Giving: Book Excerpt

Just a little thought on a gloomy day, "How can I make a difference in the world?" Surely not an easy question to get answered, but Bill Clinton's new book Giving: How Each of Us Can Change the World talks about his feelings on this and what we can all do to make a difference bit by bit.

What if you want to give something useful that you don't presently own or you have things of value but they have no evident charitable use? Laina Niemi, an American who followed the 2006 Clinton Global Initiative on the Internet, found a good answer to the first question. She committed to buying and donating oral rehydreaion solution packets to UNICEF to reduce diarrhea-induced death among children in developing countries. The packets cost only 6 cents each.

For people who want to give things away that have value but no charitable purpose, eBay Giving Works has provided a unique solution. You can sell the items on eBay and donate part or all of the final sale price to your chosen nonprofit organization; eBay collect and distributes the donations to the charities and issues tax receipts to the seller. You can also give in-kind contributions to one of the more that ten thousand NGOs fund-raising on eBay, and they can sell them in an eBay store. Either way, the process turns a gift of anything of value into useful support of any good endeavor.

Click Here or visit here for The Clinton Global Initiative