Gifts Without Guilt

Product (RED) covers a big selection of name-brand products, from iPods to laptops, from sneakers to watches, from Starbucks coffee to t-shirts from the Gap. All purchases trigger a donation towards the elimination of AIDS in Africa. The amount of the donation varies among the brands and products.

GoodShop lets you shop more than one thousand stores online and designate a portion of your purchase to your choice of its 80,000 affiliated charities and schools.

Similar sites include ShopAnthropy; GiftBack.com; and iGive.com.

TOMS Shoes is famous for one type of unique, super-simple shoe (in a jillion variations), and for every pair sold, its nonprofit partner, Friends of TOMS, gives a pair to a child in need somewhere in the world. Buy a pair of shoes for someone you love and enclose the TOMS Shoes story in the package.

Jedidiah makes clothing and shares its profits with good causes. What can you buy here? Things that young people will love, from t-shirts and tanks for either gender to accessories such as caps and bags.

Each season, Jedidiah partners with a distinctive and effective non-profit organization to raise money and awareness for life-changing causes.  Every Jedidiah piece is creatively inspired and tied to a cause, all benefiting their non-profit organization.  For its Fall and Holiday 2011 collections, Jedidiah has partnered with StandUp for Kids, a nonprofit that helps homeless kids in the US.

Jedidiah is just one of the brands that are part of the Made for Good consortium, a network of brands and nonprofits that don't just add on charitable giving, but that are based on it. The other brands include Beautiful Feet, which sells sandals and t-shirts, donating a matching item to needy children around the world.

Does a child in your life like to play doctor or nurse? Then consider giving him or her these Gund Collector's Bears from St. Jude Children's Research Hospital. Two of them have stethoscopes around their necks! How cool is that?

Build-A-Bear Workshop has produced stuffed animals just for the World Wildlife Fund. The current one is WWF Fennec Fox. A donation is made to the WWF for each toy sold.

At Losinoni Primary School, located in a remote village in Tanzania, many of the school's 700 students walk more than five miles to attend class every day. When AfricAid volunteers visited the school in 2003, they encountered overcrowded classrooms with few school supplies. AfricAid partnered with the village to improve the school and encourage attendance.

Written in collaboration with 61 Losinoni students and illustrated by Penny Weber, "On My Way to School" gives American children a colorful glimpse into Losinoni students' multiple mile trek to school from their remote village. All proceeds from sales of this delightful book support AfricAid's ongoing projects at Losinoni Primary School.

Buy the wine for a hostess gift or for your own holiday or special event party. Note: Wine cannot be shipped to all states, so check the website to see if your state is excluded.

At GreaterGood.org you can buy gifts that support specific causes, such as Breast Cancer, Child Health, Literacy, Rainforest, and Animal Rescue, with each site partnered with a handful of charities working on that issue.

Every time you purchase an item from one of these sites, up to 30% of the purchase price helps the cause. In addition, you can donate directly with 100% of the donation going to the cause; or you can simply visit each site and click the "Click Here to Give" button, which triggers a small donation at no cost to you.