Lend A Hand

As an independent introvert I love service projects because I can be deeply involved and yet don’t have a specific timetable or a supervisor looking over my shoulder. Of course it is a bit more difficult when you’re in charge of everything in the project. To that end I offer you 10 ideas for humanity-related service projects that you can pretty simply do yourself.

1. Donate your long hair to Locks For Love - An organization that creates hair pieces for people suffering from long term illnesses.
2. Donate gently work business attire to Dress For Success - This group gives professional ware to disadvantaged women to help them find productive jobs.
3. Offer to read or play games with an elderly resident of a local nursing home.
4. Offer to take some kids that you know could use a good time to an amusement park, beach or movies. It will make their day and let them know they are valued and important.
5. Donate new socks and underwear to shelters. These items are seldom donated and are in great need.
6. Spend five extra dollars at the grocery store and drop the food off at a local food bank.
7. Offer to mentor or tutor a child that needs it.
8. The next time you’re in a drive through, pay for the order of the person behind you. Or pay the toll for the car behind you at a toll booth.
9. Donate eyeglasses to a donation that helps provide them for needy individuals.
10. Purchase a back pack full of new school supplies, socks, underwear, etc for a disadvantaged child who needs it.

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If you enjoy writing or social networking on the Internet, setting up a webpage to earn money for your cause might be a fun way for you to get involved.

Google offers free blog hosting at Blogger.com. Setting up a Blogger blog is very simple and perfect for beginning bloggers. The site offers a step-by-step wizard and pre-made widgets so all you have to do is add some written content about your cause and you’ll have a completely set up blog that you can keep updated or leave alone and let it raise money.

Squidoo.comallows you to create a specific type of blog called a lens. A lens is made very similarly to a Blogger blog but is part of the Squidoo network, which is very search engine friendly and designed to earn money for charities (Squidoo will send your raised donations directly to the charitable organization)

Hubpages, where you create hubs, are very much like Squidoo lenses but are less professional looking and not as set up for non profit contributions. The advantage to hubs are the traffic that they direct to your hub so you are guaranteed a certain amount of people will see your page.

In all these cases, money-making widgets are ready made to drag and drop into the page. All you need to focus on is writing good content explaining what your cause is all about.

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Once you’ve found that cause that is close to your heart you may find that you’re not satisfied just volunteering a few hours a week and writing a check twice a year. If that happens you always have the option of throwing a small event to raise money for your favorite charity.

Hosting a fundraiser isn’t as difficult as you might think. In fact a fundraiser can be as simple as a cookout, a yard sale or a picnic. The hardest part is finding donors to attend and if your cause is a good one,  that shouldn’t be that hard.

Start by deciding what kind of event your want to host; casual or formal, indoor or outdoor. Imagine you’re throwing a part at first. List the elements you need to work out. Food, decoration, entertainment, the money-making aspect of the event, swag (free items given for participation), etc. This is a good time to evaluate the amount of work the event is going to involve and decide if you’ll need help from friends or volunteers.

For your first fundraiser you should probably keep it simple and inexpensive. A walkathon or community yard sale is a good idea that doesn’t require a lot of start up capital. Walkers in the walkathon can get sponsors to pledge a certain amount while a yard sale simply makes money from selling donated items. Once you have one of these simple fundraisers under your belt you’ll probably find yourself eager to try something grander.

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