Justgiving's blog

Queen Elizabeth celebrates 5th Jubilee

We're hanging out the bunting and firing party poppers at the finance department this week in celebration of our design and usability guru Elizabeth chalking up five years as a Justgiver.

Elizabeth arrived at JG Towers back in 2001 and has been responsible for the look and feel of our site ever since. She also designs and builds funky microsites for charities and corporate clients, and she oversaw our complete rebrand earlier this year. She's often seen squirrelling real live users into our meeting room and plying them with coffee and Amazon vouchers in exchange for being a usability guinea pig.

So if you find Justgiving a joy to behold and a doddle to use, you've got Elizabeth to thank.

Apart from the big bosses, only Will and Caroline have been JGers for longer. Elizabeth has been a key player in the growth of the company and we all think she's fab. Plus, she brought chocolate treats into the office today, so now we think she's double fab.

Here are five interesting facts about Elizabeth:

1. She grew up in Canada, where popular hobbies include seal clubbing.
2. But she was actually born in Texas, US of A.
3. She used to be a goth.
4. She's moving house at Christmas.
5. She has more shoes than Imelda Marcos.*

* This is not actually true. But she would if she could.

Yay Cassidy Lynn!

You might remember Cassidy-Lynn and her friends from the Justgiving homepage (they are still there- keep on refreshing the homepage till you see them!) - she's the one who creates Playful Pankcake cat toys and donates her profits to Kids for Kids.

Well, I was just taking a look at Cassidy's blog this morning and it seems like the Playful Pancakes are more popular than ever! In fact, here is a photo of Cassidy and friends selling them at her local craft fair.

You can buy a Playful Pancake here - or if you just want to support Cassidy's appeal without buying anything, you can always make a donation on her fundraising page.

It's only taken six years

It's finally happened. Here's a picture of a chap called Dan with some vapid blonde that was in some naughty video or other (we're absolutely full of blondes today and just don't know why).

'I can make your dreams of pop stardom come true'

Dan has created the ultimate response to all the marathon-runners, cycle riders, nutters that jump out of planes and all the other extremely keen folk that can be found on JG.

The Do Nothing page. Yep that's right. Dan's raising cash for his local NHS trust in Portsmouth by doing absolutely nothing. Nada. Zip. Diddly-squat. Super-sweet FA.

Fair play to him, and long may he remain an example to others. Put the bike back in the shed, stop running in the dark after work and don't even think about going swimming. You don't need to do anything at all to raise money. As Dan himself puts it: "I would love to get involved in charity, do a bike ride, help someone, do a parachute jump, do a 3 legged race up a mountain but I don't really get around to it. I thought I'd try and raise some money by promising not to get involved in anything worthwhile for a year. Scouts honour. If you see me about to attempt to go to a harvest festival with some canned food please stop me."

Amen to that.

Top Kat

At number three in our Movers and Shakers chart today is eight-year-old Katrina Doyle, who has dyed her hair bright pink to raise funds for CLIC Sargent.

Katrina was diagnosed with Leukaemia aged seven, and lost all her hair. She received care and support from CLIC Sargent and when her hair started growing back, she decided to raise funds by getting sponsored to go pink.

Kat's hair has been a big hit and she's smashed her original target of £200 to buy DVDs for children in hospital.

"Mega WOW...OMG OMG - we have raised a THOUSAND POUNDS! OMG," wrote Kat earlier in the week. And now...

"More double mega WOW's - we are at £1500!! That is so great. I hope now I can get to £2000 - that is 10 times what I thought I would get. Everyone is talking about my hair, which is great, as it gets money for Clic Sargent and that is really important for families like mine. And they are getting the money in time for Christmas too! I am exctatik."

We're exctatik too. Go girl!

Big Brother's Aisleyne gets SmokeFree

Top fundraiser so far on our super duper new SmokeFree site is none other than newly nicotine free Aisleyne from Big Brother.

The model and promotions girl has quit the fags to raise funds for Cancer Research with the help of a Justgiving page. So far, her fans have incentivised her with more than £300 in donations.

Aisleyne was a non-smoker when she entered the Big Brother house as a "prize" for the successful completion of a task by the other housemates. She promptly took up smoking, which let's face it was perfectly understandable under the circumstances.

But now she's no longer under 24-hour surveillance in a fortified compound with excruciating hissy fit brat Nikki, Aisleyne figured she could do without the snouts and (like all aspiring quitters should) decided to get some extra motivation by raising funds for a good cause. Good on you Aisleyne, and good luck!

