5 Fun Ways to Give to Charity on a Budget

Image by tstadler via Flickr

With all the messages of scarcity and economic gloom that dominate the media these days, its hard to feel secure enough to be able to give money to charity. But at times like this, your contibution is needed more than ever!

If you are finding it hard to fit charitable giving into your budget, check out these fun ways to give that don't cost the earth!!

1. Form a Giving Circle with Friends
Even if you only have a couple of dollars spare a week for charitable giving, by getting together a group of friends and pooling your donations every month you can really make a difference.

Nothing is more fun than hanging out with your friends - why not make a night of it each month to decide who will get your combined donations and to toast your own generosity!!

2. Grow a Vege Garden
Gardening is fun! And good for you - and it saves money which means you have more to give away. How about also planting more than you need and giving it to your local foodbank.

3. Hunt out Free Ways to Give Online
There are plenty of them! Try Better the World, NeoAid, Everywun or We Care. For more ideas check out 'Help From Home', an initiative that provides information on easy, no commitment volunteering opportunities that can all be performed from the comfort of home.

4. Volunteer
Volunteers are the lifeblood of most non-profit organisations. Even if you only have a few hours a month, there is bound to be something you can do! You get to learn new skills - or use ones you already have for a good cause. You'll meet new people and discover new things.

5. Host a Garage Sale
Organise a Garage Sale in your community and donate the profits to a local charity. Most of us have at least a few things lying around that we don't use - a garage sale is a great way to declutter, recycle and raise money for charity!

Share your ideas for philanthropy on a budget in the comments below!

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Bake Bread – Give Dough – Feed Africa!

The Worldwide Blogger Bake Off launched on October 15, 2008 with the aim of raising $1 million dollars for hunger relief in Africa.

The Bake Off is the idea of Breadline Africa. The money raised will be used to support grass roots community projects aimed at ending poverty and hunger in Africa. Breadline Africa will be placing container kitchens, vegetable gardens and more in poor communities, as well as sending emergency food relief to places where it is needed and helping poor communities to help themselves.

How does it work?

There are plenty of ways to take part. You can bake bread, donate or simply spread the word.

• You could bake a magnificent loaf of bread, take pictures and write about your culinary masterpiece in your blog.
• Download the Bake Off widget and tag your 5 favourite bloggers to do the same.
  
• Hold a local bake sale to raise funds for the campaign
  
• Submit your favourite bread recipe and get everyone you know to vote for it - the recipe with the most votes wins $250 Amazon Vouchers

If you spearhead the most donations you win the honour of having a container kitchen named after you - and $500 of Amazon Vouchers.

So get baking already!!

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Cause Networking at its Finest

Contribune is an awesome new site that allows you to post news, videos, journal entries or other information about your favourite causes in order to inspire others to action - whether that be to donate, sign a petition, volunteer or . . .

Its still in beta - so you have to apply for an invite to join up. But it sure looks like a great way for Charities & Activists to get exposure for their cause.

Check it out here . . . and follow them on twitter to stay in the loop as they continue to develop their site.

Contribune from Adam Bonnifield on Vimeo.

Choose Your Cause. Donate for Free.

Embedded giving is the (apparently) increasingly common practice of building a philanthropic gift into another, unrelated, financial transaction. For example, rounding up your phone bill to make a gift to charity. Or using your own grocery bag and donating the nickel that the store gives you to a local homeless shelter. Or using a specific search engine because it donates a small portion of its advertising revenue to charity.
- Lucy Bernholz

NeoAid is a way of making conscious decisions in your daily activities to benefit people and the planet.

Donations are generated when you search, shop, sign up for specials & freebies or use their free software. The money doesn't come out of thin air - the companies that Neoaid partners with pay Neoaid for directing customers to their site. NeoAid donates 90% of its net revenue to the charities its users choose to support. So far the donations NeoAid users have generated come to over $2900!

You get to choose which charities you support. Currently you can select from any one (or more) of seven non-profit organisations but in the future they intend to extend that!

Its easy to sign up - only takes a couple of minutes to be up and running generating donations for charity and it really doesn't cost you a thing!

Learn more...

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Volunteering in your pyjamas

This is a guest post by Mike Bright

'Help From Home' is an initiative that provides information on easy, no commitment volunteering opportunities that can all be performed from the comfort of a person's home. Almost all of the 450 plus actions listed on the site will cost nothing or very little to complete and take no more than 30 minutes to accomplish. Some can even be performed in under 10 seconds without getting out of your favourite chair or pyjamas!

There are 3 main categories of easy actions to choose from, each one having the potential to benefit all sorts of worthy causes. Here's just a brief taster of what's included on the website:

Good Causes – Helping charities and worthy causes
- Feed a starving person for free with a simple click of the mouse.
- Make a very seriously ill child smile with just a letter or an email.
- Play games that donate to charities for free
- Install free software to help fight cancer with your pc.

'Green' Actions – Tackling environmental and energy issues
- Lower pc power consumption by using free software.
- Save the rainforests by planting a tree for free just by using a search engine.
- Donate your excess food, plants and seeds to be redistributed to needy causes.
- Help predict climate change with your pc.

