This is a selection of ideas, updating and supplementing a previous post. Please do share yours too!

Greetings cards and more…

WWF, the independent conservation body, strives to safeguard the natural world, helping people live more sustainably and take action against climate change. The international site is here, and they offer a free e-card service. You can also adopt an animal, or join Team Panda and get involved in fundraising events.

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The current Oxfam slogan is “Grows vegetables, Fills Classrooms, Drills Wells, Empowers Women, Fights Poverty“. The charity offers “Oxfam Unwrapped” gifts, where you send an interactive card including gifts such as safe water, shelter kit, seeds, a safe winter kit, and so on.

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Through Kiva, founded in 2005 with a mission to connect people through lending to alleviate poverty, you can send a friend a gift voucher of money so that they can make a microfinance loan to help entrepreneurs in need in developing countries. You can also become a lender for as little as $25, and there are volunteering opportunities too.

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Donating time, money or even puppies…

With United Nations Volunteers Online Volunteering scheme you can donate as much time as you can manage, via the web: e.g. writing, editing, translating, project management, IT, training, or assisting with legal issues.

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Legal Information for Families Today (LIFT) aims to enhance access to justice for children and families by providing legal information, community education, and compassionate guidance, while promoting system-wide reform of the courts and public agencies. Opportunities for volunteers all over the world include answering legal hotline questions by email from your home or office, translation of their Legal Resource Guides.

UNICEF has a scheme called “Inspired Gift“: “Inspired Gifts give twice – a child in need will receive a lifesaving item such as a vaccine or school supplies, and your friend or family member receives an e-card showing how a gift has been sent in their honour (note: e-cards are not available in all countries). For every UNICEF Inspired Gift you purchase, an item is dispatched from our warehouse in Copenhagen and transported to a child in need in any one of 150 countries where we work“.

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The First 100 Years is an ambitious video history project documenting the journey of women in the legal profession, from 1919 to the present day. Work is under way to produce a new digital museum made up of 100 video stories, to be donated to the British Library in 2019. Though UK-based, it provides positive and diverse role models for girls and women everywhere. Donations are needed to support the project, and can be recorded for posterity on the Digital Donors’ Wall.

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And lastly, to counter all those unwanted pet presents that happen at this time of the year, why not sponsor a puppy and change a blind person’s life? Guide Dogs for the Blind (they have a sister organization in the US & Canada) also have a range of gifts.