The Currency of Appreciation

Image by jaredchapman via Flickr

Twitter really is a great place to do good! Epic Change have used it to great effect with their Tweetsgiving campaign, then there was Twestival successfully raising $250,000 for Charity:Water and TwittaCause working to raise $1 million for charity. Now there are Twollars!

Twollars are Twitter's currency of appreciation. They are designed to do good by rewarding positive actions on Twitter - posting a great link, sharing a useful tip or inspiring tweet.

How do you get them?

Every Twitterer starts off with 5o Twollars to pass on to other Twitterers as a Thank You or donate to Charity. When you run out you can buy more from a Charity registered on Twollar (so far there are 27 to choose from) at an exchange rate of $1 for every 10 Twollars.

Passing them on is easy - all you do is tweet something along the lines of @acfusa 5 Twollars for doing great work.

Twollars is a great way to help out some great charities even if you have no funds to donate. It offers charities an opportunity to raise awareness for their cause by having supporters tweeting Twollars to them. Its also a great way to launch a campaign via Twitter - supporters can help by tweeting Twollars or by purchasing them for cold, hard cash.

Join the appreciation economy - its booming!!

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#charitytuesday

Image by Swamibu via Flickr

Tuesday is Charity Day on Twitter!

The #charitytuesday tag is a way to find charities who tweet and was started by John Carnell and others to help Charity organisations (and their supporters) raise awareness for their cause.

Here's a selection of the tweets from this week:

@Lamplightdb @Th3MissingLink add the #charitytuesday tag to get your message out to a wider twitter audience (on tuesdays!). See @JohnCarnell @bullyinguk

@chickensrule We collect eggs during our Atlanta Pet Chicken Meetup meetings and donate them to a food bank. Get your friends on board! #charitytuesday

@mmgalvan21 Help 4 hurting Chicago (land) teens at http://www.houseofhopeillinois.org #charitytuesday

@ssigafoos #charitytuesday be sure to check out @LIfeRollsOn - an advocate of young people whose lives have been affected by spinal cord injury.

@RizzoTees RT @dlayphoto: @RizzoTees Can u help? #Eric needs a new heart. Please spread the word. http://weloveeric.com #fryretweet #charitytuesday

@AnnetteSzczepan CANCER IS HARD! WALKING IS NOT! PLEASE RETWEET! http://tiny.cc/aHJ0E #charitytuesday

@louisekearney RT @mealexchange: 7% of goal - Grocery Cart Challenge - $28 will provide 34 meals. Please donate and RT #charitytuesday http://bit.ly/OGIMJ

@bullyinguk Ty so much RT @charityshops: http://bit.ly/jxCLa #charitytuesday officially takes off - well done to everyone for making it such a success!

Don't forget to join in the fun next week!

Leave a Comment for Charity

Check out the NICE Assignment this week over at Operation NICE. All you need to do is leave a comment for Melissa at the bottom of her post and she will donate $1 to charity! How NICE is that?

The Charities she has chosen to support are:

The Give List

Image by louisa_catlover via FlickrCheck out the Give List - a place to share ideas on how to give in these tough times.

Times are tight. We know, we know. We’ve all seen the scary headlines. Too many of the scary headlines. And we’re all feeling the pressure in other ways too.

But, still, we want to contribute what we can to making the world the better place.

The GiveList gives you ideas and inspiration for just that: ways that you contribute without spending or buying. Or maybe giving while buying and spending a little less than usual.

From the Whole Foods Wooden Nickel Program that rewards shoppers who use re-usable shopping bags with wooden nickels for contributions to local causes that Whole Foods will fulfill to sites like Good Search that provide small contributions to causes of your choice when you use their search engines , there are lots of small things you can do that don’t cost you anything that can make a big impact on communities.

And you probably have some thoughts on this. Share it on del.icio.us, via twitter, in your own blog post. Just tag it GiveList and we’ll share help you share your idea with the world.

You can contact either Allison Fine or Marnie Webb if you want to ask more questions, get the inside scoop or if you just have an idea about making the GiveList better.

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Giving to Charity can Help you Feel Richer

Image by Getty Images via DaylifeWhen we feel that we don't have enough to share, its easy to justify a little selfishness. Its hard enough to look after our own families in these uncertain times, let alone trying to help anyone else, right? So we choose not to give to charity for now. We'll do it when we get a payrise, or the economy picks up, or when the kids leave home . . .

Brent Kessel, author of Its Not About the Money, stated in a recent interview

Many of us think, when I have enough, then I'll be generous. The irony is...you can't be giving money away and feel like you don't have enough. The act itself changes the message you tell yourself.

The time to be generous is NOW. We need to manage our money mindfully and make giving a priority in our budgets. By being grateful for the things we have and working to cultivate a mindset of abundance we allow ourselves to contribute more to the people and causes that need our help.

If we all give what we can spare, no matter how small an amount, then together we can make a difference.

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