Aisleyne factoid: She once dated Iron Mike Tyson.

We got pimped.

Favourite website of fatties and DIY food technologists everywhere, Pimp That Snack, are currently running their christmas appeal here at JG.

Word.

PTS host a collection of recipes to make giant pimped versions of your favourite junk foods, such as my personal favourite, the Creme de la Creme Egg.

Behold:

Wow. Here's a very very wrong pizza.

Mountaineer has chops slapped by trout

Chips with that Sir?

Ben Fillmore has taken the creative approach to fundraising by auctioning the chance to wallop him round the chops with a wet fish.

The 24-year-old is shortly embarking on an expedition to Everest Base Camp to raise funds for The Stroke Association, but feared that merely clambouring up the world's highest and most dangerous mountain would leave him short of his £10,000 fundraising target.

So inspired by the infamous Monty Python sketch, Ben offered his face for a fish slapping on Ebay. The hotly contested auction was won by Lucy Berry, 23, who paid a whopping £210 for the pleasure of socking Ben with a pair of rainbow trout. "It was very satisfying," said Lucy.

And Ben's verdict? "It felt OK. My face feels a bit taut and the fish really stinks. It felt very slimy – but it was definitely worth it."

Bet he felt like a right pollock, but we're sure eel recover. You can read more and watch hilarious video footage on Ben's blog.

Ok, so we slightly missed the fishing boat on this one. Ben actually got clobbered back in August, but we figured it was too good a story not to blog even though the news is now wrapping someone's fish and chips.

Can we squeeze any more poisson puns from this turbot charged riff? Or have you haddock enough of our flounder-ing? (Oh pike down, for cod's hake - JG ed). Ok, ok. Over and trout.

Myspace. Dead, apparently.

Another week, another several hundred articles chronicling the much feted death of Myspace.

We're being told it's all collapsing beneath an overwhelming tide of corporate posturing, lots of spam and the unwise neglect of people's own websites. They're all too busy updating their myspace pages instead of their own websites, which is a little bit silly.

So I did some high-level quantitative research over the weekend, and came up with the following, which is based on very strict and accurate metrics.

Interviews. From hell.

So lots of people coming in and out for interviews with various people for all the lovely different positions that were posted over on the other side. And over here too.

Questions are asked, coffee is made, more teaspoons are mislaid; it's all going great. We're not nasty question askers, but it does remind me of the legendary question Microsoft used to ask their candidates: 'Why is a manhole cover round?'

Wikipedia to the rescue! Enlightening stuff.

On a darker note, apparently one of Yahoo!'s favourites used to be: how do you figure out which one of 1000 bottles of wine was poisoned, using less than 10 prisoners as 'test subjects'.

Anyone else had any ridiculously mean questions in an interview?               
 

The good, the mad and the botoxed

Matt Birtles: opting for a blindfold rather than botox

Some more cool pages to report in the burgeoning non-athon genre.

Myles Dyer hosted a 24 hour non-stop web chat on Stickam last weekend to raise more than £500 for Unicef. Perhaps the first web 2.0 fundraising challenge?

Then yesterday, 21-year-old barman Matt Birtles experienced the life of a blind person by being blindfolded for 24 hours to raise funds for the RNIB. Matt travelled on public transport, conducted an interview and visited the supermarket while recording the difficulties he faced on a dictaphone. You can read all about it on his website.

And Children In Need on Friday inspired a slew of wacky fundraising challenges including a swordathon, a taekwondo spar-athon, a chilli eating contest and an ice hockey team getting a botox treatment. No, really.

The mind boggles.

Live life then give life

August's fundraiser of the month and all round superstar Emily has posted to the forum to let us know she has now raised more than £20k for the Cystic Fibrosis Trust.

Emily has CF and is in desperate need of a life-saving double lung transplant, but has been waiting for almost two years for donor.

She and her friend Emma created the inspirational Live Life Then Give Life website to encourage people to sign up as organ donors. They've also created this brilliant film. Click the play button below, and once you've watched, head straight for the National Organ Donor Register to sign up.

Photo and video editing at onetruemedia.com

Me and my big mouth

Levein: Definitely going to Dunfermline....doh!

We've all made rash promises we've lived to regret. Like that time at the Justgiving Christmas party when [snip...JG ed].

