Green Organizations
Read more about our Gifts, Projects and Actions to find even more Green Oriented Organizations!
- Defenders of Wildlife
- Rainforest Action Network
- Ocean Conservancy
- American Community Gardening Association
- Carbon Offset Research & Education
- Recycle My Cell Phone
- The Earth Day Network
- Children and Nature
- Gardening With Kids
- Green Hour
- Local Harvest
- PBJ Campaign
- National Wildlife Federation
- Nature Conservancy
- Seed Savers Exchange
| Green Philanthropy |
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GIFTSResearch shows that spending time engaged in nature experiences and outdoor play improves intellectual and creative thinking, emotional wellbeing, self-discipline and physical fitness. It also lowers stress levels and reduces symptoms of ADD and ADHD. Green hours also nurture and grow future environmentalists and conservationists. Studies show that the one factor people most often credit for having had the greatest influence on their attitude toward the environment and conservation was their direct experience with nature while growing up. For more information, visit: www.greenhour.org. Resources for fun and educational ways to spend green time with family and friends:
Each issue of the Green Teacher magazine, published four times a year, has fifty pages of environmental ideas, activities and resources for youth ages 6 to 18. Download a free sample issue! This makes a great gift for family members or friends living on a fixed or low income. It helps them save money and benefits the environment at the same time. Earth Day, Friendship Day, Valentine's, or birthdays are all good times to give this gift. Look around their houses to see which items they might be able to use. A poll taken by Yale and George Mason Universities shows that people want to make their homes more energy efficient but they fear the cost. Things to include in a green-gifts bag:
"How do we care for all the children of all the species for all time?" -William McDonough A number of local and national wildlife conservation organizations sponsor symbolic adoptions. These include the National Wildlife Federation, World Wildlife Fund, and Defenders of Wildlife. These adoptions are a way people of all ages can help save and learn about threatened and endangered animals, one gift at a time. Many adoptions are available at the $20 to $30 level. To learn more about each adoption program, visit these websites: The Protect-an-Acre Program, sponsored by the Rainforest Action Network, provides small amounts of money, or grants, to indigenous people living in rainforests. These grants enable them to obtain title from the government for the land they inhabit. Ownership gives indigenous communities control over their land. They can remain on it for as long as they want, and their trees, gold, oil and other natural resources cannot be taken or harmed without their permission. The Protect-an-Acre Program is funded by families, individuals, classrooms, schools and other groups. For more information, click here. Download the Kids Action Toolkit to discover more ways your family can help save rainforests. The Revive a Rainforest campaign is sponsored by the Natural Resources Defense Council. Each $10 your family donates will plant a tree in an imperiled rainforest. For more information, click here and go to "Revive a Rainforest." World Rainforest Week, sponsored by the Rainforest Action Network, is in October each year. Any day of the year, however, is a good time to celebrate rainforests and their rich biodiversity. Here are seven gift ideas:
The mission of the Project Gutenberg Foundation is to provide downloadable books and other literary works to people all over the world free of charge or at the lowest cost possible. If your family or a group you belong to would like to fundraise for Project Gutenberg, log on here. This is a fun way to exchange books. A youth gift pack might include: two or three books; a handmade or recycled postcard from a used greeting card front inside one or more of the books with a brief description of what you enjoyed most about it; an extra bookmark you don't use or a handmade one; a reading game or activity from the Reading is Fundamental website printed on recycled paper. Tie each gift pack together with ribbon or twine. Many Reach Out and Read sites accept gently used books.
