Our friends at Giftly.com have identified this week as “Week of Thanks.”  Every day of this week, 50% of all Giftlies profits will be donated to a featured nonprofit.  Today, United Way’s MAKE IT BE is the featured nonprofit, so we’ll get some money for every Giftly purchased.

What is a Giftly? A Giftly is a cooler, more sophisticated, and smarter cousin to the gift card. You personalize and customize it, choosing where it works and how it looks. And you can send it via email, Facebook, or even by regular mail! Gifting has never been easier.

Check it out, and get your Holiday and Birthday gift purchases done early this year – buy your Giftlies today, and help MAKE IT BE in its fight to cut poverty in the Bay Area by 2020!

In the last 10 years UPS workers have donated more $13 million to United Ways of Northern California

This summer, UPS and its employees and retirees will reach the exceptional milestone of $1 billion in total contributions to United Way since the company began its annual workplace campaigns in 1982.

“UPS is a driving force for change in our communities. The company and its employees continually raise the bar for United Way’s Global Corporate Leaders and are among our most valued partners,” said Brian Gallagher, president and CEO of United Way Worldwide. “Reaching a billion dollars in giving is a remarkable milestone. It not only speaks to generosity that is second-to-none, it’s indicative of their tireless and unwavering commitment to strengthening communities and improving lives throughout the world.”

In 2009, UPS’s total philanthropy reached nearly $100 million, including more than $55 million from their 2009 workplace campaign. UPS has been the top corporate giver to United Way for nine of the last 10 years. UPS employees and their families also contributed more than 1.2 million hours of volunteer service last year through the company’s Global Volunteer Month and Neighbor-to-Neighbor program. UPS has twice won the United Way Spirit of America Award, United Way’s highest national honor for corporate citizenship and measurable community impact.

“To my knowledge, UPS is the first company ever to have contributed $1 billion through one organization, a tremendous accomplishment both for our employees and the communities that benefit from United Way services,” said The UPS Foundation President Ken Sternad. “Wherever there is a stop light or stop sign in America, there is likely a UPS driver passing by; they are part of the community, they see the needs, and they have been a key part of the $1 billion story. We appreciate the recognition that our drivers, and our company, is receiving from United Way.”

Locally, UPS and its employees have contributed millions of dollars and volunteer hours to the Bay Area. We are proud to have them as our partners. So when you see your UPS driver, tell him or her, thank you!

You can also sign an online thank you card for UPS here.

50% of all food distributed by Second Harvest Food Bank is perishable and includes a large amount of produce

United Way of the Bay Area recently awarded Second Harvest Food Bank of Santa Clara and San Mateo Counties a $28,000 grant to provide infrastructure and capacity upgrades for their partner emergency food pantries.  As opposed to a soup kitchen, an emergency food pantry is a program which provides non-perishable and perishable food to families and individuals to take home and prepare.

Because 50% of all food distributed by Second Harvest Food Bank is perishable and includes a large amount of produce, local pantries have a need for additional cold storage capacity and shelving.

“With this grant we will purchase and deliver refrigerators, freezers and shelving to 12 of our partner food pantries, thereby increasing their efficiency and effectiveness in storing  and distributing food,” said Tami Cardenas, Director of Development for Second Harvest Food Bank. “In this way we will help strengthen the food safety net in San Mateo County.”

Immediate and long-term outcomes of this grant include: increasing the number of people served by these 12 pantries by an average of 5%, to 10,874 people annually; and increasing the amount of produce and perishable food available at these 12 pantries by an average of 10%, to 159,322 pounds annually.

“We are grateful to United Way for their support,” said Cardenas. “We rely on our pipeline of partner agencies to help us distribute food to people in need in our community.”

Second Harvest Food Bank is the primary source of donated, surplus, and purchased food for nonprofit agencies in Santa Clara and San Mateo Counties.  Food pantries partners receive an average of 83% of the food they distribute to clients from Second Harvest.  The Food Bank is committed to providing ongoing infrastructure and capacity support to the Emergency Food Network in order to efficiently alleviate local hunger.

This piggy bank introduces the notion of charity and directs attention toward others less fortunate

Some problems require looking at things with a new perspective. We live in a country with a very low savings rate but a new piggy bank for children might be able to teach good habits to them at a young age. The banks were designed by a studio called Materious and have an interesting concept that links savings and philanthropy.

The larger bank is for the child’s own money and the samller one is for charitable giving and “the two nestle together as a reminder that generosity and wealth should be linked. This is a really good idea as it marries the two concepts together very well. At our Sparkpoint Centers, we hand out piggy banks to clients to remind of the importance of saving. Part of reaching financial stability, along with a reducing debt, and getting a good credit score, is having three months of savings.

The piggy banks can be purchased here.

(thanks to the Good blog for alerting us to this. )

Baltimore is using parking meters to curb panhandling and raise awareness for homeless advocacy

As anyone who lives in the Bay Area knows, issues related to parking meters can sometimes get very contentious and that’s an understatement.  But what if instead of generating controversy, parking meters were being used to fight a social ill? Instead of only preventing yourself from getting a ticket, feeding a meter also meant doing good for your community?

Well in a number of cities such an experiment is underway.  Painted in a special color so as to stand out from the others, special meters have been installed with all the proceeds going directly to services such as shelters, housing, job counseling and health care.  The programs are in place to discourage panhandling reasoning that money towards services would go further towards helping people.

The idea was first tried in Baltimore and has spread to cities like Denver, Chattanooga and Las Vegas. In Baltimore they’re located around the touristy harbor area, and when coins are deposited, the dials click from “despair” to “hope.”  In Denver they’ve used this as part of an effort to curb panhandling which is down 92%.  There, the meters have raised almost $100,000.

The idea of parking for social change is one that could easily be adapted and a catch on in the Bay Area which has a high rate of charitable giving, and a history of taking an unusual approach to parking spaces.

(photo via flickr user ktylerconk)