Accomplish the Impossible: Make a 'Donation Made In Your Name' Gift Exciting and Hip

Some of the greatest green gifts you can give during the holiday season are philanthropic. Making donations to green charities in a loved one's name, helping out small green businesses through Kiva, adpoting animals from WWF or farm sanctuaries, planting trees on behalf of someone - there are countless ways to make a difference with your gifts.

However, these do-good gifts have one glaring problem. How do you make the recipient as excited about it as they would be if they were receiving some shiny new toy?

We have some ideas for how you can make your heart-felt, change-making gift really cool.

1. It's all about presentation

When you make your donation or adopt an animal, you usually get a slip of paper showing what the gift is. Making something creative and neat for the slip of paper to be presented in is a great way to hand it over to the recipient in a meaningful way. Perhaps if you adopted an animal at an aquarium or reserve, you could fold the paper into a beautiful origami representation of that animal. Or you could put your gift inside another gift. For example you could head to the thrift store and pick up a jewelry box or basket, and hand-paint it or decorate it in a way you know the recipient will love. There are lots of ways to create stunning green gift wrapping that becomes half of the joy of the gift.

2. Combine it with a gift that mirrors the donation

Did you give a donation to charity:water as a gift? Combine it with a reusable water bottle as a reminder about how thankful we are to have access to clean water at the tap. Or perhaps you made a donation to Kiva to someone running a restaurant business in another country. You could combine that with a gift certificate to a locally owned restaurant that serves food made with local ingredients, underscoring the importance of supporting small business owners. Did you invest in a farmer on MicroPlace on behalf of your sweetheart? Give them hand-made coupons for farmers' market treats for the spring season.

3. Turn it into a game

Make scratcher tickets from (ahem) scratch that reveal what your gift is. You can get creative with what the images under the scratcher material will reveal. Or you could send the recipient on a treasure hunt, providing clues that not only lead the recipient to the next clue, but also provide them clues to what the gift is, and making it as much about the experience of receiving the gift as the gift itself.