Donating During The Holiday Season

In a recent article by Raymund Flandez, titled " Most Americans Plan to Give This Holiday Season, Two Polls Find", he touches on how most Americans are still willing to donate to charity despite the financial issues from the bad economy. Recent surveys administered by the American Red Cross show that four out of five Americans plan to donate this holiday season to charities that focus on helping the poor and to charities that help people with specific diseases. I chose to blog about this article because I was surprised that many American are choosing to donate to in -store gift drives, or buy a discount card or coupon that supports a cause instead of donating to charities through social networks, such as Facebook, or going directly to a charity's website.

In my opinion I would much rather donate through social networks or directly through the charity's website. I guess because I am all about saving time. The most convenient way to donate is the best way to donate during the holiday season. Some interesting information that I learned from reading this article was that eighty-six percent of woman versus sixty-nine percent of men say that helping the less fortunate is very important during the holiday season. But only twenty-five percent of woman plan to give more than a $100 to charity and thirty-eight percent of men plan to donate the same amount. This holiday season I plan to donate a minimum of $200 to my charity of choice because the greatest gift for me this holiday season is knowing that I was able to make a difference in someone life.

Green Gift Monday

Cyber Monday, which takes place on the Monday after Thanksgiving, is very similar to Black Friday. Both days are all about shopping for a variety of different items for a low discount price. The only difference is that Black Friday is usually for in store shoppers and Cyber Monday targets people that choose to shop. This year The Nature Conservancy Group, which is one of the largest environmental groups in the nation, is trying to change Cyber Monday to Green Gift Monday. This day will still be about shopping for low discounts prices but it will help support Conservation groups and products that are made to help the environment.

One writer for the Chronicle of Philanthropy name Raymund Flandez a wrote a great article titled " Will Green Gift Monday Snare Cyber Monday Shoppers?" This article explains the transition from shopping online to shopping green online. It talks about the new web campaign that The Nature Conservancy has put together to help spread the word about buying environmentally friendly products as well as making donations to different Conservation Groups. I chose to blog about this article because "going green" is a major issue that needs to be addressed. I agree with buying environmentally friendly product because anything geared toward making the world better is a great idea. I learned a lot about online shopping form this article because I usually go in the store to shop. The information in this article is vital and should be shared with you friends and family. This article inspires me to start buying more environmentally friendly products.

Donations via Text Message? Good or Bad?

This blog is focused on a article that I read titled "Two Charities Test $25 Text Gifts", written by Nicole Wallce, a writer for "The Chronicles of Philanthropy". The article talks about a new test campaign to donate to a charity via text message. This holiday season the American Red Cross and the American Center for Law and Justice are coming together to start a campaign to see if donors would be willing to donate $25 via text message. After texting $25 to the American Red cross the donor will receive a link which will let them download a American Red Cross badge to their social network profile page to spread the news about the campaign. This will be a test campaign to see if the large donation of $25 will affect the cellphone carriers operations. The campaign will run through December 31.

I chose too blog about this particular article because The American Red Cross is one of my favorite non-profit organizations. In my opinion I believe that this will be a great way to give a donations. By reading this article I learned how donating via text message works and how the donations actually gets to the charity. Also I learned that donating via text message is very effective and is becoming more common. It is very important that my blog followers take this information and share with others.

The iPhone Donation Application

I'm blogging today about a article that I recently came across that caught my attention. The article is titled "Fund Raiser's Petition Apple to allow Easy Donating on iPhone", written by Raymund Flandez. The article states that Pay pal designed a application that made it easy for iPhone users to donate to a charity with just two clicks of a button. Two months after the application was available to all iPhone users, it was removed. The application had helped raise $10,000 before being removed from the iPhone. Now many non-profit leader are left wondering why this application was removed. A few of the non-profit leader have reached out to Apple and asked them to reconsider the policy, as well as created a online petition with hope to bring this useful Donating application back.

I chose to blog about this story because I was also left wondering why this application was removed. In my opinion I believe that donating through a application on my smart phone is a great way to give donations because it saves time and is very convenient. You will never have an excuse not to donate because its only two clicks away on your smart phone. Also I was very surprised that an application for donating existed. Its a great idea and just show you how the world is converting more and more to technology which is awesome.