Suggestions to liven up charity board/benefit charities

Dibz_2

I've noticed recently that it's been very quiet around the Charites Board, so I was wondering if anyone had any ideas to liven it up a bit. It's a chance to be a bit creative and have a bit of fun with helping charities.

What I've come up with so far (bearing in mind they're still work in progress) are:

• Shopping list - the basic idea behind this is creating a list of things wanted/needed and finding them in charity shops. The list could be things for your holiday (suitcases, hats, sunglasses, etc), gifts (Christmas, birthdays, etc) or just general stuff for yourself or household (clothes, white goods, etc).

• Pigsback donations - I don't know how many people know about this, there's an enormous thread on the Freebies board detailing Pigsback (http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=185931). The principle of it is collecting points to redeem as rewards, some of which can be charitable donations. Currently, they're offering £5 donations to the Marie Keating Foundation, Samaritans, Northern Ireland Hospice Care and a donation to Breast Cancer Care. This is at no cost to the registered Pigsback member.

• Charity donater's club - Looking about, I can see that there's a £2 savers club, which people use to pay off debt, save for holidays, etc. Maybe there could be a club of people who have a jar to save money in for a charity. To make it a bit less bland, it could be used on a similar theory to a swear box; add 10p, 20p, 50p, whatever, everytime they swear, eat junk food, use the car unnecessarily, that sort of thing. I know a lot of people are of the view that charitable acts don't need bragging about, this is just a bit of fun that would hopefully benefit a good cause.

• Best charity shop buys competition - This is at VERY early stages so bear with me Possibly a weekly/monthly competition, where people post their various charity shop bargains (photos?) and the winner receives a prize (uncertain of this aspect at the mo :think: ) or sponsor, if they're in a race/walk/trek/that kind of thing. Uncertain of process of choosing winner, I reckon voting would probably be the best thing. As I said, this is a very raw idea, any input or development would be appreciated.

That's about your lot from me for now, a lot of these ideas are in early development, so let me know what you think. Even if all of the ideas bomb, it's at least some activity on this board.

If anyone's got any suggestions, just add them to this thread, hopefully it'll spark some interest.

Dibz x

soolin

Dibz, your suggetsions are great but I think most of them fall outside the remit of this board. Martin originally posted the following:

To be on this board posts must obey the following rules:

1. Any links must benefit a UK registered charity. The details of the charity number and link to the website must be given.

2. Any sponsorship links must go via the legitimate online charity sponsorship sources such as Justgiving. Direct soliciting for money or sponsorship by any other method isn't permitted as it would be open to abuse.

3. Absolutely no links for personal gain may be posted..... even if the money will be split with a charity..... or even if you 'promise to give all the cash to charity'. There is no way to prove this so it will be deleted.

4. No soliciting for money for any individual will be permitted.

5. We will err on the side of caution, the last thing we want is someone scamming people here.


Now I don't want to sound draconian. This should work well, but its to benefit genuine, legitimate, mainstream charities. Anything that deviates won't be permitted, its simply too open to abuse.


General discussion type threads, even those about charity giving will have to be moved to the MS Arms or Discussion time, and several threads have already been moved. However, feel free to start discussions over on those boards as there are a lot of people who use them and you may well get a much wider audience.

Soo

urz100

Couldn't we have a section with in the charity board for general discussion but still related to charities?


James

soolin

urz100 wrote:

Couldn't we have a section with in the charity board for general discussion but still related to charities?


James

We have a discussion board already so Iim not sure we need a dedicated charity board one here. However I am only a BG and all decisions have to be made by the team so the question is best addressed to them. If Martin's team think a charity discussion sub board is appropriate they will be able to set one up.

Soo