GlobalGiving Gift Cards Facilitate Philanthropy This Season

On Thursday, GlobalGiving announced that this holiday season it is selling biodegradable gift cards that can be purchased to give such things as an education for a Zimbabwean orphan, pedal-powered electricity for a Nepalese village, or fuel-efficient stoves for Sudanese refugees.

These environmentally-friendly gift cards permit one's friends, family members, or colleagues to support any of more than 400 projects in over 60 countries across the globe.

Once a project has been chosen, the recipients of the cards can then track the impact of their contributions via updates and photography from project leaders.

GlobalGiving is also offering other unique holiday gift-giving choices. Make a donation in the name of a friend or family member and they will receive a personalized gift card in their inbox or mailbox. A Gift for Good can also be chosen, such as fair trade coffee that supports developing country projects or a holiday wreath that can improve maternal health in Africa among other noble causes.

The organization's efforts come at a time of unprecedented philanthropy and charitable giving, especially from Twenty-Somethings and Gen-Xers in the United States. The focus on charitable giving is slowly but steadily shifting toward a global mindset in the globally interconnected social and economic realities of the 21st century and people in wealthy nations become ever more aware of the hardships faced by those in poor nations.

It is estimated that over the next 40 years (the traditional duration of one generation), the ageing Baby Boomers are going to pass down $40 trillion to their children and heirs. Much of that unprecedented personal wealth will end up being dedicated to charitable or philanthropic purposes.

What's more, more and more poor and developing nations are refusing the aid from wealthy nations' governments. They don't like the attached stigma of being inferior or something like a colony, and they have developed a fierce pride that makes them want to be self-reliant, rather than reliant on another country's government, and sometimes they don't even want to be helped by their own governments.