Best Links: Holiday Giving, Fundraising In 2010, and the Need for Trust

• Giving is busting out all over. Here are three easy ways to help good causes this Thanksgiving. Two don't even require money.

  1. Tweetsgiving is a model giving program, now in its second year, that has shown how social media can make the world a better place. It has already helped build a school in Tanzania.

     This year, another special Thanksgiving campaign will help expand that school. You can simply donate or get involved by publicizing the cause, attending an event, or writing on your blog. Get all the details and see the heartwarming story and photos at EpicChange.

  2. If you're a Tweeter and also like Drew Carey, actor and host of The Price is Right, you can help fight cancer. Carey is providing $1 for every new Twitter follower he gets until the end of the year. The money will go to LIVESTRONG. There is a story behind this that is fun, but really all it takes is a follow at MillionDollarDrew.

  3. Facebook activists can help Chase Community Giving decide how to spend $5-million in charitable giving. Just fan the page and then vote for your charity of choice. The goal is to drive your charity into the top 100, which will each receive $25,000, and then to get your charity into the top five, receiving $100,000 each.

• It is a tough year for everyone, but you still want to give to charity, especially during the holidays. Should you spread your money around or concentrate it? The Los Angeles Times provides some tips in its article, "Lean Years Require a Shift in How You Give to Charity."

  There is more help for donors in this Washington Post article, "Your Charity Telemarketing Cheat Sheet." What you need to ask when a fundraiser telephones you.

• How are you feeling about your fundraising for 2010? Optimistic? Tepid? Exhausted from the recession? See how your peer fundraisers answered a survey about their 2010 plans at The Agitator. This is a three-part series of blog posts. #1 is here, #2 is here, and #3 is here.

• Trust in Philanthropy. Who doesn't get frustrated with jumping through all the hoops and paperwork demanded for most grants? I loved this blog post at Tactical Philanthropy, in which Sean Stannard-Stockton discusses the trust (or distrust) foundations seem to have in the nonprofits they fund. It turns out, however, that trust is the glue that may hold civilization together.

Photo by Getty Images