Back in November, I was struggling with Christmas time dilemmas (see this post). I wanted to give and receive gifts as part of the season's celebration, but without being a sellout to consumer-driven impulses. I'm following up on that post by describing what I learned about turning the season of gift giving into the season of charity.
Asking for donations to charity as a Christmas gift
As my November post states, my partner suggested that I ask for a donation to any of a list of charities. I thought this was a great idea, but I was worried about sounding self-righteous or offending others by my choices of charities. I very carefully selected a list of charities that I thought were politically neutral (e.g., Red Cross, Humane Society) and said that I would like a small donation to whichever one of these charities was most moving to the giver. We ended up getting the regular stuff (gift card to Target, Amazon.com, etc), but in addition we also got a card from the Red Cross saying a generous donation had been made in our name! Yay! I sent off a thank you email right away gushing about how delighted I was, and I now have that card hanging up on my wall.
Additionally, some of our other friends, without any prompting or discussion on the topic, gave us a donation to American Forests! (Check them out here.) Twenty five trees were planted in our name! Super cool! Of course, as a scientifically trained environmentalist, I can be pretty picky about which trees get planted where and for what reasons, but after reading through their website, I thought they were going about it in a reasonable and scientifically sound way. Good on them!
Giving donations to charity as a Christmas gift
Right, so what about giving a donation to charity as a gift? Well, the first concern is how the recipient will feel about it, especially if you haven't talked with them about it. That will depend on your relationship with them, so I'll leave that part to you. But a secondary concern is knowing which charity to give to, which is what I briefly discuss here.
I want my donation to have the maximum impact, but how do I pick the charity? There are a number of websites that rate charities. The Better Business Bureau has a special section for charities; Charity Watch and Charity Navigator are two others. Of the ones that I've looked at, Charity Navigator had the best presentation of information, easiest to use search tool, the most comprehensive rating system, and a very large number of charities listed (also organized by cause). You can check out their rating system (here), but basically it boils down to how efficient they are with the money they receive and how transparent they are about spending that money. Charity Navigator also has these great "Top Ten" lists (here): biggest, best rated, most inefficient, most overpaid CEOs, and so on.
But I don't know which charity my friend might like best! So far, I've found two organizations that provide gift-givers with flexibility of choice. The first is Donors Choose which allows you to give money to a classroom. You get to choose in which area you want to donate to (e.g., in your current community or your old hometown) and for which type of project (e.g., science, art, etc). You get your friend a gift card and they can reimburse it for the project of their choice.
The second one is Charity Choice, and I prefer this one because it is more generalized. You buy a gift certificate and your friend can choose any of 250 charities to spend it on (up to 3 charities). These charities range across many different causes and include the biggest players in the field (e.g., WWF, Sierra Club, Greenpeace).
But what if I still want to give them a physical gift? There are definitely times when you do need a physical gift and showing up with an envelope with a gift card just seems lame. Here are a few solutions I came up with this Christmas.
1. Get them something local and consumable. While I try not to buy "stuff" like clothes or gadgets, I still have to buy consumable goods like food, shampoo, toilet paper, and so on. So why not get your friend a luxury consumable good like wine, olive oil, spices, and so forth. A lot of these goods can be found in local shops and farmers markets.
2. Get them something fair trade. We are lucky to leave near Palo Alto which has a United Nations Association store. Whenever I need a physical gift that won't spoil, I go there. They have cards, books, jewelry, ornaments, clothes, and so on. Most of these items are made by artisans in developing countries who are paid a fair price for their work. Profit from all of the items helps support communities in those developing countries. Beyond that, you can also find some cool stuff in your local Whole Foods.
Overall, I have to say I'm pretty satisfied with how this Christmas season went and very optimistic about Christmas this coming year!
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