Unique Ways To Give

By Penny Caldwell

For about two hours a week when my kids were little, I spent one-on-one time at their school with children who had reading difficulties. The reward for volunteers like me was the kids’ growing confidence and delight as words on the page started to make sense.

Fortunately for non-profit organisations, the feel-good reward of helping others is universal. Nearly a quarter of all adults worldwide volunteer and about 35 per cent of people donate to charities, according to the World Giving Index, which includes data for 119 countries. It also reports that since 2021, the rate of giving has increased among the wealthiest nations.

That’s a good thing because in today’s cost-of-living crisis, the demand on charities is greater than ever. Here are innovative ways people are giving back.

RICE BUCKET CHALLENGE, INDIA

Heard of the Ice Bucket Challenge? The social media initiative started in the US, raising US$117 (A$178) million dollars for ALS (Lou Gehrig’s disease) research. It then spread across the world. You take a video of yourself dumping a bucket of ice water over your head, then nominate three more people to do the same. In some versions, the participant donates $100 if they don’t complete the challenge.

“I thought it was an amazing way to garner awareness of ALS and raise funds,” recalls Manju Kalanidhi, a journalist in Hyderabad, India. But it didn’t make sense in her country, where water is too precious to waste, even for a good cause. Then in 2014, it hit her: why not make it a Rice Bucket Challenge to fight hunger?

“I gave a bucket of rice to someone in need and clicked a photo. I shared it on Facebook and said, ‘This is a Rice Bucket Challenge. Why don’t you do it, too?’” Participants donate a bucket of rice to an individual or family – no, it’s not dumped – take a photo and post it on social media with a message encouraging others to do the same. Or people can donate through a website.

“I don’t have a big army of volunteers, but I do have donations and I have people who need food, so I put them together.” To date, Kalanidhi says the Rice Bucket Challenge has raised millions of rupees and distributed an estimated 35,000 kilograms of rice.

DOGSELFIE, ENGLAND

Social media swept another charitable effort to success in the United Kingdom, where people posted photos of themselves with their beloved canines in support of the Manchester & Cheshire Dogs Home after a fire ripped through the facility and 60 dogs died. The initiative encouraged people to donate to the shelter, which raised the equivalent of around $3.3 million to rebuild.

FOOD ANGEL, HONG KONG

Food insecurity has become a global problem for families. In Hong Kong, the people behind the Food Angel programme collect 45 tonnes of surplus food each week that supermarkets, restaurants and individuals would otherwise dispose of. That includes fresh fruit and vegetables and other perishables that aren’t normally accepted in food-donation boxes. The impact is significant: volunteers make and serve around 20,000 meals and distribute more than 11,000 other meals and food packs every day.

DONATION FENCE, GERMANY

For the past six years, the non-profit group Hamburger Gabenzaun e.V. (Hamburg Gift Fence) has encouraged locals in that city to hang sealed bags of donated clothing, hygiene items, sleeping bags and non-perishable food on a fence near Hamburg’s central train station. Though construction work there has forced the group to look for a new donation-fence location, its initiative will continue.

FRIGOS SOLIDAIRES, FRANCE

Imagine if those in need could help themselves to food with anonymity and dignity. Frigos Solidaires, or Solidarity Fridges, was started with that aim by Dounia Mebtoul, a young restaurateur in Paris. Now, 130 fridges installed in front of places such as shops and schools offer free food to the hungry across France.

A similar programme in Sweden is run by the volunteers of Solikyl, a food-rescue organisation that encourages shops, hotels, restaurants and individuals to donate food rather than throw it out.

MOBILE SHOWER FOR WOMEN, GERMANY

Offering services where they’re needed is also key to the success of a blue-and-white shower mobilised, literally, by the Sozialdienst Katholischer Frauen e.V. Berlin (Social Service for Catholic Women in Berlin). The Duschmobil (mobile shower) vehicle operates in eight locations across the city, six days a week, offering hot showers to homeless women. Social workers operating it also offer donated clothing, toiletries, coffee and conversation.

LITTLE FREE LIBRARIES, VARIOUS COUNTRIES

Another visible example of the gift network in action are Little Free Libraries (LFLs), which sit atop eye-level posts. Worldwide, 120 countries host LFLs. All you need to do is build (or buy) a box and fill it with books you’ve finished reading. Registering your LFL with the organisation lets avid readers find it through a mobile app. The more creative LFLs look like real libraries, schoolhouses or replicas of the homes behind them.

Anyone can take, leave or exchange a book from the box. The goal is to promote literacy, but community-building, as neighbours connect, is a bonus.

STUFF A BUS, CANADA AND THE US

In Edmonton, the transit service parks vehicles in front of supermarkets for its annual ‘Stuff a Bus’ campaign each November. Volunteers collect food and cash donations from shoppers to fill buses bound for food banks. Since its inception in 1995, the campaign has collected 553,000 kilograms of food and roughly half a million dollars.

And in a town in the US state of Pennsylvania, United Way volunteers fill a yellow school bus annually with paper, binders and other school supplies to help local students.

TAXILUZ, SPAIN

Since 2016, taxi drivers in Madrid have devoted one evening each December to decorating their cabs and taking the elderly and children who have been hospitalised on a two-hour tour of the city’s Christmas lights. The annual event has expanded to include taxi drivers in 13 other cities in Spain. The group reports that in 2022, nearly 1000 taxis and 3000 seniors and kids participated.

COMMU APP, FINLAND

How do people wanting to volunteer connect with groups needing help? In 2021 in Finland, three 20-something entrepreneurs founded Commu, an app that makes it easy for individuals to offer help to those in need or to ask for help in their communities. It works in Finnish, English, Ukrainian, German and Norwegian and features a special area on the app that focuses on the needs of Ukrainian refugees in Finland.

GIVING AT THE CHECKOUT, CANADA AND THE US

You’ve likely seen charity-donation boxes for coins and bills next to cash registers. For the last few years, people paying for their purchases with debit or credit cards have also been invited by cashiers to round up their purchases, or to add a couple of dollars to the total bill, in support of a designated cause. This has been making it so easy to give that, in 2022 in the US, for example, some US$750 million (A$1.1 billion) was raised by 77 point-of-sale fundraising campaigns.

DONATION DOLLAR, AUSTRALIA

Motivating people to donate is the objective of a unique one-dollar coin created by the Royal Australian Mint. Featuring a green centre with a gold ripple design, the coin reminds people who find it in their change to donate it to charity. The ripples symbolise the coin’s ongoing impact while it continues to circulate. According to the Royal Australian Mint, by the end of 2022, 11 million Donation Dollars had gone into circulation.

Eventually a total of 25 million coins will be released, or roughly one for every Australian. It estimates that by the end of 2022, about A$2.8 million had been donated to charities and people or businesses in need.

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