Have You Told A Friend About Community Gives?

It's been almost a month since the eBay Foundation launched Community Gives, a campaign through which three worthy nonprofit organizations -- First Book, Best Friends Animal Society and Oxfam – will get $1 million (equally distributed) from the Foundation. As Bill Barmeier, our VP of Global Citizenship wrote in his original announcement, "Imagine what we can do when we all give together!"

And imagine what we can do when the causes being supported are very dear to our hearts. In identifying what kinds of nonprofits to support, the Foundation worked closely with our Community, especially people in the Voices program. No wonder eBay members have embraced the Community Gives campaign enthusiastically – contributions have come in from eBayers in 45 states and 19 countries! (Hopefully Chatter readers from the five remaining states -– Alaska, Mississippi, North Dakota, Rhode Island, and Wyoming -– will scramble to get their states on the map soon!)

The Community Gives campaign is a huge testament to the generous giving spirit of our Community, especially in the last few weeks when people have also reached deep into their pockets to support the victims of the colossal natural disasters that hit Myanmar and China.

Spread the word to friends and family!
Of course more remains to be done. It always does when it comes to supporting your favorite causes. Besides contributing money (of course!) you can easily support Community Gives by spreading the good word. Here are a few ways to do this:

• Blog about Community Gives on your personal blog, if you have one (for instance, check out what Danna Crawford, an eBay PowerSeller, wrote on her blog.)
• Tell some friends about the campaign via email
• Add a Community Gives message to your own email signature
• Include the Community Gives banner on your About Me and My World pages, as well as in your listings and eBay Stores.
• Add a PayPal donation widget to anywhere you have a presence on the web (it's a bit of software that lets people send money to their preferred nonprofits via PayPal)

It's very easy to do most of these things – just grab the code from the Tell a Friend page on www.communitygives.org and plop it into your email or website.

Every dollar counts! Remember that your efforts will go towards providing new books so that hundreds of thousands of low-income children can discover the magic of reading, building a puppy care center so that hundreds of abused and injured puppies can have a chance to find loving permanent homes, and supplying access to clean, safe water to alleviate poverty for tens of thousands of people in Ethiopia and Zambia.