4 Creative Ways to Give to Charity

Amazon has turned into a retail giant that offers low prices and a convenient shopping experience.  You can maintain that convenience in your shopping habits and give at the same time with the AmazonSmile program.  With AmazonSmile, you simply select your favorite charity (assuming they are registered for free with Amazon) and every eligible purchase from that point on will generate .5% donation to your chosen charity.  It doesn’t sound like much, but let’s be honest, Amazon purchases made over the year add up quickly and with AmazonSmile we can make a change.

Some people manage their frequent flyer miles like stock brokers while many others couldn’t care less about adding up the play money.  For those of us that travel for work enough to accrue expiring miles there are programs for donating miles (as well as other credit card rewards).  You can Make-A-Wish come true, or help soldiers come home to visit family, and many other opportunities to spend your miles charitably.

Free Rice is a unique giving model which quizzes you on vocabulary.  For every answer you get right, you accrue grains of rice to donate through United Nations World Food Program.  That’s all it takes, just answering some questions and, consequently, getting a bit smarter in the process.  As they say on the website, heed their warning: “WARNING: This game may make you smarter. It may improve your speaking, writing, thinking, grades, job performance...”

A memorable gift is to give someone the gift of giving: that’s not confusing at all… TisBest is an organization which sells gift cards to its website which serves hundreds of non-profit organizations.  The way it works is you purchase a gift card on the website and TisBest will send it to your recipient.  The lucky giftee then goes online and selects which charity he/she would like the money to go to.  It’s a clever way to donate on someone’s behalf, yet forcing them to navigate to the giving site, which isn’t a bad thing to encourage.