About Reach Out and Read: Your local Habitat for Humanity ReStore will either sell them to raise money for more houses or will give them directly to a building or remodeling project in your community. For a specific list of items to donate, call your local ReStore or click here. Rebuilding Together is another organization that accepts donations of building materials and supplies. "Going green starts with living blue." -Ocean Conservancy.Org Ocean Conservancy is the largest and oldest organization in the United States dedicated to protecting ocean environments. Besides collecting and donating funds from your Green Philanthropy Bank, here are four more things your family can do to help conserve oceans:
PROJECTSThe long work of recovering and restoring the ecosystem of this region from the oil spill disaster has begun. With each passing day the list of volunteers grows. Other people of all ages throughout the world, unable to take part in this hands-on work, are finding many ways to contribute. Here are several things individuals, families, and groups can do:
Gulf Restoration Network - Provides technical know-how and mentoring to local grassroots groups: www.healthygulf.org "Read to Feed" is a reading incentive, education, and service-learning program for families, classrooms, and youth groups. Geared toward Pre-K through 8th grades, the program provides free downloadable resource kits and lesson plans organized by grade level. These include: the Everyday Heroes DVD; Real Kids, Real Animals: Read to Feed Student Guide; bookmarks; stickers; certificates; and the "Read to Feed" poster. Heifer Education.Org's Library includes hundreds of books, websites, DVDs and other multimedia resources about poverty, world hunger, animals, the environment, and other related topics. Guidelines are provided on how to get sponsors, individually or as a group, for each book read as well as optional or additional fundraising ideas. The goals are to provide livestock and training to people around the world and for participants to read and discover how these gifts change lives and benefit entire communities. To learn more about the program, log onto: www.heifereducation.org and click on "Read to Feed." How many things can your family find sitting in a drawer or closet or gathering dust on a shelf that are reusable? You may want to pair up, a parent or an older sibling with a younger child, especially. Plan a reward for after the scavenger hunt: a special green outing, for instance. Give each person the list of things to look for within an hour or whatever time limit you set if any, and then go to it: Collect things in your home, tool shed, vehicle, garage & yard, checking off the kinds of items you find. When you finish, sort through everything first to see if there are any items you can still use but have just forgotten about, and then sell the rest at a garage sale to raise money for green philanthropy. There are other things you can do with the stuff from your scavenger hunt that are included on this website and in our book. Reduce, Reuse, Recycle and Repair are four of the easiest things your family can do to curb global warming and save natural resources. Recycling just one aluminum can conserves enough energy to run a TV for three hours. Imagine the amount of energy, water, and other natural resources your family will be conserving when all the things you donate from your scavenger hunt get reused. Reusable Stuff To Look For On Our Scavenger Hunt
 Click here to download a Check Off ListThese include, among others: Rainforest Action Network, Nature Conservancy, Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth, American Forests, Forest Ethics, Sierra Club, World Wildlife Fund, and Rainforest Alliance. This can be a fundraiser for individuals, families, ecology clubs, school sustainability programs, scouts, and other groups. Members of a group can research and suggest other forest-conservation organizations and then vote on one. Check your telephone directory for stores in your community that buy and sell used books. A project doesn't have to be complicated or time-consuming. At Serve.Gov your family can search for local environmental community service projects. You'll also find toolkits on this same website for creating your own project and registering it. The Earth Day Network website is another place to register your family project and to involve other volunteers in your community if you need them. The toolkit, Earth Day in a Box provides information on planning and sponsoring a project. To download a free online toolkit for starting and maintaining a nature club, log onto: www.childrenandnature.org. Click on "Nature Clubs for Families." Alternatively, if you already belong to a book club, ask that books about nature and the environment be added to the reading list. Three recommendations for adults:
Youth: If your school doesn't already have a nature book club, talk with your teacher about starting one in your school or classroom, ecology club, or sustainability program.
Put together your own or download a cover template at the Sierra Club's Environmental Education website. A nature journal is "a place to grow your thoughts, feelings, ideas, activities, observations, and relationship with the natural world." Parents or older siblings can write what younger children dictate to them. Illustrate your journals, if you want, with photographs, drawings, crayons or magic markers. At this same website you can also download the free John Muir Day Study Guide. It was developed to help teachers and students commemorate John Muir Day on April 21st, but the lesson plans: about plant and animal habitats, ecosystems, biodiversity, forests and other topics can be used at home, too. This is a fun way for middle-school age or older youth to raise money in your own home for a green philanthropy project or gift, provide food for people in developing countries, and increase your vocabulary all at the same time. Talk it over with your parents and if they approve, ask them and possibly your grandparents and other extended family members to sponsor you. Tell them about the Free Rice website. Decide how long your game-athon will last and a suggested donation amount, for example: $1 for every 2000 grains. Tell your sponsors how many thousands of