I recently finished reading “Giving” by Bill Clinton (from the library, since I’m a tightwad and trying not to purchase excess consumer goods). Although reviews have been mixed (a few have criticized the lack of attention paid to the failures of government philanthropy) I found it fascinating and inspiring, and by the time I finished the book had quite a lot of little scraps of paper marking the ideas I found most interesting. Sure, it’s true that governments have more money and resources that could be used to promote societal good than most of us do, but the book isn’t intended to be a guide for governments. It is intended to reach out and grab individual readers with its poignant stories of successes by people who are both much more and much less powerful than each of us.

There are hundreds of people and organizations discussed, but I want to mention a few that most interested me, that really made me want to get involved.

I signed up for Kiva, an online micro-loan organization that lets you lend small amounts of money directly to individuals - tiny business loans, but which can have a large impact on the lives of these people and their families. Kiva has actually had so much interest as a result of this book that they restrict the amount you can loan any one person to $25: 20 people loaning $25 each will provide a $500 loan. Over the next few months to years the loan will be repaid, after which you can take your money out or re-loan it to another individual. Global Giving is a similar website that enables you to donate money to a specific project of your choice (topics range from AIDS to Climate Change).

Other types of giving are more traditional: donating money to World Bicycle Relief so they can provide locally-made bicycles to HIV/AIDS healthcare workers and help tsunami victims re-establish their lives; or Heifer International to give animals that produce milk, wool, eggs, meat, and honey to help poor families set up businesses selling excess milk etc. I like these particular charities because they manage to make monetary donations work even harder; the locally-made bicycles create jobs in the area, and Heifer families ‘pass on the gift’ by giving away the first offspring of their animal to a neighbor in similar circumstances.

These are the easy ones in my mind, the ones that only involve money. I would like to get involved with Habitat for Humanity again, partly because I want to learn more about building, especially low-energy homes using green materials. That will depend to some degree on where projects are located - for all the benefits of not having a car, bicycles can be restricting.

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