Heart in Tibet

Your Online Guide to Humanitarian Aid Organizations
working in Tibetan Communities!

How to Help

1. Create your own fundraising page

There are several websites where you can create your own fundraising page to raise money for your favorite charity. Here are some good ones:

Crowdrise http://www.crowdrise.com/

First Giving http://www.firstgiving.com/
Fundly http://www.fundly.com/

Indiegogo http://www.indiegogo.com/
Just Giving http://www.justgiving.com/
Just Give http://www.justgive.org

Kickstarter http://www.kickstarter.com/
One Giving http://www.onegiving.com/
Piryx http://www.piryx.com/
6Six Degrees http://www.sixdegrees.org/

Please note: These websites will collect a small transaction fee from each donation in order to support their services. This usually is around 5% or less. Check with the website to find out how much their services cost

2. Create a fundraising widget

Do you have your own personal website or social networking page? You can create a fundraising widget or badge to place on your page or site. Here are a couple of sites where you can create a widget or badge:

Chip In http://www.chipin.com/
Network for Good www.networkforgood.org/pca/PcalandingPage.aspx

3. Use your computer

Good Search - Here's an easy way to raise money for your favorite cause. Just start using Yahoo! powered Goodsearch.com as your search engine and they'll donate about a penny to your favorite cause every time you do a search! In addition, do all of your shopping through their online shopping mall, Goodshop.com, where you can shop at more than 2,600 top online retailers and a percentage of your purchases will go to the charity or school of your choice. You pay the same price as you normally would, but a donation goes to your cause! You can also enroll in the Gooddining program. Eat at over 10,000 participating restaurants nationwide and you can earn up to 6% of every dollar spent on the meal as a donation for your charity or school.

Give As You Live - Whether you want to help your small local charity or a high profile national charity you can select your favourite charity, and raise money - at no extra cost to you - just by shopping online with thousands of leading stores. Give as you Live works with 2,393 leading stores that have signed up to donate a commission on every online purchase to the charity of your choice. This commission is already included in the price of what you’re buying, so you can support your favourite cause, at no extra cost to you.

AmazonSmile - is a simple and automatic way for you to support your favorite charitable organization every time you shop, at no cost to you. When you shop at smile.amazon.com , you’ll find the exact same low prices, vast selection and convenient shopping experience as Amazon.com, with the added bonus that Amazon will donate a portion of the purchase price to your favorite charitable organization. You can choose from nearly one million organizations to support.

4. Start an online petition

Create an online petition and circulate it around the internet. To do so visit:

Change www.change.org

5. Volunteer

Choose your favorite charitable aid organization and contact them about volunteer opportunities. Volunteering can take many forms from working at home helping with mailings and fundraising to actually working overseas in Tibetan communities.

For volunteer opportunities in the Dharamsala/Northern India area visit: http://www.lhasocialwork.org/volunteer.html

For volunteer opportunities in the United States use this handy widget supplied by VolunteerMatch.org

6. Collect supplies

Most non-profit organizations need to keep their overhead and administrative costs as low as possible. Something simple like providing office supplies or new/used office equipment can help. Contact your favorite charitable aid organization and see what they need. Ask if their overseas locations need school supplies, clothing or other items!

7. Sponsorship programs

Many non-profit aid organizations have sponsorship programs. These programs require that you provide each month a small amount of money which will be sent to individuals, such as monks or nuns, to help with their living expenses. There are many Tibetans both inside Tibet and in Tibetan refugee communities who are destitute, are orphans, or elderly with no relatives who depend on these programs to survive. This usually does not require a large amount of money as a dollar goes much further overseas than it does here.