An alternative is to shop around yourself and  sell mobile phones that are collecting dust and lint in your drawer at a competitive rate to a recycler, and then in turn give the proceeds to the group of your choice once the check arrives. Sellmymobile.com has a list of various phone models and the going rate at a variety of recyclers. The site does not purchase cellphones, but gathers the reported data in one place. Once a match is made, you send the phone to the selected company.

When you receive your check, you can personally donate the funds to your group of choice. Since you shopped around, the rate might be higher than the funds realized by a group in a dedicated cell phone program. The other benefit is that a charity need not be registered with a recycler to receive a benefit. Granted, a publicized collection campaign does drive donations when a group mount ones, but shopping around yourself when you clean out your drawer and spreading the word to your individual network creates initiative. Oh, and of course – you divest of the clutter in your drawer. You can’t save every one for a 2037 Antique Roadshow episode.

Most of the time, hungry bidders bid something like this up to at least the retail price, but often higher for the sake of a gentlemanly or gentlewomanly challenge amongst colleagues.

When you donate this way, a registered charity group will give you a receipt for an “in kind” donation for your taxes. No, the tax savings won’t be gigantic, but the satisfaction of making a small difference will.

This post brought to you by Cauzoom. All opinions are 100% mine.

Social media has changed the landscape of volunteer recruitment and fundraising for non profit organizations and the beginnings of many grass roots efforts alike. You can "Like," "Share," and of course, even donate to a variety of organizations deftly with applications on Facebook, MySpace and others. Sites with a social component have cropped up that are specifically dedicated to charity.

The latest such site is Cauzoom! Upon investigation, Cauzoom! shares a few elements with other sites already in existence, but with one small difference.

The first site that I was aware of that used a social element was Razoo. A few organizations I support tried it for a whirl. The pluses is that the site revolved around just charities, so you didn't have to wade through band pages. The site did offer contests and incentives to charities to win additional grants which was a definite plus (free money!). The downside of the site is that supporters felt that it required a lot of involvement in creating profiles and keeping up with it and was trying to replace Facebook. A few folks hesitated to give away their information to yet another site. Razoo is still a great site, but you need the volunteer base to have a person who can be just as involved in it as Facebook, sometimes to build a community.

Cauzoom! is also project-centered rather than cause-centered, similar to the Pepsi Refresh contest site, but projects don't appear to be specifically competing for each other for prizes. Instead of just votes, the "voters" specifically donate money to the cause. The group sets the goal amount and their own deadline, it appears. Once the cause is funding, then the project is funded, rather than competing for donations they may or may not receive. In that respect, it reminds me of Donor's Choose, but the scope is not limited to only classroom projects.

The big difference, aside from these small differences, is that donors may also choose to buy merchandise to benefit the cause. For example, you might buy a Best Buy gift card for $100. Best Buy will contribute $10 to the cause. That may not seem like an outrageous or substantial amount, but you are buying something you would normally buy anyways and its benefiting the cause. Sites, such as iGive already allow donors to purchase items to benefit their favorite group, but in this case you don't have to remember to use a toolbar. The selection of items might be limited to one choice per cause, but the choices appeal to a broad range of people and the donor can directly see the amount of the donation added to the grand total, rather than waiting for the group to report or for a monthly report and having to guess how much their purchases individually garnered.

Cauzoom! is very , very new. I am going to investigate how it actually operates in practices in the future on this blog.

Does Cauzoom! sound like something that would fit your cause or does it seem to scatter your message to work with sites such as this? Write and let me know.?affid=64

We have all seen poker themed parties. Some are a motorcycle poker run, and some are just a bunch of people sitting around a table playing cards. Celebrations.com has an idea for a Rat Pack poker party. Basically, you take the theme and run with it a little farther. Encourage your guests to dress up like Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis, Jr., and Dean Martin. Don’t forget Marilyn Monroe and Judy Garland! You could have prizes for the best costume, and you could come up with silly drink names. Of course, for most charity events, they would be non alcoholic, but you could add plenty of swanky swizzle sticks, and have some one be the bartender. It would be fun if that person dressed up in a vest and shirt sleeves to add to the atmosphere. Perhaps they could wear a tux. The fall weather would be conducive to hats and suits as well, unlike doing it in August.

