And More Change…
Every holiday and birthday, you hear the same cliché about what you get the person who has everything. Well, heck, if they’ve got everything, what’re they going to do with more stuff? And why not give someone without so much stuff–especially without some really necessary stuff, like potable water–a little something in the name of your friend or family member? This is where Changing the Present comes in.
The site, a 501(c)(3) organization, is a fantastic way to find causes to which you’d like to donate, for nearly any occasion–birthdays, weddings, anniversaries, Boxing Day, what have you. What’s good is that a number of the nonprofits featured aren’t the usual high-visibility charities that attract donor dollars like moths to a flame; they range from UNICEF to the Ploughshare Fund, and they’re active in fields including education, land mine removal, medical research, and poverty alleviation. What’s more, the reach of these organizations is a good balance of the local and the global.
There’s an almost bewildering variety of causes and gifts. Your donations can fund epidemiological research, artists’ colonies, AIDS medication, microlending, boarding for retired horses (I didn’t make that up, I swear) or meditation CD’s for cancer patients. There are price brackets for those on a budget (or not). What someone’s finally had the bright idea of doing is bringing the shopping mall model to charitable giving. Now, you can complain about malls all you want, but the reason they proliferate like weeds is because you can go there and find things you’re looking for; if you’re trying to find some means of making a difference, there’s no shortage of options here.
I’ll admit that a while back when I first saw an advertisement for a nonprofit allowing donors to buy livestock for faraway villages, I got a good chuckle. Sheep as stocking stuffers? Hey, why not. When the closest you’re likely to come to a cow is under shrinkwrap in a supermarket, you don’t give much thought to that sort of thing.
But the second time I saw the ad, I stopped to think about it. When you’ve got access to meats and veggies in plastic, milk in cartons, water in jars, shelves upon shelves of books, top-rate education and medical care, it’s easy to take the lot of it for granted. I’ve often thought that one of the reasons people don’t give more often–in the absence of a catastrophe, natural or otherwise–is that they’d like to, but haven’t got the foggiest notion where or how to start.
So here’s your opportunity, and/or one less excuse. And no, you won’t have to worry about figuring out how to giftwrap a yak.
Tags: changingthepresent.org, charities, donations, gifts, giving