grains you plan to generate within your time frame: 16,000 grains will raise $8 from each family sponsor. Green philanthropy projects and gifts that will help solve world hunger include: a micro loan through Kiva for an agricultural enterprise; providing fruit trees ($1 each) through Trees for Life to a developing country; giving a starter flock of chicks, ducks or geese through Heifer International. Congregations were among the first supporters of the Fair Trade movement in the United States. Selling Fair Trade coffee and tea remains today one of the most widely supported interfaith environmental and social justice fundraising projects. Chocolates are another popular Fair Trade fundraiser, especially during holidays, Valentine's Day, and Mother's Day. Equal Exchange is a wholesaler for Fair Trade mini chocolates. Create educational posters to raise awareness about Fair Trade; include information about your fundraiser. During your fundraiser show a short documentary about Fair Trade: A thirty-minute version of Buyer Be Fair and educational materials are available for free for families, individuals, and groups that host a house party. For more information, click here. Click on "Resources." The short documentary Chocolate Country won the Grand Jury Prize for its category at the 2007 Seattle International Film Festival. To locate other wholesalers for Fair Trade fundraising products besides Equal Exchange, click here. Also, look under "coffee" in your telephone directory for local wholesalers. More information about Fair Trade is available at these websites: Serve potluck dishes made from local foods. Invite a farm family, or arrange a visit to a local farm sometime. Play old-fashioned outdoor games and sing folksongs and modern tunes about gardens and farms and saving the Earth. Play board games, for example: Earth-Opoly, Wild Seed Game, Harvest Time, Farm-Opoly and Garden-Opoly. Make your own environmental jeopardy game, with everyone contributing questions, or download a free copy of Environmental Jeopardy. For some of your dinner parties, check out, rent, or buy a DVD appropriate for all ages. Green Planet Films.Org, a non-profit organization that promotes environmental education through film, is one of the best sources we've found. For themes, search "eco dinners" or "green dinners" on the Internet and then a specific topic for links to discussion questions or guides. Additional sources of nature and environmental DVDs: This is also a means to raise awareness about the ways buying locally grown foods benefit farmers, communities, and the environment. Invite a farm family to your event, or arrange a field trip to a local farm as a follow-up to the lunch or dinner. Involve the youth in your group and in the community: Check Rodale's: Farming for Credit Directory to find out if there is a student farm in your area. Free Downloadable Presentation Toolkits (Click on "Presentation Kits") Sustainable Table provides the following resources:
Toolkit for Student Organizers: ACTIONSDiscuss with your family that half the people in the world live on less than two dollars a day. Brainstorm on the things your family can buy for that amount of money. Make a list of what you would each be willing to give up for a week or however long in order to save money for a green philanthropy gift or project. For example: take your lunch to work or school instead of buying it; watch a movie at home and make your own popcorn; check out a book from the library instead of buying it; prepare a vegetarian meal instead of one based on meat, etc. Groups can also use this activity as a way to raise funds for green philanthropy. Instead of getting more stuff, everyone in your family could be given the option of putting the money toward their favorite green philanthropy gift or project. They might choose, for example to: plant so many trees through American Forests or Nature Conservancy; adopt an endangered wildlife animal; make a contribution to help save BioGems. There are many more gift ideas on this website and in our book and other sources. At the website: www.e-stewards.org click on "Find Your Local E-Stewards" on the menu bar. Share the link with others. Check Annie Leonard's website for the video: The Story of Electronics. Written by Michael K. Stone of the Center for Ecoliteracy, this is one of the best books available on the topic. Your family will learn about the growing sustainable living movement in K-12 schools across the country and the latest innovative ideas and hands-on experiences and projects developed from it. When you finish it, pass it on to a teacher, friend, neighbor or sustainability group. If your neighborhood school doesn't already have a sustainable living program, discuss the idea with the principal and one or more teachers. "Every choice we make about food matters." -Alice Waters Whenever we buy from area farms and farmers' markets or from grocery stores that sell local products we benefit from fresh foods that haven't traveled hundreds or even thousands of miles. This simple buying practice also helps preserve small, sustainable family farms that are a vital part of communities everywhere. And it boosts our local economy. The Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association, for example, estimates that if Maine residents spent just $10 a week on local foods, area farmers and the state economy would benefit by $100 million dollars over the course of each growing season. Food Routes.org, which provides resources for buying local foods, encourages everyone to take the Local Foods Pledge. Books About Sustainable Farming
"Sustainable agriculture is a way of growing and raising food that is healthy to eat, doesn't harm the environment, respects workers, is humane to animals, provides a fair wage to the farmer, and supports and enhances farming communities." Sustainable Table's Eat Well Guide is a free online directory that lists local family farms, farmers' markets, CSAs (Community Supported Agriculture farms) restaurants and other sources of sustainably grown foods. You can search by product, growing method, or region. You can also add new listings to your area's "Local Food Guide." Tips for shopping at Farmers Markets:
