Pay it Forward this Holiday Season with GlobalGiving‏

As a parent, I can not stress enough how important it is to teach our children about giving back, especially this time of year. With all the gifts that are given for the holidays, I want our children to know what it is like to give to others as well, that feeling you get when you’re doing something good for someone else, without expecting anything back.

Another amazing organization that can help with that is GlobalGiving - a charity fundraising web site that gives social entrepreneurs and non-profits from anywhere in the world a chance to raise the money that they need to improve their communities. These are the underdogs, the groups who don’t always get recognition through media or online.

All donations go through the GlobalGiving Foundation, who receives a small 15% fulfillment fee. This fee helps cover the cost of operations, such as finding and vetting projects, providing training and support to project leaders, attracting donors, and maintaining an innovative, informative web presence. It also includes the fees assessed by vendors for credit card processing, mobile giving, wire transfers, and other fees charged by financial institutions. You can choose to make an additional contribution at checkout to cover this fee and ensure that 100% of your donation goes straight to the project(s) you have chosen.

I was asked to participate in a Pay it Forward Challenge, where I was given $25 to donate to any group listed on GlobalGiving.

What’s nice about GlobalGiving, is that you can narrow down which groups are in most interest to you. For me, when I donate I really like to keep the money here in the states. So with a click of a button, I narrowed down the groups to US only organizations. From there, I chose the theme to be Women and Girls. Being a mother, I am encouraged to reach out to other women and their children. I was hoping I could find a group here in Washington state, but couldn’t. So instead, I narrowed it down even more to Oregon, our sister state, next door. From the list of a dozen groups, I finally decided on The Raphael House of Portland.

“We believe that everyone deserves to live a life free from violence. The mission of Raphael House is to engage our entire community in non-violent living through advocacy, education, and community outreach, and by providing a safe haven from domestic violence.”

The reason I chose this particular organization is because when I was younger, around five years old, my mother and I stayed in a women’s shelter for a short time. Though I don’t remember it well, I know that these shelters are so very important for women and their children to escape horrible situations.

My $25 donation helps purchase 10 bus tickets, to help survivors of violence file restraining orders and access legal aid.

This is just one of thousands of organizations that are in need of funding, to help people all over the world. There are many ways you can help give back.

Find a project you love and give back. From the US and around the world, there are many organizations to choose from, which you can donate to with as little as $10.

Give a GlobalGiving Gift Card to friends and family. The recipient then gets to pick the project(s) that they want to support and then see how their money has been put to work through regular updates from the field.

Sign up for the Project of the Month Club. You make a monthly recurring donation and each month GlobalGiving picks an exceptionally high performing project as the project of the month. The project of the month gets your donation and you get an e-mail telling you the impact that you’ve made.

They also have a ton of ways you can volunteer both from home and all around the world.

So, when you’re holiday shopping this year, consider GlobalGiving and help pay it forward, for you, for your family, for everyone!

I received a GlobalGiving gift code, which I used to select the organization of my choice. No other compensation was received  and all thoughts and opinions are my own.