CharityChoice Gift Cards: Recipient chooses the charity.

            Four years ago, when Mark Finkel sought out to make a charitable donation in honor of a business associate’s recently deceased father, he found himself at a loss.  Not knowing which charity the family would like to support, he was left wondering where in the world he could find a charitable gift that would let them decide where it would be donated.

            Two months later, Mark, a board member of www.CharityGiftCeritficates.org , held exactly what he’d been looking for in his hands. 

            “For the past two or three years,” says Daniel Goodman, President of SpecialKidsfund.org, “there’s been a whole concept in our society of having a choice.  Now, technology has made that cultural desire feasible.”

            CharityGiftCertificates.org, a non-profit organization based out of New Jersey, now extends that concept of choice into charitable donations, using gift cards in connection with its website, as the medium. 

             “It used to be,” says Goodman, “that when you gave somebody a gift card, it was like saying you couldn’t think of anything they wanted.”

            Now, he believes, we not only appreciate being able to choose our own gifts, but appreciate it as well.

            When you’re given a CharityChoice Gift Card from CharityGiftCertificates.org, you then have the option to choose from over100 major charities listed on the site and can designate it towards the charity of your choice, using the unique redemption code on the card.

            Business gifts are also a great way to take advantage of these cards.  How can you give a client who has everything, something meaningful and personal?  A donation to the charity of their choice is not only thoughtful, but enriches the charitable image and culture of your company.  It says more about you and your company than a fruit-basket ever could.

            In an impressively insightful article written in 2004, David Berkowitz notes that gift cards are yet another example of a consumer-control revolution.  Four years later that revolution is well under way, and donating to charity has not been left out. We live in an age where search engines have given us control over everything.  They bring us directly to where we want to go, and in doing so, can relay relevant advertisements towards us; ever-expanding the range of products we have to choose from.  So, it seems simple: If I make a donation in someone’s name, why not let him or her choose where that donation goes?

            The world is readily converging to the expectations and demands of the modern consumer.  Everything from shoe shopping to watching videos of pandas sneezing presents a wide range of choices; an expectation now held in high regard.  A gift card is the embodiment of this trend, and along with our growing concern over the future of and wellbeing of our planet, charity gift cards will play an increasingly important role.

-Michael Weber