If you are interested in starting a farmers' market, information is available at the USDA's Agricultural Marketing Service. Click on "Find Farmers Market Funding Opportunities." and "Start a Farmers Market." Download the free book, Six Arguments for a Greener Diet: How a More Plant-Based Diet Could Save Your Health and the Environment, by Michael F. Jacobson and the Staff of the Center for Science in the Public Interest: www.cspinet.org/EatingGreen/download.html . Share the link with others. After reading the book, using the section called "Changing Your Own Diet" as a guide, begin making changes that will benefit your family's health and that of the planet. With every pb&j sandwich, or any plant-based meal your family eats instead of one based on animal products, you: fight global warming by reducing greenhouse gas emissions, conserve water, prevent water pollution, and save land. To take the PB&J Pledge, calculate how much of an impact each plant-based meal will have, and find recipes, click here. One Hen.Org is a great source of information on microfinance 101 for youth and how it is changing the lives of other families all around the world. The Rainforest Alliance has many projects and activities on its website, including: rainforest stories, games, coloring book, animal facts, and ways young people everywhere can help save rainforests. Another website with educational resources on rainforests, including links to Journey Into Amazonia and Passport to the Rainforest: Check it out at www.rainforesteducation.com. At the Rainforest Action Network website download the Kids Action Toolkit to discover more ways you and your family can help save rainforests. Your family can download 30,000 free electronic books (ebooks) through Project Gutenberg and 100,000 free ebooks through their partners, affiliates, and resources. You can download ebooks to your PC, iPhone, Kindle, Sony Reader or other portable device. To check out Project Gutenberg's catalog and links to other free ebooks, visit: www.gutenberg.org or www.gutenberg.org/wiki/main_Page. Offset your reading footprint by planting 1 tree for $1 for every book you buy that's printed on non-recycled paper. The nonprofit organization Eco-Libris is working toward the goal of persuading all publishers to print books on recycled paper. Until that day arrives, they provide a way for readers to support sustainable forests in developing countries and to promote green publishing. For any number of books you purchase that are printed on non-recycled paper, you can choose to have 1 tree planted for $1 by an Eco-Libris planting partner: International Rainforest Alliance, Ripple, or Sustainable Harvest. For more information, click here. 1. Help Restore the Gulf Coast's Ecosystem
The long work of recovering and restoring the ecosystem of this region from the oil spill disaster has begun. With each passing day the list of volunteers grows. Other people of all ages throughout the world, unable to take part in this hands-on work, are finding many ways to contribute. Here are several things individuals, families, and groups can do: " Organize a fundraiser with a local environmental group you belong to, within your faith community, or with family and friends. Fundraising ideas include: sell Fair Trade coffee and tea; prepare a lunch or dinner that includes one or more popular recipes from the Gulf region; sponsor a walkathon, danceathon, or another kind of -athon; collect gently used books, DVD's, computer and board games, clothing, and other reusable stuff and sponsor a Gulf Garage Sale. " Collect loose change at the end of each day in a Green Philanthropy Bank. Recycle an empty jar from your bin; create your own label for it or print one of ours, preferably on scrap or recycled paper, at our website: www.greenphilanthropyforfamilies.org " "Give it up for the Gulf." This is an easy and simple way individuals, families, giving circles and other groups can raise funds. Make a list of what you, your family, or group would be willing to give up for a week or however long and donate the amount of money you save at the end of that time. You could, for example: take your lunch to work instead of buying it; check out a book from the library instead of purchasing it; go on a local green outing you can walk or bike to instead of taking in a movie or dining out. " Donate to a local, community-led organization in the Gulf. Among others these include: Gulf Restoration Network - Provides technical know-how and mentoring to local grassroots groups: www.healthygulf.org Save Our Gulf is a project of the national Waterkeeper Alliance to support the work of Our Gulf Waterkeepers: www.saveourgulf.org The Gulf Coast Fund for Community Renewal and Ecological Health provides grants to local community-led groups: www.gulfcoastfund.org The Audubon Society has chapters in each of the states impacted by the oil spill disaster. To donate to a specific local chapter or group, visit the website and click on "States, Centers & Chapters:" www.audubon.org The National Wildlife Federation provides an easy way to donate: Simply text "Wildlife" to 20222 to donate $10 to the organization's rescue and restoration work in the Gulf. For more information, visit : www.nwf.org 2. Participate in Heifer International's "Read to Feed" Program "Read to Feed" is a reading incentive, education, and service-learning program for families, classrooms, and youth groups. Geared toward Pre-K through 8th grades, the program provides free downloadable resource kits and lesson plans organized by grade level. These include: the Everyday Heroes DVD; Real Kids, Real Animals: Read to Feed Student Guide; bookmarks; stickers; certificates; and the "Read to Feed" poster. Heifer Education.Org's Library includes hundreds of books, websites, DVDs and other multimedia resources about poverty, world hunger, animals, the environment, and other related topics. Guidelines are provided on how to get sponsors, individually or as a group, for each book read as well as optional or additional fundraising ideas. The goals are to provide livestock and training to people around the world and for participants to read and discover how these gifts change lives and benefit entire communities. To learn more about the program, log onto: www.heifereducation.org and click on "Read to Feed." |
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