You may remember November and December. The year doesn’t matter, because the story is the same, no matter the year. Giving.
The winter holiday season rolls around and we start to remember “’tis better to give than to receive.” And, that is good.
Perhaps, though, we could think about giving right now?
Below are three possibilities for charitable giving that insure as direct a line to those in need as I can fathom other than walking around your neighborhood handing out donations.
A $25 donation for any of these orgs can make an amazing difference locally or around the world.
Kiva – Founded 10 years ago, this micro-lending organization allows contributors to search and select which efforts around the world they would like to fund. Over the life of your loans, you receive updates on the status of the projects you’ve funded. When the money is returned, you can withdraw it from Kiva or do what I do and put it back to work on another worthy project.
DonorsChoose – Oprah and Stephen Colbert love this educational granting site. You can search for teacher’s grant proposals by location, grade level, discipline and a number of other factors. While I wish this org didn’t need to exist, I can speak from personal experience that it can make a direct impact on classroom supplies.
HandUp – Somewhere between Kiva and DonorsChoose, HandUp helps connect donors with those in need to fund needed purchases. Funds are distributed to HandUp’s partner organizations. Those partners then help connect the applicants to their funds. While only serving the SF Bay area, Oregon, and Detroit, it turned out I don’t care where people are, so long as they are being helped.
I’m usually hesitant to make New Year’s resolutions. For the past decade or so, my instinct has been to make birthday resolutions. They felt more personal. It didn’t matter when the calendar was starting its new trip around the sun, I wanted to make change based on when my trip started. This year, for whatever reason, I’ve changed my tune.
I’ll be writing about some of them here.
First up, my running resolution. While I’m still working on a marathon in every state, that’s not the resolution this year. Instead, it’s simply getting out there.
This year, I’ll be running 100 miles per month. Along with me on those miles might be the Nike+ app or MapMyRun or any of the other apps I rotate through trying to find the one I like the most. The app I’ll definitely be using – CharityMiles. This is the second half of my running resolution.
Through CharityMiles, which donates to a you-selected charity for every mile you log running, walking, or biking, I’ll be selecting a charity each month and running to donate to that cause for the month. It won’t be much, the $.25/mile for running and walking from CharityMiles will add up to $25 for each charity. Then again, this will be more than they were getting otherwise, and it will be tacked on to what I already try to donate to worthwhile causes each year. At the start of each month, I’ll post here about the charity I’ll be running for.
The Gist.
Back on My Feet uses running as a means to engage local populations of people experiencing homelessness “to create self-sufficiency.” Started in Philadelphia, the charity has 11 chapters nationally. Participants in the program join other runners and local coaches for morning runs three times per week. After 30 days in the program, participants qualify for Next Step services which can include counseling, applications for financial aid and other services. According to BoMF, “on average, nearly 75 of Members are in the Next Steps phase of the program. Finally, once Residential Members achieve employment and housing, they become Alumni Members who often continue to run with their original teams.
Why?
I started running in 2002 for a lot of reasons. Mainly, after turning 21 and with many pieces of my life up in the air, I wanted some sort of goal toward which I could work. June 1, I signed up for the October 13 Chicago Marathon and tried to run 2 miles. It was disasterous, and the days that followed were painful.
When I crossed the finish line with a net time of 4:53:59, I started crying. While a good deal of that was likely exhaustion, its foundation was in being the kid who felt awkward, left out, and in the way in anything to do with sports and athletics while he was growing up. That kid would never have considered running a marathon while relegated to shopping for clothes in the poorly named “husky” section growing up. I wish I’d found running earlier.
At the same time, running has taught me the importance of running my own race. Running and I met each other at exactly the right pace. I can’t say that I’d have recognized the possible joys and self-reflection involved in showing up at my doorstep with heavy legs, soaked clothes, and a face encrusted with salt from evaporated sweat if I’d found running earlier.
The Members of BoMF are each on a journey much different from my own and different again from those on their teams hitting the pavement at 5:30am three times a week. I’m running for this organization this month because I know, if only in my small way, what kind of journey running can set a person on.
Last year, I cut back on the stuff I gave for Christmas. While my younger siblings still got books, other family members got gift certificates to various charities in leiu of gifts. Thus, this. Each day from here to 2010, I’ll be posting one charity, NGO or non-profit I can get behind in the spirit of giving.
According to GoodSearch’s homepage, “86,000+ nonprofits are now on board and 100 more are joining daily.”
GoodSearch is one of those ideas you hear about and wish you’d had.
Here’s the skinny:
GoodSearch is a search engine which donates 50-percent of its revenue to the charities and schools designated by its users. It’s a simple and compelling concept. You use GoodSearch exactly as you would any other search engine. Because it’s powered by Yahoo!, you get proven search results. The money GoodSearch donates to your cause comes from its advertisers — the users and the organizations do not spend a dime!
Imagine if every school in the country signed up and parents convinced their employers to install the toolbar as part of the image of every machine in every office.
It’s a fantastic way to support a non-profit by doing something you’d do anyway. Even if your local school isn’t participating in GoodSearch (and it should be), you’re bound to find something worth your support.
If worse comes to worst, you could always search for SLA.
Last year, I cut back on the stuff I gave for Christmas. While my younger siblings still got books, other family members got gift certificates to various charities in leiu of gifts. Thus, this. Each day from here to 2010, I’ll be posting one charity, NGO or non-profit I can get behind in the spirit of giving. Karl Fisch is all over this one. Still, it’s one of my favorites, so I’m keeping it.
Kiva founders Matt Flannery and Jessica Jackley hatched it idea after a trip to East Africa led them to three realizations:
We are more connected than we realize.
The poor are very entrepreneurial.
Stories connect people in a powerful way.
These realizations led them to one of the most prosperous P2P microcredit institutions in the world. Similar to the Grameen Bank Kiva lets lenders loan amounts of $25 or more to those applicants in developing nations working to better their stations in life and their communities. What’s different about Kiva is that it acts as a network, making connections between lenders and microcredit institutions around the world. Here’s a down and dirty on how Kiva works.
According to Kiva’s most recent newsletter, after 50 months of operation, the org has raised $105,968,360 for 260,967 entrepreneurs in 173 countries.
Most astounding for me is Kiva’s 98% repayment rate.
As the loans are repaid, many of the entrepreneurs will blog about the effect the money and how their ventures are progressing. As a classroom tool, this is a way to help kids get in touch with other parts of the world and build global citizenship.
I keep at least $75 in Kiva loans.
As soon as a payment is made by an entrepreneur, I’m given the option of re-investing, donating to Kiva’s operations or withdrawing my money. I can’t imagine withdrawing my money.
