Sunday, November 6, 2011

Christmas Idea

My Aunt Pat came up with a great idea for this Christmas, we are going to donate to charities in lieu of doing gifts. This is fantastic because none of us really NEEDS anything and we all have to spend so much money shipping it to a zillion different places. So I had a clever idea to do a little post about each of the potential charities that are on my list. I also welcome suggestions! It's not like we're going to be donating a huge amount of money, but I still believe that properly education oneself about charities is important. I recently read the book "The Blue Sweater" by Jaqueline Novogratz where she explores the area of philanthropy with specific regard to Africa. In her travels and research she witnessed how many times the philanthropic organization was more concerned with themselves and their image than the people they were helping. This actually caused some places to end up worse off after receiving the charity. My first post on this subject will be coming soon. For now, I thought I'd show you how Blue State Coffee in Providence is letting their clientele decide what charities they support.
When you purchase a drink at Blue State you are given a token. With that token you are able to place your vote for which local charity you want Blue State to support.

Here are Will and Steven casting their votes. Being avid NPR listeners, they went for the local station. 

No comments:

Post a Comment