Shopping = Love (and vice versa)

This is hard for me, but I'm just going to admit it and hope you don't think less of me.

I have been known to puruse the blog Things I've Bought that I Love. I've even been known to do so at work. And yeah, yeah sometimes I like the stuff. And - I might as well just say it - I occasionally day dream about being a contributor.

THERE. IT'S OUT.

Now I can fulfill my fantasy for a second and help you with your holiday shopping! Humor me, please. (And Mom, Dad, anyone else who just might be on my list: Stop reading! Spoiler!)

If you're a one-store kind of person, let it be Ten Thousand Villages. You probably already know that it's an awesome store that pays fair prices to artisans around the world for all kinds of great art and handicrafts. (FYI: They also do tons of other really nice things. They're giving the nonprofit I work for a shopping night in a couple of weeks where we get 20 percent of everything they sell.)

OK, let's get to the fun stuff - my own "Things I'm Going to Buy that I Already Love," if you will. Please, please, please steal my ideas for the people on your list!


MOM
Dancing women earrings, $8

DAD
Antiqued Wood Turtle Box, $20













GRANDMA
Capiz Shell Star Ornament, $8












NIECE/NEPHEW, COUSIN, GODCHILD, ETC.
3D Animals of the World Puzzle, $28












FRIEND (OF THE FEMALE VARIETY)
Multi-Strand Glass Necklace, $20













I would be happy to keep going down my shopping list, but I'll spare you. Face it, you're already convinced. Shop Ten Thousand Villages online or find a store now!

$9 mil? Not bad.

I know the word "nonprofit" doesn't exactly inspire images of money trees, gold bars and those clear boxes lucky winners step into at casinos to grab flying cash. But the nonprofit sector is definitely an asset to the economy. And, this may or may not come as a surprise, but many of them are doing a better job being economical than the government.

The huge nonprofit sector in Washington, DC is a prime example: It contributes $9.6 million a year to the region's economy - and it uses that money wisely.

The Nonprofit Roundtable of Greater Washington released a study (funded by the World Bank) today that "found that many of the area's 7,614 nonprofits deliver such key services as health care in more cost-efficient ways than the government. Nonprofits also address social problems - including homelessness, hunger, violence and illiteracy - in the early stages, which prevents additional public spending..."

Sounds great in a big-picture sort of way, right? The specifics right from the report are even better:

• Adoptions Together works with the government to place children with families at an annual cost of $7,200 a child. It would cost the state of Maryland about $25,000 a year for each child to remain in the welfare system.


• The Manna Food Center in Montgomery County turns every $1 cash donation into $5 worth of food through volunteer labor and food donations.


• Volunteers with Stop Child Abuse Now in Northern Virginia served as court-appointed special advocates for nearly 200 children last year, saving the state government more than $400,000 in attorneys' fees.


• The District-based Metro TeenAIDS has an annual budget of just over $1 million. The group estimates that its entire budget is justified by preventing just two youths from contracting HIV each year, considering that the average lifetime cost of health care for one person infected with the virus is about $600,000.

Blogging for good

I log into Blogger twice a week for Experience and a few more times for my job - yet for some reason I don't often take the time to roam around. Consequently, I missed something pretty cool. Sorry! Better late than never, though, right? Enjoy.

The Generosity of Bloggers

November 6, 2007 — permalink

The results are in from the Blogger Challenge on DonorsChoose.org. Over 100 blogs and their readers helped to raise $420,000 for classroom projects benefitting more than 75,000 students in low-income communities. For more details and a list of some of the top blogs involved, check out the Official Google Blog.

— Graham

Have the happiest of Thanksgivings!

'Tis the season to give (almost)

Target's got their holiday merchandise front and center, and the overly ambitious have already spent a Saturday afternoon on a wobbly ladder stringing up lights. My landlord has already sent out the no-live-trees memo.

Though I do think this is jumping the gun a little, I guess I have to stop being in denial and admit that the holidays are coming.

I've never been able to figure out exactly why the holidays make people nicer (shouldn't we do nice things in, like, March, too? And June? And September?), but I'll take it. There are tons of holiday-giving traditions - think big red kettles - that are nice, fun and will get you into the spirit...even if it is early.

You can't go shopping without spotting the kettles. But we've come a long way in the giving game, too. Check out programs that will allow for some shopping fun - like Coats for Kids, Salvation Army Angel Giving Trees and various toy drives.

