You can connect with Peter at his blog: PeterDeitz.com

There’s nothing revolutionary here, in fact there are things that many of you have done or maybe undertake regularly.  The beauty of the blog “A year of giving without spending“ was the simple, easy actions that we take

With a bit of conscious effort we can easily slip a couple of good deeds into our daily life.

So without any further ado here is my list of five for March:

1. Take part in Earth Hour – pledge  to switch off for one hour at 8:30pm on Saturday 28 March.

2.  As much as it hurts me to face it, Autumn is approaching and it will be time to start moving those summer clothes to the back of the wardrobe and the woollies closer to the front!  Take advantage of the shuffle required to have a sort out and find decide how best to dispose of clothing and footwear no longer needed.  Claire from Donate NZ has a helpful blog post on the options available.

3. Ok, confession time.  I have never donated blood! What makes this even worse is that it is not due to extreme fear or needles or feeling faint at the sight of blood.  Having been jabbed innumerable times with vaccinations required for travel and growing up on a farm I’m pretty sweet with both.  I think it is more of ‘must do that one day’ kind of thing. So I’ve checked out the schedule and it is firmly in my diary to give blood on Thursday 4 March.  Find a donation point (New Zealand only) in your area and you could save up to three lives!

4.  Spread the word about a cause you are passionate about. You don’t need to donate money or loads of time to lend a hand to a good cause.  Use your social networks to share a cause you are passionate about.  Write a short blog post and add a donation widget, connect with a cause you care about on Facebook and become a fan, Tweet a link to a charities website or story.

5.  Undertake a random act of kindness! Pop some coins in an almost expired parking meter, donate a food package to your local foodbank or pet food for your local animal shelter.

Pretty simple stuff but imagine the impact if we all undertook to do five small actions every month.

Update! As I wrote this post Emma, from Ideas Shop, volunteered herself and the team to be tagged to blog their five actions for good.  Connect with Emma and the Ideas Shop team on Twitter.

How about you? What are your ideas for small actions for good?

One of these organisations is Social Actions.  An aggregate site pulling cause actions from over 60 international sources, Social Actions has a mission to make it easier for everyday people to take an action.

We’re stoked to have been included as a cause action source.  This means that every organisation, cause, fundraiser and event page Givealittle is now part of the Social Actions pool of causes.

So thanks to Social Actions for including us.  It’s way cool to be included with some sites we’ve had a bit of a love crush on for a long time. Kiva and Global Giving to just name two.

Social media again allowed news to filter quickly to the wider world and provide information on how to assist. With the realisation that the poorest country in the Western hemisphere was in dire need many individuals, aid organisations and NGO’s began to set up dedicated relief funds.

Again these are being widely shared across social media sites. Musician Jean Wycleef immediately began calling for assistance for the www.yele.org foundation appeal and the message spread across the web like wildfire.

Danny Brown’s social awareness and online fundraising programme 12for12k have partnered with Hope for Haiti and are currently engaging their network of bloggers with donation widgets.

Today two appeals launched at Givealittle and are now being shared across a number of social media sites with widgets and share tools.

GVN Foundation Director Colin Salisbury will travel to Haiti in March and distribute funds from their relief fund directly on the ground to partners assisting with rebuilding and rehabilitation. GVN Foundation is also seeking expressions of interest from volunteers who may like to assist in the recovery.  The relief fund launched mid morning with the page link immediately communicated by GVN Foundation to their networks and as I write this blog in the early evening the donation total is about to roll over $5,000.

The New Zealand Red Cross are assisting the efforts with a public appeal and pledging $50,000 from the disaster relief emergency fund and our Government has pledged $1 million in support.

Both the New Zealand Red Cross and GVN Foundation guarantee that 100% of the donations received will go directly to the efforts in Haiti.

Reports continue to highlight the extent of damage, the need for emergency response resources and concerns about the lack of water, medical supplies and food. As the world comes to Haiti’s aid it is heartening to see so many people getting behind the effort online whether by donating, sharing news and spreading the world about the many options to financially support the people of Haiti.

Let’s hope we can all do our small part to help heal Haiti.

As well as doing some good, the poor staff member tasked with finding a unique gift, within budget, that can be delivered in time is saved from the usual pre Christmas hair pulling stress.

However, there is still a question that requires answering.  If you don’t want to give vouchers and thereby allow the recipient to choose any cause they wish, then how do we choose who to support?

One approach that I can happily say is working wonderfully for those who have used it, is to make a short list and then ask your clients and/or staff to pick their favourite.

The choice is then shared.  The business making the donation gets some choice by defining a short list.  Maybe they want to support a local cause, or those with tax credit status.

Whip up a form in Google Docs and then email to your clients and staff asking them to vote (reliable sources say it takes all of 6 minutes to create the form and email message!).

Your clients and/or staff get to influence your donation decision and will appreciate you asking their opinion.

If you are interested in taking this approach the Givealittle team (read: me the Givealittle Elf!) can help you whip a form, circulate it and process your donation.

Here is an example form:

How would you decide who to support?

There has been so many great causes and fundraisers, not to mention non-profit organisations, come on board at Givealittle that I struggle to pick a fave.

For me it is pretty impossible to choose one, five or ten so I thought I’d touch on what gives me a kick every single day. What I have really loved over the past year is having a ringside seat to see the inspiring work being undertaken by so many.

The power of an idea and a crowd jumping on board to get an idea off the ground is fantastic.  This kind of action has resulted in such things as:

• a family’s livelihood being re-established following the Samoa Tsunami – with one days fundraising and one days building!
• a man who woke up as a cartoon cat running the online quest to find the cat most deserving of being NZ’s Top Cat Model.
• friends and family rallying to bring home their loved ones after tragic circumstances.
• spurring on of ordinary Kiwi’s on personal challenges to make a difference to their own lives and those of others.
• pressure from the public to change things and supporting those organisations applying the pressure.

I have also met many great people over the past year, people who love the change we are trying to make and who have been so generous with their time, ideas, support and friendship.

So year one of Givealittle is done and dusted and I’m pretty chuffed with what we’ve achieved. Bring on 2010 and all the adventure it holds!

But – the great news is that I’m going to be matching donations from today!  So…if you make a donation and share it on the Givealittle Elf Facebook page, Tweet it to me @givealittle_elf or to @givealittle, or post a comment here I will dig into my elf pockets and match it!

Just remember to mention or link to the organisation, cause or fundraiser so I can jump straight in and match.

Now for the boring fine print bit……. I can only fit $1,000 into my elf pockets so matching stops when my pockets are empty.  I’ve had a word with Santa’s tailor and requested new elf pants with deeper pockets for next year!

If you want to add to my matching budget then get in touch with my boss Lee, lee@givealittle.co.nz as I would love to match more!  Anyone who becomes a Elf matcher will be in the draw to win a fab “God Bless Samoa” limited edition print by Otis Frizzell.

Off you go – find something you like you’d like to elf (donate to !

The only thing that seems appropriate to reflect on today (apart from all the various ailments now present in the Givealittle office as a result of too much time in front of computers) is the growing list of great things that have happened on the website.

So to commemorate I have asked our wider team to blog their favourite cause on the website over the last 12 months – the single page they are most proud of – the random collection of html that when combined with the great support from the public represents the spirit of Givealittle at its best.

If you want to join us in the office for cake at 4pm today DM @givealittle or email info@givealittle.co.nz to get the address of our ivory tower (ahem). When our geek team isn’t looking we are going to try and feed some cake to our beloved development box – should be interesting.