Ahem. Anyway, Dunfermline Athletic fan Michael Thomas* made one such unfortunate pronouncement when he confidently predicted his club's search for a new manager would be concluded with the appointment of Craig Levein. So confident was he that he posted to DAFC.net messageboard to proclaim: "If Levein doesn't come to Dunfermline I will stroll e**e naked fae here to Starks Park." Imagine Michael's horror, then, when Craig Levein was swiftly appointed by Dundee United.

Accordingly, Michael will now spend next Saturday trudging 13.4 miles from Starks Park, Kircaldy, to East End Park, Dunfermline in time to watch his team line up against...Craig Levein's Dundee United (now that's ironic, Alanis).

Apparently the killjoy local constabulary have vetoed the "e**e naked" aspect, but Michael's going to dress up as a gorilla in a pink tutu to recompense. 

(Nope, admittedly we've no idea what e**e means either, but it doesn't sound nice).

Since he's undergoing ritual humiliation, Michael's asking for donations to Children In Need. Join chuckling Dunfermline fans in sponsoring him here. Only fair that Craig Levein chips in as well I should think.

* No, not that Michael Thomas. Will JG fundraisers please stop having the same names as famous footballers!

My New Face

Tune in to Channel Four tonight at 9pm to catch My New Face, a much heralded documentary about the work of Justgiving charity Facing the World.

The charity was founded by two of the world's leading plastic surgeons following a trip to war-torn Kabul to operate on people injured in the fighting. It helps children with severe facial disfigurements, living in some of the world's poorest countries, receive the miracle of a new face.

My New Face follows four extraordinary cases of disfigured children leaving their homelands for pioneering cranial-facial surgery and promises to be an enlightening and moving insight into the way the charity transforms the lives of the people it helps.

You can donate to Facing the World here.

Tell us what you thought of the documentary by posting a comment.

Another RAoK from cult leader Danny

Warning: This man is a cult leader

It's not every day you start a cult by accident, but that's exactly what happened to Danny Wallace* when he put an ad in a London free paper simply saying 'Join Me'.

Thousands of people responded despite having absolutely no idea what they were joining. And despite Danny having absolutely no idea what they were joining either.

Faced with a growing army of devotees, Danny simply decided to ask them to be nice to other people through perpetrating Random Acts of Kindness (RAoK) every Friday. Typical RAoK include paying the toll for the car behind you at a toll booth or buying a pint for a complete stranger in the pub.

Five years on and Danny's Karma Army has swelled its ranks worldwide and spread a little happiness to thousands of unsuspecting strangers.

To celebrate, Danny has created a Justgiving page and aims to raise £5k for International Care And Relief to build a classroom in The Gatumbiro Primary School, Kenya. Danny's joinees have already donated more than £1k. Go on, join him.

Can you think of any cool RAoKs? Post a comment.

* Not to be confused with ex-footballer Danny Wallace, wing wizard and all round top bloke whose career was cut short by MS and who now runs his own foundation to raise funds for MS sufferers.

Where the fork is our cutlery?

A reward of £1,000 is offered for the capture and successful conviction of the person or persons unknown who have been plundering the stocks of cutlery at Justgiving Towers. In particular the depletion of a previously healthy stash of teaspoons in our cutlery drawer has caused quite a stir, if you'll excuse the pun.

Given that we (by which I mean I) buy all our kitchen stuff in Ikea, It's not impossible that this whole operation is being financed by those devious Swedes to generate repeat business. I suspect those same in-store Oompah Loompahs which appear from behind the self-assembly wardrobes (grid reference SV981 864) and gently turn you around in the right direction if you're not following the store's intended floor plan flow...

Could it be that they are secretly abseiling in through our windows in the dead of night, softly  humming  "Gimme, Gimme, Gimme a Spoon After Midnight'? and other mutated ABBA ditties from their faraway homeland?

Could it be that I've been in this room too long?

Knowing me, knowing you, the answer is yes. But whomever is making a mockery of our crockery, we will catch you and bring you to justice.
You have been warned.

Get SmokeFree with JG

Tired of haemorraging cash to tobacco company coffers, wheezing your way up the stairs and wearing the scent of Eau de Ash Tray? Well help is at hand.

We've teamed up with the Department of Health to help you stub out the snouts and raise funds for good causes at the same time with our funky new SmokeFree site.

Forget hypnotherapy, acupuncture, Allen Carr and boarding up your front door so you can't get to the newsagents - all you need to quit is right here.

Simply build a fundraising page for your favourite charity and get your family, friends, work colleagues and smoking partners to sponsor you to give up.

You won't be forgoing your nictoine hit, you'll be doing something positive to raise funds for a cause you care about. And what better motivation to ward off the cravings than the knowledge that if you light up, your charity loses out?

