lower Hudson Valley and that with the lowest — 10.8 percent — was central New York and the eastern Adirondacks.

The attorney general asks the people or organizations who know of false, misleading, or deceptive solicitations to report them to the Attorney General’s Charities Bureau so they can be investigated. The report also has some useful advice to keep in mind next time you pick up the phone and hear a solicitation:

— Ask what programs the charity conducts and how much of your donation will be used for the charitable programs;

— By law, you should be told the name of the professional fundraiser conducting the campaign and that the caller is being paid; ask how much the telemarketer is being paid and how much the charity is guaranteed.

— Don’t give to charities you don’t know, and don’t use a credit card. Checks are safest.

— Be wary of callers who pressure you to give; worthy charities should give you time to make up your mind.

Although many big charities do worthwhile work, we have some advice of our own: Look close to home when you want to give. Week in and week out, The Enterprise carries news of worthwhile fundraisers right in your community.

Sometimes it’s a spaghetti dinner to help a child stricken with cancer or an ice-cream social to help a family burned out by fire. Other times it’s a chicken barbecue to preserve the stained class windows in a historic church, or a barn dance to pay for a ramp to let people who use wheelchairs ride horses. Often, it’s a plea from the Community Caregivers to give of yourself, to volunteer your time and talents, so the elderly or needy can stay in their own homes.

And last week, as we noted at the outset, it was about one woman’s mission to make homeless children feel special. Making these children, our future, feel like stars can light the firmament for all of us.

Charity, after all, begins at home.

— Melissa Hale-Spencer