Volunteering Away from Home

June 23, 2011 By admin Leave a Comment

Volunteering abroad is on the rise. These projects entice prospective volunteers because they provide an experience of traveling to a new place and diving into a new culture while helping out and making an impact on the community. However, if you’re looking into organizations that will give you the experience of volunteering overseas, you need to be realistic about what this “voluntourism” will accomplish.

Perceiving Your Experience
Volunteers often want to come away from their experience with a finished product—a completely constructed school, for instance—so they can have a concrete answer to the inevitable question, “so what did you achieve?” You must keep in mind that your volunteer project is part of a process. You’ll come away from it with a new perspective on your own life and country as well as the place you experienced. And while you may not build a whole school in a week, you will take small steps towards meaningful change.

Components of Successful Projects
Successful organizations don’t simply move in and begin to determine the path of development. Instead, successful projects start with the needs of the community and engage the community in dialogue to recognize needs. Members of the community should be part of the process of identifying their needs and determining how to best address problems. You should make sure the organization with which you’re working has an ongoing relationship with the community—a new school won’t have much of an impact if there are no teachers to teach in it. Remember to be realistic about what a positive experience will be and choose something that fits your own interests and abilities.

Filed Under: General, Volunteering Tagged With: Organization, Volunteer, Volunteer travel

Checking Out Charities

June 5, 2011 By admin Leave a Comment

Image by epSos.de via Flickr

When making charitable donations, you want to make sure that your generosity is directed at the proper organizations. Unfortunately, there are plenty of scam artists out there ready to take your money on behalf of a deserving cause. It’s always best to be wary and check out where you’ll send your money—any legitimate charity will give you the information you need.

Ask for Written Information
A legitimate charity or fundraiser won’t have a problem sending you information about how they plan to use your donation, proof that your donation is tax deductable, and their mission. Ask for written information like name, address, and telephone number.

Call the Organization
Make sure all organizations to which you plan to donate are aware of solicitations on their behalf. If they aren’t, you might have a scam artist on your hands.

Be Wary of Pressure
Most legitimate organizations won’t pressure you to give donations on the spot. That tactic is always a cause for concern and further research.

What’s in a Name?
Some scam charities choose names close to those of respected organizations to trick you. If you catch a small difference in the name of the charity to which you want to donate, call the organization to make sure it’s legitimate.

Current Events and Natural Disasters
If a new organization is asking for donations in response to a natural disaster or other newsworthy event, you need to check them out. These organizations probably won’t have the infrastructure necessary to deliver what you donate to affected areas. This is also ripe ground for scam artists.

Filed Under: General, Volunteering Tagged With: Charitable organization, Confidence trick, Donation

P&G in Association with Kroger helping new USO “Honoring Our Heroes” Campaign

May 11, 2011 By admin Leave a Comment

P&G is the prominent consumer brand and it has been facilitating the millions and billions of people since so many years with its portfolio brands. Now this multinational is turning and moving very philanthropically and in association with Kroger, which is the leading grocery retailer in America P&G is supporting USO. USO stands for United Service Organizations and it has been serving American troops and their families since 70 years through ground breaking services and programs. P&G Kroger Team leader Mindy Thompson said, “This year alone, more than 50,000 troops will be returning home from active duty – having done their part to help keep our country and its citizen’s safe. This program allows us to help consumers express their own gratitude to all the men and women who make such great sacrifices for our country.”

Partnership of P&G and Kroger

In partnership with P&G, Kroger donated US$250,000 to the new USO “Honoring Our Heroes” campaign. Lynn Marmer group vice president of Corporate Affairs for Kroger said, “The Kroger family is delighted to partner with P&G and to support the USO and its many programs and services for our troops and their families, Our Honoring our Heroes program will help the USO assist even more men and women who serve our country.” Both P&G and Kroger are extremely enthusiastic about the campaign of USO and have planned to prolong year long program in order to support the USO in the completion of its mission. USO also delivers special services and organizes programs to help the wounded warriors and their families.

Strategic Partners of USO

Various national and multinational companies are helping USO to accomplish its mission, strategic partners of USO are: AT&T, BAE Systems, American Airlines, The Coca-Cola Company, The Boeing Company, and Clear Channel Communications, Lock heed Martin,
Microsoft Corporation, Northrop Grumman Corporation, Procter & Gamble and Tri West Healthcare Alliance.

Shake the Hand of a Hero-A Digital Opportunity

Kroger and P&G have offered a digital opportunity to virtually i.e. “shake the hand of a hero” which is the apt gesture to use with US troops in uniform to show gratitude to them for their valuable services to motherland.

Filed Under: General

How Religion & Green Lifestyles Work Together

May 5, 2011 By admin Leave a Comment

Image via Wikipedia

No matter what faith you follow, there likely are reasons for living a green lifestyle that line up directly with your religious beliefs. By making choices that support a healthy environment, you become a steward of God’s creation. You can even use your green lifestyle to encourage other people to join your faith.

