katelynriwv: Making Money With a Website

Let’s face it: These days, most of us have more than enough stuff.

Instead of buying more gadgets and do-dads for your loved ones and friends, have you considered making a charitable donation in their names instead? Or handing out charitable gift cards?

Since the best, feel-goodiest part of gift-giving is knowing you brightened someone else’s day, it makes sense to give your gifts to those who are truly in need — and your recipients might agree with that sentiment, too.

If you’d like to buck the consumerist tradition while still keeping the joy of seasonal gift-giving, there are more than a few alternatives. Best of all, they’re available online and are great choices if your gift-selection deliberations have left you with little time on your hands.

Here’s our list of easy online charitable gift-giving options, including charitable gift cards. We at VentureBeat hope you’ll consider making charitable causes part of your gift-giving plans now and throughout the year.

Donors Choose gift cards

Donors Choose is a project aimed at the needs of underprivileged classrooms and students. These gift cards can be loaded up with the amount of your choosing, then sent to the recipient who can decide where the funds should go. For example, they can choose a classroom to donate to based on location or subject material. The cards can be mailed, emailed or printed at home.

Unicef inspired gifts

Unicef’s mission is to save children’s lives through simple improvements such as vaccinations, proper nutrition and clean water. The United Nation’s organization has created gift categories on its site ranging from emergency help to immunizations to education. When you select a gift, you can dedicate it to a friend or loved one, who will then receive a card. Winter Child Survival Packs and Child Survival Food Packs are particularly appreciated around the winter holidays.

American Cancer Society donations

Through the Cancer.org website, you can make a charitable donation to honor or remember a friend, family member or loved one. You can choose for your donation to be used to benefit cancer research, a number of specific cancer types (such as breast cancer) or just send it to wherever the funds are most needed.

charity: water gifts

If clean water is something you’re passionate about, check into the gifts available from charity: water. The organization offers print-at-home cards, a pack of 10 cards to send in the mail or deliver in person, and personalized cards with DVDs and wristbands. All of the proceeds from the purchases are used to fund clean water projects.

World Vision gift for children

World Vision will help you select a gift, mostly focused on the needs of children, for people in needy or underdeveloped communities. This could be as simple as $22 for school supplies or as much as $100 for a woman’s small business or a well to provide clean water. When you select your gifts, you will be sent special cards including a picture and information about the impact that gift will have on those receiving it.

Salvation Army tributes

The ubiquitous Salvation Army bell ringers are going high tech this year, taking donations with Square credit card readers and smartphones. Bell-ringers outside the grocery store are only one way Salvation Army raises money for its many projects during the holidays. Salvation Army, which focuses on helping the homeless and destitute, allows you to honor a loved one when making a donation through its website. If you so choose, Salvation Army can send a special letter to your honoree.

Doctors Without Borders tribute gifts

Medical emergencies happen everywhere, all the time — especially during natural disasters and political unrest. Doctors Without Borders attempts to respond to those in greatest need with fewest resources. Through the organization’s tribute gifts, you can choose to send an e-card or a mailed letter to let your loved one know about the gift.

Oxfam America Unwrapped

For gift-giving, Oxfam will allow you to choose items such as mosquito nets, a dozen chicks or a school meal to be donated to those who suffer from poverty and hunger. The friend or loved on on your shopping list will get a card (via mail or email, or you can print it out yourself) with details about the gift.

Razoo giving cards

For these flexible gift cards, you choose the amount of the total donation, then print or email a card to the recipient. He or she can then choose a nonprofit organization to receive the funds. Another Razoo tool is the Holiday Wish, which allows you to raise funds for your favorite cause through a simple page that can be shared via email and social sites.

Habitat for Humanity Gifts from the heart

Habitat for Humanity is an organization that focuses on building safe, affordable housing for the homeless and at-risk. Through its website, the group lets you make a donation in someone’s name. When making your donation, just choose to have a card mailed or emailed to your gift recipient and choose the occasion of the gift.

The CNN Washington Bureau’s morning speed read of the top stories making news from around the country and the world. Click on the headlines for more.

WASHINGTON/POLITICAL:

CNN: House Republicans scrap direct vote on Senate payroll tax plan

Republicans on the House rules committee have voted to prevent a direct vote Tuesday on a Senate plan favored by Democrats and Senate Republicans to extend the payroll tax cut for two months.

CNN: House to vote Tuesday on Senate payroll tax plan

House Republican leaders put off until Tuesday a vote on a Senate plan to extend the payroll tax cut and said they were willing to work until the end of the year to negotiate a compromise with Senate Democrats.

CNN Money: Congress = Uncertainty Inc.

House Republicans say the two-month payroll tax cut extension passed overwhelmingly by the Senate would inject uncertainty into the economy.

CNN: CNN Poll: Gingrich lead gone, dead even with Romney

Newt Gingrich's lead in the race for the GOP presidential nomination has evaporated, according to a new national survey.

NATIONAL:

CNN: Hearing continues in Wikileaks court martial case

The military court hearing for Pfc. Bradley Manning continues Tuesday, a day after witnesses gave explosive testimony about the Army private accused of leaking more than a quarter of a million classified documents to the WikiLeaks website.

CNN: Blizzard pounds West, Midwest

Interstates and highways were shut down Monday night as a large winter weather system brought heavy snow, fierce winds and ice to at least five states in the West and Midwest.

CNN: Justice Department says a Conn. police department targeted Latinos

In a scathing report, the U.S. Department of Justice on Monday accused the East Haven Police Department (EHPD) in Connecticut of engaging in a pattern of widespread discrimination against Latinos in violation of the Constitution and federal law.

CNN: Two Muslim religious leaders sue airlines for discrimination

Two Islamic religious leaders from Tennessee filed a lawsuit against two airlines Monday, claiming they were discriminated against and not allowed to fly on a plane in May because of the way they looked.

INTERNATIONAL:

CNN: North Korea: Should we fear change?

North Korea's government was famously accused in 2002 by U.S. President George W. Bush of helping terrorism and seeking weapons of mass destruction, along with fellow "axis of evil" countries, Iran and Iraq.

CNN: U.S. supports plan to relocate terror group

The Obama administration "welcomes" a United Nations-led effort in Iraq to relocate a group on the State Department terrorism list, before an end-of-the-year deadline that could see heavy violence and a large humanitarian disaster unfold, senior administration officials said Monday.

CNN: Arrest warrant issued for Iraqi vice president

An Iraqi investigative committee issued an arrest warrant Monday for the country's vice president, who is accused of orchestrating bombing attacks against government and security officials.

CNN: Protesters battle for control of Egypt's Tahrir Square

Police and military troops clashed Monday with protesters in Egypt's Tahrir Square, the symbolic center of the uprising that brought down President Hosni Mubarak earlier this year.

BUSINESS:

CNN Money: What's really behind Twitter's staff exodus

Twitter's transformation from startup to power player has hit its rocky adolescent stage. In the past six months, more than a dozen high-level employees have departed. The sudden exodus set Silicon Valley chattering: What's going on at Twitter?

CNN Money: AT&T kills $39 billion bid for T-Mobile

Facing heavy resistance from the U.S. government to its $39 billion bid for T-Mobile, AT&T on Monday officially killed off the deal that would have created by far the nation's largest wireless company.

CNN Money: Stocks sell off as banks tank

U.S. stocks closed sharply lower Monday as bank shares took a beating amid fresh concerns about the debt crisis in Europe.

In Case You Missed It…

Henry Kissinger does not view North Korea as a major threat when it comes to sustaining a full-scale long term war.

katelynriwv

Monday, January 9, 2012

Making Money With a Website

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