Seriously folks, it works. It's like we've bottled pure motivation and we're handing it out to any smoker who doubts they have the willpower to stub out. Give it a go - build a page now at www.justgiving.com/smokefree.

The DoH know a bit about giving up smoking, and here are some top tips to help you quit:

1. Visit www.givingupsmoking.co.uk for more advice, or phone the NHS Smoking Helpline on 0800 169 0169, or visit your local NHS Stop Smoking Service.
2. Make plans for coping with stressful situations
3. Think positively – YOU can do it! Concentrate on the benefits
4. Take it one day at a time. Congratulate yourself each day
5. Ask a friend to stop too and give each other support
6. Use Nicotine Replacement Therapy (NRT) or bupropion (Zyban) to help you manage the cravings – your GP will be able to give you advice about NRT and Zyban
7. At first, avoid events where you may be tempted to smoke
8. Keep busy and get a bit more active
9. Count the money you save – spend it on yourself!
10. Don’t try ‘just one’ cigarette – it always makes you start again

Do you have tips to share on great ways to beat your cravings, or other things that have helped you successfully quit smoking?

If so, please share by posting a comment.

Miami Vice in Sting Shock!

Shocking news has just reached JG Towers from our Account Manager, Molly Loyd, who is currently holidaying in Miami.

Molly has taken a well deserved break from her usual day to day work of helping all our charities make the best use of the Justgiving website. However, things are never straightforward in the life of Ms Loyd, as her message from afar reveals:

"Have been stung by a portuguese man of war and have burnt my forehead"

As you can see below, these are no ordinary jellyfish, and that must have hurt a lot!

Fortunately for Molly, we have found an excellent Jellyfish website to find out how to treat the wound. Their advice can be found below:

"4. Use meat tenderizer; pour into your hand, add some water to make a paste, smear onto inflammed area.
5. If meat tenderizer is not available, pour vinegar or diluted ammonia on the area.
6. If vinegar or ammonia is not available, have the victim urinate on the inflammed area."

Let's hope she had some meat tenderizer, ammonia or vinegar to hand...

Help your charity and get on TV!

"Million Pound Giveaway" is a new TV show on ITV where contestants pitch for a specific amount of money from a panel of 5 millionaires.

The show's format is similar to Dragons Den but rather than millionaires taking a stake in someone's company, they help contestants achieve an ambition, realize a dream or more importantly, help them support a worthwhile cause.

The production company behind the show are running auditions in London, Manchester, Brighton and Leeds across November.

So if you're interested in the opportunity to get on the telly and pitch for some money to support your charity or appeal click on the following link for application details: Download million_pound_giveaway.doc

Move quick though as auditions are imminent. Best of luck.

A face for Radio!?

Now there have been rumours before that a large proportion of us at JG Towers have 'faces for radio', but this isn't about us... It's about Core radio station, and more specifically their latest competition to find 'A Face For Radio'.

The basic premise behind the quest is to recruit a new presenter for the station from their legions of listeners.

Now I must admit to having a personal interest in this competition, having once been the voice of the jingles (la Voix anglaise des jingles)
for the show Overclub on Max FM in Grenoble, France (get me!). So guys, I know what you're going through...

So, after thousands of nominations and hundreds of auditions, Core have whittled down the entrants to a final 6. And their latest challenge is to try and raise the most amount of money for the charity Fairbridge.

To this end, Anna,  Abi,  Dan,  Kellyanne,  Matt and Will have all created fundraising pages. On Sunday, the two  who have raised the least will go head to head in an ominous sounding "elimination challenge". Who will you sponsor? Who will win? Who's Simon Cowell voting for? You decide!

You can read more about this great contest on Core's website or their Myspace page and find out  about the great work Fairbridge do on their website. Good luck to you all.

Don't get 'curried away' now

On the 28th of Dec 2006, Dave, Richard, Chris and Ben will aim to get from the Southern tip of India to Darjeeling in the "worst possible vehicle known to mankind" - their words, not mine.

The chosen method of transportation? A rickshaw. Courage beyond the call of duty? or a bunch of nutters up for a laugh? - you decide.

Either way the guys are hoping to raise £2,500 for MercyCorps which I think makes them a pretty decent bunch of chaps.

You can sponsor the guys via their fundraising page and keep up to date with how their getting on via their own website.

All the very best lads and enjoy the Bombay Sapphire.