Of course, you would want to make sure the tunes in the background fit the theme.  You can easily pick up CDs from the discount bin, but maybe someone you know has some you could borrow.  If you really wanted to push it over the top, you could have a piano player and a crooner, whether it is someone who is actually good or if you are going to go karaoke style and off the cuff.   All of these things can be done very economically if you have volunteers.  You can also get card themed little bar napkins and silver streamers.  This is an inexpensive way to further sell the theme.

As far as the actual poker, no one would really have to play.  I recommend doing a live auction, and having various contests.  Keep the card playing, if it actually occurs, light and fun.   Another thing to do would be to have someone be a police officer and arrest people for bail.  Of course, the bail would go to your charity.  It was, after all, a crazy time, and the Rat Pack was certainly in a hot kettle of water form time to time.

LogoDogsPrintz.com has a wide variety of options such as baseball styles, tanks, babydolls and more. They may not be the bulk $2 shirts you are used to buying, but if you are looking for shirts that will actually be worn, you will definitely get more mileage out of them.  Tank tops are still a good option in the fall because you can offer them at a lower price point, and they are good for layering.  Many groups want to offer sweatshirts, but sometimes the price point is prohibitive to attendees.   A long sleeved tee is what I recommend.  It is something that people can wear right now, as well as to protect their arms in the sun in the summer.

In fact, they are probably the same ones that Gertrude Hawk Chocolates offers to this very day in a variety of flavors.  There are is all sorts of goodness there to use as fundraisers or to buy as gifts.  Yes, there is such an occasion as “Happy Birthday to Me.”  I would imagine that for myself, I would buy a lot of these cute two toned puppy chocolates.

These days, everyone is reinventing the wheel when it comes to various fundraisers. Sometimes old fashioned things are big successes for a reason. We could have just directly asked people for money, but I think we learned something about business better this way, even though we bought a lot from each other. I guess you could call that “knowing your consumer!”

What did you do to raise money for your class trips back in your day?

It is all a lot to wade through and consider, as you can imagine, but OfferVault is one of those sites that consolidates offers all in one place for your review. Sure, there are many, many sites out there that basically are a list of links to affiliate programs. This site differs in that you can use their database to not just search sites, but can wade through actual individual offers that are currently running. Not only can you find a website to sign up for, but you can determine where the biggest payout for the individual offer is. This saves a lot of time, and could potentially make you more money.

I decided to register for the site just to check it out for all of you. Upon registering, you do see a large ad to sign up with a program that will teach you the tricks of the trade, but you can easily decline this. It is a little spammy, in my opinion, but once you get your confirmation email, you get to the meat of the site. It was very interesting to me that the rates offered on the same or similar offers varied widely from affiliate provider to provider.

The reality, of course, is that you cannot expect to make your operating costs from programs such as this. You will have to still sharpen the saw when it comes to other fundraising options. Programs like these, however, can go along way into paying for your web hosting and other costs of hanging up your shingle. Treat it as “found money” only.

Sarah wrote in and asked:

Does anyone have any good alternatives to ChipIn? Somethat that perhaps do something close but have the back up of requiring a 501c3 or the like, to at least cut down on the fraud?

Sarah, there is another alternative that I almost forgot about.  Kevin Bacon’s Six Degrees charity has a widget that works through Network For Good.   While the Chip-In widget accepts a donation of any size amount, the minimum to use the Network for Good Widget is $10.00 per donation.

Anyone can put up a widget to raise money for an organization, but the organization receiving the money must be registered with Network for Good.    For example, I could decide to raise money for my favorite animalorganization (Saving Shelter Pets), or an organization that fights the disease my coworker has.  I could implement my own “challenge” to my friends, yet the charity would receive the funds.

In the past Six Degrees has issued giving challenges, where the emphasis was on the number of donations, not the size.  Saving Shelter Pets was among the top 6 charities in the past.

The Chip-In Widget may still be easier for some folks, but I thought I would mention this alternative for your toolbox.