And if you're still sort of denying the approach of December holidays, there's always Turkey Day - and you probably won't have to look very far to find a place accepting Thanksgiving dinner donations, including the buy-one-get-one-free turkeys that always seem to still be waiting at the bottom of the freezer the next Thanksgiving.

So I guess what I'm saying is, give in. Be all holiday spirity. And take advantage of all the great giving opportunities of the season.

Every little grain helps

How much is a billion grains of rice? A bathtub full? A dump truck full? A stadium full? I can't give you the cubic footage, but I can you an idea of quantity: A billion grains of rice feeds 50,000 people for a day.

And that's how much FreeRice.com has donated to the UN World Food Program since its website launched in October. Here's how it works: Advertisers pay FreeRice for their ads to appear on the site. Anyone can go to to the site and take a little English-language vocab quiz - for each question you answer correctly, FreeRice will donate 10 grains of rice to the World Food Program.

Also - sounds nerdy, I know - I swear some of the vocab words looked familiar from the GRE. A free study tool that feeds the hungry? Sounds good to me.

I know 10 grains a pop doesn't sound like much, but it obviously adds up - and fills more bathtubs more quickly than one might expect.

Dealing with frustration

I would consider myself an optimist. I'm pretty laid back, I enjoy most people and I'd say I have a smile on my face slightly more than the average person does.

I can be extremely patient when necessary, and I think I have at least a little talent for making light of sticky situations and trying to pull some good out of bad.

That said, some things just piss me off. (Pardon my...French?)

I won't bore you with the challenges of my job - because everyone has them and mine are no worse than yours are or will be - but I will share some survival strategies I've figured out by necessity. Trust me, they're good to keep in mind.

1. FOCUS ON WHAT'S GOING RIGHT. This seems like a no-brainer, I know, but it's amazing how quickly negative thinking can get out of hand, especially when you have negative things to think about. Obviously you have to spend some time on the not-so-good, but those floating minutes where your brain could wander anywhere? Send it to the light side. Make a list, even if it's just in your head, of what you've accomplished - fun or not, done's done.

2. HAVE A PLAN. I was not blessed with the organizing gene. I can do it, but it takes a lot more effort for me than for those who think in straight lines, smart charts and clean desks. But it's worth every bead of sweat. In times of work chaos, having a very clear to-do list, for example, is a savior. Or a list of steps to accomplish a task. Or a good, solid work schedule. Thinking, "This is what's gotta happen, no matter what's going on out there," is a good way to keep moving forward and limiting distractions, frustrations, pouting in your cubicle, etc.

3. REMEMBER THE MISSION. If you're working for a nonprofit, it's not to work short hours and get rich and famous. It's because you believe in the cause you're working for. You don't have to tell me how easy it is to forget that when you're painfully plugging away at some menial task, but thinking that in some way that copying or emailing or phone-answering is contributing to the organization achieving its goals (which, remember, are your goals, too). Tricky, yes, when you're fighting with the computer or jamming the photocopier for some seemingly stupid thing, but that's making it possible to accomplish everything else. If you have to go as far as pasting your organization's mission statement to your monitor so you don't forget, I won't judge.

4. TALK. If you know me at all, you'll assume I've got this one covered. Far from it, in fact, though I see the importance. Sometimes, particularly if you're in a position that's never existed before or is changing, your organization won't exactly know what to do - and not do - with you. You need to speak up if something's impossible or inefficient or inappropriate, if you need more tools to do your job, if you feel a disconnect between what you (thought you were) hired to do and what you spend your days doing. I'm very much a suck-it-up-and-make-it-happen kind of person, but sometimes to my own detriment. Talking with your supervisor and coworkers can raise issues they probably haven't thought of and quite possibly get you AND them what you need and want.

Start up your start-up

Ever get bored with what's out there and dream of starting your own nonprofit or social enterprise endeavor? You know what? It's absolutely possible - and you don't have to wait until you're old and "experienced" to make it happen.

Check out these young entrepreneurs - in the nonprofit industry and others - and read about their backgrounds, their dreams and how they went for them. And, yes, succeeded!

Because we're do-gooders, pay special attention to Thor (who's making sure money that's supposed to make a difference is doing its job) and Gretchen (who helps people in developing countries start social enterprise projects).

Wikipedia it

OK, so your professors hate it, and you hurry to X it out when your coworkers walk behind your cubicle. But there is definitely the time and place for Wikipedia - and you might not realize it's a real live nonprofit.

And that means one thing: it does real live fundraising. Check out its current campaign that's raking in the dough a little at a time, but definitely raking it.