Happy WoofNeigh to Miaow

"Cats, Dogs and Horses I love all of them". So says Cecily (try saying that after a few Babychams), and to prove it  she's foregoing the material lure of presents on her 7th birthday - in favour of donations to the Animal Health Trust.

You are an inspiration to us all, Cecily, and we at Justgiving salute you.

So too does Andrew Simmonds: he is Director of Fundraising at the Animal Health Trust, and he has this message for you:

Dear Cecily,

Happy Birthday! Thank you so much for thinking of the Animal Health Trust: all of us here are very grateful for your kindness and for donating this money to help us help more horses, dogs and cats. We hope that one day you too will have a naughty little pony like your Mummy had – perhaps for your 8th birthday?

With very best wishes 

Andrew Simmonds
Director of Fundraising

So if anyone out there fancies making a contribution to Cecily's birthday page, here's the place to do it.

Happy birthday, Cecily. I think it's safe to say the world needs more people like you.

Trafalgar Square to where?

It's a long walk home

Huge hurrahs, back slaps and much needed foot massages for intrepid walkers Paddy and Andy who have just completed an epic 5,000km crossing of Europe on foot.

Back in the mists of time (May, to be precise), Andy and Paddy strode out of Trafalgar Square with a spring in their steps and last week - after five months, nine countries, hundreds of blisters and even a broken shin bone - they trudged across the Bosphorous to triumphantly set sore feet on Asian soil.

In the process they have raised a magnificent £6k and counting for the British Red Cross through their Justgiving page. Congratulations lads!

Check out Paddy and Andy's fantastic blog for full details of their travails, and watch video footage of their final steps on You Tube here.

You need a shower mate!

Radox introduces new 'organic' range

Hot on the heels of our Top Ten weird and wacky fundraising challenges post comes a new contender.

Former Lord Mayor of Sheffield Phil Price shared a bath with 150,000 maggots last week to raise funds for Macmillan Cancer Support.

"I used to go fishing a lot so I'm quite used to handling maggots," said Phil before hopping in to a Victorian bath accompanied by 53 pints of squiggling, squirming fly larvae and sitting back for a three hour 'soak' outside Sheffield Town Hall wearing nothing but a pair of lycra shorts.

Not a challenge for the squeamish, but as Phil points out, "People who suffer from cancer go through a lot worse."

Visit Phil's page here.

To our manor Bourne

Stop trying to peek in our window Matt.

The very presence of Justgiving Towers makes our neighbourhood a fashionable one, but this week our surrounding streets have been unusually cluttered with cameras, cables, booms, grips and film crews hugging steaming mugs of char.

We briefly wondered whether Hollywood decamping to our doorstep signalled a bidding war for the rights to Justgiving : The Movie, but then we found Matt Damon hiding in our stationery cupboard.

Ok, he wasn't actually in our stationery cupboard, but we'd be happy for him to use it if he was looking for a hiding place from the assembled cops, feds and Interpol agents currently hot on his trail.

Matt, you see, is filming the latest of his 'Bourne' espionage thrillers, The Bourne Ultimatum. Matt's indefatigable rogue agent Jason Bourne is still on the trail of his true identity having outfoxed and outgunned any number of despairing FBI agents in 2002's The Bourne Identity and 2004's The Bourne Supremacy.

The new movie sees Jason travel to Moscow, Paris, Madrid, Tangier, New York City and...evidently...around the corner from JG Towers, London, where the massed ranks of film crews are currently shooting his daredevil antics.

Matt - if you're reading this - our stationery cupboard is well comfy and you're very welcome to it. 

Get your rocks off for Aduna

3-

News arrives at JG Towers of a red hot club night fundraiser just down the road from our offices at Farringdon's superclub Fabric.

DJ sets from Fatboy Slim, Damon Albarn, Mylo and Radio One's Zane Lowe, plus live sets from The Ordinary Boys and Maroon Town head up an electrifying line up of audio wizards spinning the best in dance, techno, breakbeat, soul and sounds from Africa.

It's all to raise funds for Aduna, which provides training opportunities for emerging musicians in Africa. 

Shenanigans start at 9pm on Thursday 16 November and you don't have to go home till 3am. On a school night and all! (Can we go boss? We'll be in the office at 9am sharp. Honest)

So dust down your dancing shoes and click here to book tickets.

Or if you can't go (Please boss, please), you can always donate to Aduna anyway.

From novice to marathon runner

This week Paula from Yorkshire Cancer Research contacted Justgiving to tell us about one of her supporters - Gary Verity, who is running the New York Marathon this weekend.