Advocacy Actions – Highlighting injustices and wrongdoings
- Posters for Peace. Print them out and display them somewhere prominently
- Send a pre-written email to a decision maker on global poverty
- Join a Virtual March on global warming
- Boycott socially irresponsible companies

Help From Home's aim is to encourage people to see that volunteering for worthy causes can actually be conducted from within their own house. It reckons that if people were collectively able to volunteer between 1 to 30 minutes of their time spent at home on a one-off, daily, weekly or monthly basis, it could potentially make a huge impact into the goals and aims of initiatives that are attempting to create a better world for us to live in.

So, if you've ever felt like helping out a worthy cause, but didn't want the comittment or the impact it might have on your time or finances, then Help From Home's website might be just the answer. Put on those pyjamas and change the world. It's so easy to do!

Do You Believe in Zero?

This month 12 for 12k has partnered up with UNICEF to promote their Believe in Zero campaign aimed at bringing the number from 25,000 to 0.

Its terribly cliched, I'm sure, but as a Mum of two gorgeous, bouncy, infuriating, loving, inspiring, precious pre-schoolers, this campaign really speaks to me. I can't imagine how heartbreaking it must be to bring up your babies in a world where life is so precarious. Where, through no fault of your own, you can't provide them with the very basics - nutritious food, safe shelter, clean water.

Having what it takes, doing whatever it takes—this is the essence of UNICEF, the organization that has saved more children’s lives than any other humanitarian organization in the world.

UNICEF’s accomplishments are the result of more than 60 years of on-the ground work all around the world, led by experts from a range of disciplines, who have unparalleled influence at the highest levels of government, and the courage, resolve and commitment to get the job done.

More children are alive today because of UNICEF. And yet, impressive as these results are, we have a higher obligation.

UNICEF’s unmatched reach, expertise, access and influence, innovation, efficiency and resolve mandate that we do whatever it takes to put an end to the unnecessary deaths of 25,000 children who die every day from preventable causes. This is where the Believe in Zero campaign aims to make the difference.

That even one child dies from a preventable cause is completely unacceptable—especially when simple, basic and affordable interventions exist to save lives.

What your money can buy:

Water is life. Yet one billion people do not have access to safe water, and 2.6 billion people live without proper sanitation. Water-borne illness is the second highest cause of childhood death in the world. When water is unsafe and sanitation non-existent, water can kill.

$10 can provide 400 children with enough clean drinking water for one day.

Malnutrition plays a role in the majority of the deaths of children under five. Malnourished children are too weak to fight off illness, and they often become physically and mentally stunted. And malnutrition keeps children trapped in the cycle of poverty.

$20 can provide one carton of high energy/protein biscuits containing minerals and vitamins, developed for malnourished children during emergencies.

Every child has the right to an education. Education transforms lives and breaks the cycle of poverty that so many children are caught in. And an educated child will make sure her own children receive an education.

$20 can provide 50 notebooks and pencils to children in schools.

Today, UNICEF provides vaccines to 40 percent of the world’s children and helps saves two million lives a year. But thousands of children still die needlessly every day from diseases like measles, which kills more than 600 children every day.

$40 provides measles vaccines for 150 children.

As you can see, it takes just a little to make a huge difference to so many.

Please join 12for12k in supporting UNICEF this month and help realize the dream of turning 25,000 unnecessary child deaths into zero.

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Got Shoes on Your Feet?

More than likely you have at least a couple of pairs of shoes in your closet to choose from each day. Lucky you - its not the same for everyone. There are people around the world who don't own a single pair of shoes and while it may not sound like a big deal, a good pair of shoes protects people from cuts, scrapes and contaminants that can lead to serious health issues.

The good folk at Cool People Care have teamed up with Soles4Souls with a goal to distribute 50,000 pairs of shoes to people around the world. But they can't do it alone!

Luckily they have made it super easy to help! Simply head here to donate. Just $5 will provide two pairs of shoes. But if you can spare more there is something in it for you!

Carnival of Digital Philanthropy Volume 6

Image by arimoore via Flickr

Welcome to the June 3, 2009 edition of the Carnival of Digital Philanthropy.

Please Stumble the posts you like, or submit them to other social bookmarking services. Let's promote each other, as well as this blog carnival.

Stacey Monk, inspirational founder of Epic Change, presents Tanzania Votes - The Hard Way on The Epic Change Blog. This is a truly inspirational post from a truly inspirational charity.

Greg Laden presents Rhoda's Story posted at Digital Rabbit. Rhoda is a 10 year old girl from Malawi - read how the construction of a borehole in her village to provide fresh water has made a huge difference in her life.

This blog has been nominated in the BlogLuxe awards under the "Most Inspirational Blog" category. Please vote for Digital Philanthropy - it only takes a few seconds and will go a long way to helping build this Carnival and bring awareness to the causes we champion!

Thats it for this edition. Submit your blog article to the next edition of Carnival of Digital Philanthropy using our carnival submission form. Past posts and future hosts can be found on our blog carnival index page.

Join the Summer of Social Good

It might not be summer at this end of the world, but that is no reason not to take part in 'The Summer of Social Good' by Mashable.

The goal of the Summer of Social Good is to use the power of "Social Influence" via Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, Blogs and other online media to money for the Summer of Social Good fund benefiting The Humane Society, LIVESTRONG, Oxfam America and WWF. The campaign runs
from June 1st until August 28th, 2009.

100% of funds raised will be donated to charity through the Summer of Social Good fund. All proceeds will be split equally to between the four charities.

Donate $10 or more using the widget above and start spreading the word today!

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