Stopping Poverty to Save the Environment

Most of the world’s major religions command followers to give charity to those in need. Lowering the amount of poverty in the world does more than just fulfill your religious obligations to humanity; it can also help protect the environment.

Impoverished areas of the world, including those in developed countries in the U.S. and Europe, often find that they don’t have enough money to follow environmental standards. Their sewage systems don’t clean water properly; they don’t have resources for managing trash and they cannot afford recycling programs.

Contributing to charities that focus on ending poverty can, therefore, improve the environment. It’s kind and smart to improve the living conditions of all people.

Making Sacrifices for the Environment

Most religions encourage followers to make sacrifices to show their dedication to God, and sacrifices aren’t just for Lent. Making them every day helps you show your commitment to God and his creation. It’s easy to combine daily sacrifices with smart environmental choices.

If you commonly rely on your car to make short trips, then you can commit to walking more or riding a bike. While walking to places within your neighborhood, meditate on your choice to help you commune with God’s creation. When you sacrifice short car trips, you improve the environment, your health and your relationship with the world.

You can also stop buying products that come in non-recyclable packaging. This might not sound like a huge sacrifice at first, but you will quickly find that many of the foods and consumer products that you enjoy come in packaging that cannot be recycled. Giving up these items shows your commitment to the planet by reducing the amount of non-biodegradable materials filling up landfills around the world.

Spreading Your Faith Through Environmental Efforts

Many environmentalists associate religious devotion with a lack of concern for the environment. Show them that faith and environmentalism go hand-in-hand by getting involved in environmental efforts. Join local groups that clean up parks and waterways; join discussion groups that find new ways to prevent ecological destruction; and get active in political demonstrations that favor environmental policies.

While participating in these activities, you can tell people about how your faith encourages you to take care of the world. This will show them that religion and a green lifestyle can work together.

You can also use these opportunities to invite people to your church to learn more about your faith. Many religions instruct followers to spread their beliefs by proselytizing. When you show other environmentalists how your religion promotes caring for the planet, then you might convince them to learn more about your faith.

For many people, religion and green lifestyles are indistinguishable from each other. By making smart decisions, you can save the environment and get in touch with the most important aspects of your faith.

Filed Under: General, Volunteering Tagged With: Environmentalism, Environmentally friendly, religion and environment, Sustainable living

What is Needed for Tax Donations

March 28, 2011 By admin Leave a Comment

Donations to charity organizations are a great way to receive a large tax deduction. When donations of clothing, books, automobiles and toys are made to nonprofit organizations they are often able to be deducted on your federal and state taxes. However, you must make sure the deductions are done properly in order to receive the tax deduction. Here is a look at what needs to be done to ensure that you will receive a tax deduction for your charitable donation.

Proper Organization

The IRS allows taxable donations to be deducted when they are given to proper organizations. Proper organizations usually include churches and nonprofit organizations. There is only of organizations are recognized by the IRS available on the IRS website. If the IRS does not recognize your organization the deduction is not applicable.

Proper Documentation

You’ll need to keep proper documentation of all donations that had been made. Proper documentation includes receipts and letters from the charitable or nonprofit organization outlining the donation that has been made. These documents will be required to make your taxable deduction. Make sure you keep a copy of these documentations for yourself and for the IRS as you will be required to submit these documents with your tax form.

Proper Tax Form

In order to receive a tax refund for your charitable donation you will need to file an itemized tax form. This will allow you to outline the donations that you made and the amount that you made them in. If you file a 1040ez you will not be eligible to make a tax deduction for your charitable donations.

Filed Under: General, Volunteering Tagged With: Internal Revenue Service, Tax, Tax deduction

Contributing to Others

March 12, 2011 By admin Leave a Comment

It is extremely important to help out the less fortunate in our world in any way that we can, so long as it really helps them to do better for themselves (as opposed to simply giving a hand out and causing a person to get increasingly dependent on it). There is no better example of doing this for long term growth than in the case of poor children. In the case of a child, they did not choose to be born into a condition of poverty- that was primarily the doing of their parents. When you donate to a child, you can help them in a very large number of different ways.

For one thing, you can help them to get proper care by donating to organizations like Kars for Kids, which can allow their parents to work enough to provide better things for them. You can also help them to get a high quality education, which can help them to become professionals and leave poverty far behind them. Not to mention the fact that without enough money to provide for the child’s basic needs, their emotional needs simply cannot be fulfilled because their parents are just too busy to do so. This kind of situation tends to result in children who grow up to not understand the full power that emotions play in a person’s life.

But what can you do if you want to help out needy children, and really give them the kind of chance that they were not born with? One great way you can help out these kids is through donating your vehicle to Kars for Kids, which is a charitable organization that helps needy children through providing them with the sorts of daily care, educational opportunities and the fellowship of other kids that they need, in order to grow up properly. Poverty may never be eliminated, but it can at least be marginalized and hunted down to the point of near extinction. That’s a worthwhile goal.

Filed Under: General, Volunteering Tagged With: Charitable organization, Child, Poverty