Donate To...

Wondering what to get your grandparents, best friend, cousin, brother-in-law this Christmas? World Vision Alternative Gifts has its best range ever to help you find that perfect gift this Christmas. Favourite gifts such as fruit trees (£10), goats (£17) and child vaccinations (£20) have been combined with unique new gifts like a cowpat stove (£34) and a llama (£45)! In addition, the website has been redesigned to make finding and buying gifts even easier.

If your friend is a teacher, you can check out the education gift range, or a gardening aunt will probably enjoy one of the farming gifts, including seeds and fruit trees. If you have a price in mind, you can search by price – there’s 35 gifts from £5-20! You can also choose from a large range of free cards to personalise for your friends and family.

The best thing about World Vision Alternative Gifts is that they bring a smile to more than one person. As one of our supporters, Sue, told us, “My granddaughter gave me the gift of a nanny goat for my birthday and I couldn’t be more thrilled!” The family in Malawi, who received the goat, were even more excited. They now can breed goats to sell, earning an income so they can afford to send their children to school.

World Vision Alternative Gifts has 79 gifts to choose from, which will directly benefit 34 of World Vision’s community projects across 16 developing countries in Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe and South America. There are also a range of emergency gifts that allow World Vision to respond quickly in emergency situations caused by natural disasters or conflicts. With all gifts having been specifically requested as part of projects by the communities, you can be sure your gift really will make a real difference to the lives of others this Christmas time.

A Letter from Santa is a popular Christmas gift for kids. It can be personalised and then delivered, specially postmarked, to appear that it’s been sent by Father Christmas himself. Now wouldn’t it be great if you could have a letter sent from Santa AND help other children too!

Well, The NSPCC are running a special Letter from Santa campaign and you can support them for just £5For a suggested donation of £5 The NSPCC can arrange for Santa to take time out of his busy schedule and send a letter to who you’d like to receive a Christmas message. Children will be thrilled but you may even know some big kids who would be equally excited.

By making the suggested donation of £5 you can ensure that not only will you be bringing joy to children you know, but you’ll also be helping the NSPCC and ChildLine bring an end to cruelty to children. Orders can be placed until 14 December 2007 (UK and Channel Islands). The closing date for letters to be sent to the Republic of Ireland is 12 December. A sample letter is available too.

Send an NSPCC Letter from Santa

Yellow Moon is a unique online store in that it allows you to earn money for charity just by shopping with them. Shop for hard to find arts & crafts, educational games, fun toys and gizmos for all the family and Yellow Moon will donate up to 25% on every purchase to your school, group or charity! As well as the cashback on every purchase, your School, Group or Charity could win £1000 from Yellow Moon.

Every order they receive from you gives your chosen organisation an entry into the competition to win £1000. The more times you order the more chances they have to win.

There are plenty of gift ideas for Christmas including a wide range of stocking fillers, plus there are special offers including:

Self-Adhesive Foam Borders

Stick-on Wooden Xmas Bears

Mini Fluffy Penguins

Christmas Mini Scrapbook Kit

Christmas Glitter Fairies

My First School Year Calendar

You can also save £3.45 on P&P on all orders over £50 until the end of 2007.

This year the Royal British Legion have embraced new ways to reach out for donations for the annual Poppy Appeal. For example you can show your support by adding a message at the bottom of each email you send (like the one at the top of this blog). You need to register your details and then attach a small piece of code to your email signature – this will remain active until just after Rememberance Day.

As well as email you can download Poppy wallpaper to your mobile! Text ‘Poppy’ to 85552 and donate £1.50 to the Poppy Appeal. This is suitable for WAP phones only. Details are available here. If you’re a Facebook user then you can also add the Facebook Poppies App. Don’t forget to share it with your Facebook friends.

Tori White has also recorded a song ‘Please Remember’ and 50p from each sale of the song will be donated to The Poppy Appeal.

You can buy ‘Please Remember’ at Mbop Megastore.

Since 1879, Together (formerly MACA – The Mental After Care Association) has worked for Britain’s well-being. They are the leading national charity working for well-being and support people with mental health needs to get what they want from life and feel happier. By delivering a wide-range of services across the UK thye help reduce the stigma attached to mental health. They are looking for support and you can help them in a number of ways:

Why not volunteer and join the team?

Sponsor one of their nationwide projects

Run with them at the British 10k Run 2008

Take the plunge and sky-dive for charity

Trek through China, Peru or Vietnam or Cycle from London – Paris

Find out more via Together-uk.org. You can also support them through the charity search engine Everyclick.