U:End Poverty - A Different Way to Gift

A Different Way to Gift

U:End Poverty is a Calgary run non-profit that aims to change the way people feel about how they buy gifts. Their mandate is to get everyone to give five per cent of what they would spend on their gifts for the year, and give it to poverty instead. If everyone one did this, we could eradicate poverty world-wide in 15 years. This idea started as a Christmas charity named Christmas Futures. It went through a re-brand in 2010 to include all gifting.

What makes U:End Poverty unique, is that the money you donate goes directly to a project, and not to an umbrella organization. You can donate money specifically to help build a water well in Uganda if that's a cause that speaks to you, or country you care about. The site is designed in a way that allows you to see the progress being made in donations to that specific project. Once the needed donation has been received, you'll see how many lives were positively effected by its completion. U:End encourages users to buy its gift-cards instead of presents for people so they can choose what project or country they want to support instead of receiving another materialistic present.

To date, U:End has 54 completed projects in the worlds poorest countries - from HIV/AIDS awareness and prevention in Honduras, to a one year women's literacy program in Sierra Leone. These 54 projects have positively effected over 450,000 individual lives. Amazing.

Completed Projects Page
http://www.uend.org/dt/projects?page=3&search%5Bproject_status_id%5D%5B%5D=4

I have a personal connection to this organization as I was lucky enough to work with Carla White, a Calgarian that biked from Cairo to Cape Town to raise money for energy poverty in Africa. Carla biked an average of 120km/day over 4 months. She was able to raise $25,000 through the U:End site to buy 6 solar lanterns and fund the completion of a wind powered water turbine for the village of Bulungala, South Africa. U:End provided her the platform to share her cause and raise money. Carla is recently back from her adventure, but the villages and orphanages that received her lanterns will never forget her generosity.

 

The U:End business model has been such a success in its 6 years, it is moving into the United States and setting up an office in  San Francisco. It's truly a Calgarian philanthropic success story.

Ryan McC