Help a Charity

Please Note: I rave about animal related causes as that is my passion, but all the tips here can be applied to any type of charity.

Lots of us think about helping out charities but how many of us get round to doing it as we think it is a lot of time or effort or that we think our contribution doesn't even touch the sides. Maybe you want to help but don't know where to start. Well here are a few ideas to get you going and not all of them involve money!

1. Cash

The old favourite - Get your Cheque book or wallet / purse out and donate some money. Either send it in the post or visit their website and see if they have a paypal button and donate that way. A small amount of money goes a long way for a smaller charity.

2. Services

Could you offer your services to a charity for free? Marketing, print, publicity services maybe? Could you help with their book keeping or fundraising efforts? There are probably lots of things you could do to help a local charity. Not only will it help them out but you could get some good karma out of it too and it will provide you with a new network of people.

3. Old office equipment or Old PC's or even office Space

What will you do with that battered old PC now you have that new sexy laptop? You could clean it off and donate it to a local charity. Maybe you have a spare desk or office space that a charity could use once a week to keep up to date with their marketing efforts. Just ring them and they might even collect!

4. Old or Damaged Stock / Gargage Sale Junk

Do you have your own business or work for one that has stock? Do you have lots of out of season stock or maybe slightly damaged goods that you can't sell. Why not donate them to a local group so that they can sell them at a boot fair or maybe as a way of promoting your business if you have one, why not run it for them. Maybe have a loft or garage clear out and donate the goods to a local charity. If they have a local charity shop ring them up and they will collect from you.

5. Donation per Sale

Why not offer a percentage of any sales or donation per sale of your products / services as a donation to a local or national charity. This will get you exposure if you promote it and might make some extra sales plus give the charity some media exposure and donations.

6. Organise a Fundraiser

Why not have a summer staff BBQ or Christmas party and raise funds for a local charity? Run a special event in the community like a wine tasting event or an open day. Why not see what other events they are running and sponsor or support them. Just get your mates round for a Football on TV and Pizza night and get everyone to pay a ticket price which goes to your nominated charity.

7. Recycling

Do you have old mobile phones, printer cartridges, foreign coins or used postage stamps. You will be amazed at what you can donate to a local group so they can raise much needed funds. Plus it helps declutter the office! Check out http://www.recyclingappeal.com

8. Payroll Giving

Why not promote and offer staff a Payroll giving service whereby staff can regularly setup direct charity payments direct from their pay packets each month. Check out http://www.payrollgiving.co.uk

9. Web based Services

If the group you decide to work with is small and local - Do you have facility to build and host them a website to help promote them? Do you send out a newsletter to your customers or just in your notes to your friends why not highlight your chosen charity and ask them to help out. if you have a company newsletter, this could be a great easy way to highlight a different charity each month.

You could even build them a Hubpage or Squidoo Lens too!

As you can see there are lots of low impact, but high reward ideas here that you can implement.

I currently run CavyRescue, the UKs Dedicated Pet Rat Charity so I know all about fundraising and all about how great a feeling it is to help charities out.

I started fundraising as a boy scout and did some pretty stupid fundraisers: I sat in a bath of baked beans, washed a double decker bus with a toothbrush, and sponsored all kinds of things from walks to talks.

Fundraising can be great and doesn't always have to involve money. I help out some major animal charities by building websites and promoting their causes that way.By doing this, they get much more than I could possibly donate directly. Here are a couple fo current sites:

Save the Bears

Save the Badgers

I have Seals, Turtles, Elephants, Tigers and a few others to work on soon.

Why not help me out further by adding a link to these sites from your sites or blog about them.