Charities with online gift receipts?

December 2, 2008 7:04 PM

We are doing a $25 limit gift exchange where the recipient of the gift will be randomly chosen on the day. I want to give as a gift a $25 donation to a charity providing I can print off from my computer a 'gift receipt' made out to 'lucky recipient'.

My first thought was donating to Wikipedia but I can't seem to find a way to get a gift receipt for it. A really good one would be if I could donate to a website where I pay the money and then the recipient logs in with a code and chooses what charity the money goes to. Any ideas?

posted by GleepGlop to shopping (11 comments total)

I am 95% certain that Kiva will let you give certificates that way. It's been almost a year since I bought a round though.
posted by piedmont at 7:33 PM on December 2, 2008

Yes, you can definitely do it through Kiva. I have done it and given it as a gift before.


It's great because the person receiving it gets some say in how it's used.

Kiva Gift Certificates
posted by bradly at 7:43 PM on December 2, 2008

I actually just wrote a post about this place on my blog. Your best option would be Charity Choice, who will send you an emailed tax acknowledgement for your donation. You can print up a card for the recipient or send them a plastic card, either of which contains a redemption code they enter on the website.

They can then choose from many, many causes on which to use the donation. They can even split the donation up into as many as three different charities.
posted by misha at 7:45 PM on December 2, 2008

On preview, Kiva also works!
posted by misha at 7:46 PM on December 2, 2008

Network for Good has something like this too.
posted by roll truck roll at 8:13 PM on December 2, 2008

Donors Choose has gift cards that can be printed at home or emailed, and the recipient can choose a project that has special meaning to him or her.
posted by amarynth at 8:22 PM on December 2, 2008

Rafaelloello: What happens is it's kind of a game where people can 'steal' gifts that they want in a kind of musical chairs way of distributing the gifts. So if I already chose the charity then if someone didn't want that gift they wouldn't necessarily have to choose it.
posted by GleepGlop at 8:40 PM on December 2, 2008

Perhaps a MercyCorps 'MercyKit'? They offer some for $25, and they allow you to print out a gift card.
posted by mistikle at 8:53 PM on December 2, 2008

Hmm, I guess I should mention that I am in Canada. It looks like Charity Choice can't accept payment from Canada and DonorsChoose is only for American schools.
posted by GleepGlop at 9:19 PM on December 2, 2008

I'm curious to know where you ultimately go with as I'll be in a similar situation soon...
posted by piedmont at 7:47 PM on December 3, 2008

piedmont: well I think I am stuck because the only one I could find that would take my money in Canada is canadahelps.org < but they don't list the charities they support: you have to do a search and try to find one. Very weird.
posted by GleepGlop at 9:21 AM on December 4, 2008