Convio Recommends Charity Websites to Find This Year’s Perfect Holiday Gift

“Nonprofit organizations offer online gifts that you can purchase for your loved ones while making a positive impact on the community or helping people in need,” said Sara Spivey, chief marketing officer of Convio, the leading provider of online fundraising, marketing, advocacy and donor management software for nonprofits. “Nonprofit gifts are perfect for that person who has everything. Since they range from practical items like feeding people in need and holiday ornaments to the quirky, such as dinosaur bones, it’s easy to find the perfect gift.”

In the comfort of your home, browse through some of the following websites and start your holiday shopping in just a few clicks.

• The Humane Society of the United States is running a special gift donation campaign this year featuring its 2009 Holiday Ornament. When you donate $50 or more, the organization will send the ornament (along with a personalized card and nice little gift box) to your gift recipient. When you donate $90 or more, you and your donor will each receive an ornament. Looking for a last minute gift? The Humane Society of the United States will tell your giftee about the gift via an eCard, and then follow up with the ornament via snail mail later. Learn more here: https://secure.humanesociety.org/site/Donation2?df_id=2560&2560.donation=form1.
• World Wildlife Fund has a 68-page catalog, which contains more than 200 ways to support the organization’s conservation efforts. Symbolic adoptions start at $25 and include a formal adoption certificate, a color photo of the adopted species, and a description card. Who wouldn’t love a Meerkat “Mob”? With $100 donation you get two adults and three baby meerkat soft plushes. If you’re feeling extra generous this year, consider a contribution in any increment of $250 to get a Guardian Gift, which the WWF will use to address some of the most urgent conservation priorities our planet faces today. Your giftee will get a photograph, which comes in a bamboo picture frame, sent in a custom-designed gift box along with information about the WWF conservation work it represents. Explore these and other gift options here: www.worldwildlife.org/giving.
• Feed a Family, Buy a Quirky Goat or Adopt a Dinosaur Bone: Look in your community and to the interests of the person you are giving to get inspired. Project Bread allowed one to give a Thanksgiving dinner in someone’s name, or teach children about hunger through Holiday Spoons Project at http://www.projectbread.org/site/PageServer?pagename=donate_spoons. Oxfam American offers a quirky goat, a dozen baby chicks, or a donkey that doesn’t stop braying or other gifts that do good. Other gifts, like planting 50 trees or a can of worms, add star value to a greener, cleaner environment. Or if that doesn’t float your boat, how about a sheltering tent or a nifty mosquito net? These items are essential to saving lives in the wake of disaster or conflict. Check out the full list of gifts available online at: www.oxfamgifts.com. Last year, one could adopt a dinosaur bone at Carnegie Museum of Natural History, open one of Andy Warhol’s notorious Time Capsules, or simply give the gift of membership – museums in your area might do the same. Shop the Carnegie Museum at http://www.carnegiemuseums.org/interior.php?pageID=23.

By purchasing an online gift for someone, you’ll also give gifts to yourself: often a tax deduction and the knowledge you have helped your community. Check with the charity about the tax deductible status of the gift. Regardless, the holiday giving season just got a lot easier.

Convio
Tad Druart, 512-652-7826
tdruart@convio.com