apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

This seems to be an idea that is becoming more and more popular. My family and I started doing the charity gifts a few years ago. And this year I'm representing the library I work for at a Mission Mall (think your regular mall, but with different local organizations that you can donate to instead of stores).

I told my family in advance that I would be donating to charity instead of gift buying this year. I figured I would try and head off any possible disappointment but they've all been supportive of the idea. I'm looking at different charities that I think each would have an interest in. Its harder than I thought though because I'm concerned how much of my donations actually go to helping those in need so it is requiring more research than I anticipated.

I discovered Heifer International about seven years ago when tasked with selecting a wedding shower gift for a co-worker who describes herself as "crunchy granola." She loved it, and told me that it was the kind of thing she wanted to ask for, but didn't think anyone would understand.

They're one of my regular annual charities, and for my 40th birthday earlier this year, I asked those people who normally give me gifts to make donations to Heifer instead. After all, I have more than I could possibly need, and can afford the things that I want--so why not take that money and put it to good use helping people?

I gave my family gifts from a worldvision-esque source last year and everyone enjoyed them so much I'll be doing it again this year. My church puts out a catalog to give to all the missions they are associated with.

I try to match each sort of gift to the person it's going to, for example - my father is a contractor, so I donated bricks to build a school for an orphanage in Uganda. My mom was always the PTA president, so I got her a year of school for a girl in Thailand. My little brother, well, he's annoying so I got him a goat! He loved it!

I love this idea but sometimes feel shy about giving it. It's a brill idea to ask for it instead of presents-I think I'll do that next year. I love christmas for so many other reasons than the presents.

I'm seriously thinking about doing this for my fiance's brother & sister-in-law, and asking them to do the same for us - they seem to expect us to buy them really nice things (his favourite expensive aftershave balm, nice earrings for her), and then give us utter crap (badly ripped CDs), and their lack of care / last-minute-ness is really starting to get to me, especially since we're also expected to get nice things for their four children, and the sister-in-law's three Christmas-attending relatives.

It's not the issue of how much they expect us to spend on them - both time and money - so much as the issue of them not putting any thought into our gifts. This way, I could pick something *I* feel good about spending money on, which would make me not care so much about the gifts we receive, whilst also making sure that they can't possibly object (they're supposedly devout Christians, so helping others is perfect), and possibly even getting them something they like anyhow!

Does anyone have anything good/bad to say about Kiva? (kiva.org) I.e. are they legit?
Also, I'm having trouble figuring out which is the official Grameen bank website - given that Grameen are large & established I'd feel comfortable giving to them, but I've found a couple of websites and am worried that one's a scam...

This is what i plan on doing this Christmas with Save The Children.

What about an elephant in need:

http://sheldrickwildlifetrust.org