Posts tagged giving

I’ve had some very generous donations to my online kettle for the Salvation Army. I’m excited that people love to support things like that. Feel free to keep donating by clicking the red kettle to the right. I’m almost half way to my goal, so keep helping!

I love looking at other things that can be done to help out and if you read Kelly’s comment from the last post, you’ll see a couple of good ideas.

I just wanted to highlight a few more and encourage more comments on what others can do.

My favorite is “Chrome for a Cause“. Click that link and check it out. But basically, you download the new browser and every time you open a new tab, donations are made. At the end of the day you get to decide which of the 5 charities get your money. This is amazing and everyone should be doing it. Most importantly…This ends December 19th. So, if you’re just gonna sit on your fat butt this holiday and surf the web, at least download chrome and help people who don’t have water. Plus, the new browser is pretty sweet, too.

Another one that has been around for a while is Operation Smile.It’s a good time of the year to help a kid smile. This organizations helps give free surgeries to repair cleft lip, cleft palate and other facial deformations to children all over the world. It’s great because there are so many different ways to help. You can simply send money by clicking the “donate online” button at the top. Or you can shop their catalog and purchase items that they need, like medicines or hospital gowns or for the big hearts, you can sponsor an operating table. They also have a “OneSmile” program where you make your own page and encourage friends and family to donate to help raise even more money.

Another great thing that people find fun is donating an animal. It’s a pretty cool idea. Two of the big ones are Oxfam and Heifer. They both work pretty much the same way. After little research, Oxfam seems more global and huge while Heifer seems more focused on certain groups (which I could be wrong about), but both are great. You basically “purchase” an item as a gift. Select anything like worms, baby chicks, goats, or a camel…whatever. And you pay for that and get a card to give to someone which would basically be like donating that in their name. But imagine how rewarding it would be to actually know that you sent a goat to a family so that they can have milk for years. That’s how you provide! Now, you’ll never even know, but do understand that in some cases, they may send different animals. They send what is needed. They try to send what is purchased but if 5,000 baby chicks are purchased and they don’t need baby chicks, then they will send something else. Like I said, you’ll never know anyway.

Finally, we come to the best of the best (in my personal opinion)…..Kiva. Please, someone tell me why this doesn’t have more publicity. I will break it down simply and you can do more research if you wish. Say you have $100 to donate. You can go to Kiva.org and put your money there. What you do is you select someone to receive your money. They list how much they need and their stories right on the site. You select the exact person who gets it. But here’s the twist. These aren’t starving people, these are entrepreneurs. These are workers who need money for their business. These businesses are in third world countries and they typically entail tools to help build a school or fencing for their cattle but they can be anything. Please check it out because I think it’s awesome. So….it gets better. You aren’t donating the money to them, but you are lending it. They make payments back to you through a field agent and they deposit this money back in your online account on the site. So when they repay your $100, you turn and give it to another person and so on. How awesome. Your $100 could inevitable help so many more people. These aren’t just starving children but workers who are fighting to rid their own town of starvation. It’s the whole “teach a man to fish” scenario.

So, there are just a few more. If nothing else, just send some links to others and maybe they donate because of you.

Again, have a great holiday…be super safe and don’t be afraid to open your wallet to people you don’t know. That will give you a feeling bigger than Christmas morning.