New Year's Resolution #1: Charitable Giving

Hi everyone!

I hope you have all had a great back to school (not too much groaning and moaning, right?) after some lovely vacations.

As I mentioned in my last post, I am going to dedicate my January Go Online! column posts to New Year's resolutions. This week, I am kicking things off with charitable giving, which is something I hope is on everybody's list of resolutions because it is definitely something we can all do more of.Believe it or not, there are ways to help out charity online that don't require giving a monetary gift.

Below I've shared a few of my favorites :

BookMooch (http://www.bookmooch.com/)- This site gives you points when you give free used books to people interested. You can then use the points to get a free book yourself or (resolution friendly part) use the points to donate books to one of the many charities that work with BookMooch.

Care2 ecards (http://www.care2.com/ecards/)- This site donates money to save "1 square foot of th rainforest" every time you send an ecard. They have a ton of cool cards to choose from and are my number one stop when it comes to ecards.

Charity Navigator (http://www.charitynavigator.org/)- If you're looking to make a big donation or you want to raise money for a charity, check out Charity Navigator to help you choose which charity or group will be the lucky benefiters.

Click To Give (http://www.google.com/)- Although I'm not giving a specific website for Click To Give, you can find oodles of charities who have Click To Give programs with a google search. All you do is click on a link (usually only up to once per day) and a sponsor will donate money to that charity.

Free Rice (http://www.freerice.com/)- I love this! This site quizs you on your vocabulary and every time you get a questions right, Free Rice's sponsors donate rice to the needy. You can also change the settings to quiz you on geography, the periodic table of elements, foreign languages, math, art, and grammar. So you can study and be charitable at the same time! (Note: In the past, some people have thought this site was a hoax, but this has been verified and it is not true.)

Goodsearch (http://www.goodsearch.com/)- A search engine that donates a penny to your favorite charity every time you search the web. There is also a GoodBuy program linked to this which gives your favorite charity a larger monetary donation every time you buy at one of a few popular online stores.

MSN.com (http://www.msn.com/)- Did you know MSN gives to charity too? If you have a hotmail account, you can donate by selecting options in the top right corner, then clicking on more options, and then lastly clicking on i'm making a difference under the Customize Your Mail heading. MSN will then donate part of their advertising revenue to the cause you select from their list.

See? Being charitable is easy when you have access to the net! What about you guys? What are your favorite charitable websites? Have you heard of these before? Leave me a comment or email me one and I'll be sure to include it in my next column.

Aurelie
aurelie@aurelieshealthycuisine.com
http://www.aurelieshealthycuisine.com/
http://www.delectablevegetable.blogspot.com/