“Know your Charities
Get Involved, participate”

Know Your Charities

W

e at gyftit.com not only wish our service helps with gifting decisions but also extrudes the best from our users. It is too easy to get lost in the commercialization of special holidays and the rush to buy gifts. Let's examine another approach — giving to the less fortunate of this world.

Have a look at the various charities that we can donate to. We have websites listed here that have far more information than the scope of this article can deal with.

The website topnonprofits.com is a good website that describes nonprofit organizations (animal, environmental, international NGOs, health, education) and charities that deal with arts and culture.

The government of Canada's website canada.ca gives information on types of registered charities.

The website thebalance.com gives advice about different methods of charitable giving. (See their website for complete details on Donor Advised Funds, real estate, cash, stocks, charitable trusts, CLT & CRT, giving assets to charity, pooled income funds, and private foundations.)

The old saying "Charity begins at home" rings true and could also be said for local charities. Just look around in your own community and you'll see numerous charity-oriented groups that need money or other help. You can volunteer your time at a soup kitchen, donate food to a food bank, or give clothing and other items to a shelter or Goodwill. There is a lot that can be done at the local level. For an explanation of how local charitable work see: bestlocalcharities.org

For those in Canada the CHIMP network go2.chimp.net will help you discover over 85,000 charities and support the charities of your choice from a single account.

Last but not least, please go to charitywatch.org. This website is a great source of information on charitable giving.