In January 2004, Gary's wife Helen was told she had 18 months to live. Helen had been diagnosed with a rare form of cancer called Myeloma, which unlike other forms of leukaemia has no cure yet identified.

Two and a half years on, we're pleased to hear that Helen is undergoing treatment enjoying spending time with Gary and their three and a half year old daughter Lily (pictured).

This Sunday (5th Nov) Gary will be running in the New York Marathon on behalf of Yorkshire Cancer Research. This is a huge challenge as Gary admits "running is not one of my hobbies!"

Gary has already surpassed his fundraising target of £100,000 via his Justgiving page.

This is a tremendous effort and a great story to boot. We'd like to wish Gary all the very best for the big day. If you would like to add to Gary's sponsorship total, you can sponsor him here.

Carnivorous comedy

Much chortling over bacon sarnies at JG Towers this morning on discovery of this new version of Bohemian Rhapsody.

Rob Danavel's friends thought they'd rework the Queen classic to celebrate Rob giving up meat for a month to raise funds for Macmillan.

Here's a taster:

Is this NO-vember?
Is this a fantasy?
Giving up meat pies
Waking up to reality
Put down your pint
Say no to that pie and you'll see
I'm just a pork boy, helping out charity
Because meats easy come, easy go
Grilled up high, fried down low
Anyway the meat comes, doesn't really matter to me

Mama, I've eaten lamb
Put it in between some bread
With some mint sauce or some red
Mama, I bought bacon
But now I've gone and thrown it all away
Mama stew-ew-ew
Didn't mean to eat that pie
If I've not eaten meat this time tomorrow
I'll carry on, carry on, as if I've never eaten batter.

Lamb-tastic! You can find the rest on Rob's blog.

Posh shops for charity chic

son
Nice dress Posh. Where did you get it?

Move over Prada and Dolce & Gabbana. The first lady of fashion has found a new favourite boutique - Oxfam.

Victoria Beckham popped into Notting Hill's Oxfam store this week, spurning pricier emporiums to snap up a £20 polka dot dress. We all love a bargain, eh Vicky?

She was actually there to present an award to Oxfam shop founder Joe Mitty, whose second hand clothes idea now bolsters the charity's coffers by £80m every year, but charity shop chic is evidently very much in vogue. Fellow fashionista Kate Moss was snapped emerging from another store last week and Cherie Blair even did a shift in a Barnardos shop on Saturday.

Celebs aren't just hot footing it to charity shops to buy, but also to give. Wayne Rooney's WAG Colleen McLoughlin apparently offloads her superfluous glad rags at Barnardos in Alderley Edge. And perhaps Posh was looking for a specific dress in Notting Hill? Kiera Knightley donated the  Vera Wang dress she wore to the Oscars to the very same Oxfam store.

Have you ever snared a bargain from a charity shop? Post a comment and let us know.

"I Zoo" (Oh, those witty Mirror subs)

Great story in the Mirror today about a couple who asked for shares in wild animals at Chester Zoo instead of wedding presents.

Just goes to show that you don't have to run a marathon, climb everest or extract your fingernails with pliers to raise funds for a good cause.

An increasing number of Justgiving pages are asking for donations instead of birthday, christmas, wedding and wedding anniversary presents.

You know you don't need another pair of Rudolph the Reindeer socks this chrimbo, so why not set up a fundraising page and ask Auntie Joan et al to give to your favourite charity instead?

How to make those tough decisions

Such as, who should I give my money to?

Well, today the Intelligent Giving site went live.

Why is this important? It's the first online guide that has independently assessed how effectively a charity is run and most crucially, helps joe donor decide who he should give some of his hard earned dosh to.

We've been waiting to have a play with it since we came across the Charity Sleuths blog a few months back and in our opinion it's very swish. Not only is the search engine feature very interesting, especially how they've rated each organisation, but it also has a mythbusters section that covers everything from chuggers to CEO salaries. That discussion forum is going to get very interesting!

So go and check it out!

Fundraiser of the month, November 2006

Our fundraiser of the month for November 2006 is Adil Latif.

Adil is nearly blind. In January 2007 he plans to be taken up in a helicopter and dropped on the peak of a snow-covered mountain, from where he will snowboard down a glacier to the bottom. He hopes to raise enough money to build 14 schools for children affected by the October 2005 Asian earthquake.

Read his amazing story here. Visit his page and sponsor him here.

If you want to nominate someone as a future Fundraiser of the Month, please drop us an email at community@justgiving.com or post details in our forum.