Deciding Where to Give:
Holiday Donations for Nonprofit Organizations
The year-end holiday season is a time for individuals and organizations to reflect upon the past 12 months and celebrate with family and friends. As families gather around the table and organizations host events and parties, this yearly reflection generates an added spark. It inspires many to help people in need around their communities and the world.
On top of this, in order to qualify for a tax deduction during the impending tax season, companies and individuals are required to make their yearly charitable contributions prior to the turning of the calendar. As a result, most individual and corporate donations happen between #GivingTuesday, or as we put it here at RestoringVision, #GivingSightDay, and the end of the year, December 31st.
For those who decide to partake in this year-end charitable giving season, it’s important to spend time researching the right nonprofit organization to donate to.
We encourage companies and people to investigate and ensure their donations are going to charities and causes that are most important to them, their families or their organizations.
Nonprofits Change Lives
Every single day, millions of people around the world are in some way touched by a nonprofit organization. Whether it’s a community-based program, a healthcare program, a food program, or an educational program, nonprofit organizations build vibrant and improving communities around the world through the power of donations.
These nonprofit organizations support health, safety, and education in communities that might otherwise lack the capability to provide it. Nonprofits are the foundation of global health and wellness to protect our planet and future generations.
While issues like hunger, AIDS, Ebola, and Malaria are rampant on the news and around the world, there are issues, such as poor vision, that have been neglected in the past, but are gaining attention in recent years, and for good reason.
Giving the Gift of Sight
Imagine a world in which you didn’t have access to the tools you needed to properly see.
Vision is one of our most important senses and as humans we are extremely reliant on our ability to see, which is evident in how complex our eyes are.
But as you read this today, over 2 billion people worldwide suffer from an uncorrected vision impairment, and of those upwards of 544 million people only need reading glasses to make the correction but live in impoverished communities lacking access to these life-changing items.
By providing reading glasses to people in need, you will immediately influence their lives in a handful of positive ways including:
- Health – Reading glasses make the vision correction needed for people with close range vision problems.
- Education – Both children and adults benefit from near vision correction, giving adults the ability to work, read, learn, and perform daily tasks without keeping children away from school. Adults can also enter continuing education and workforce training.
- Safety – Having clear & focused close-range vision is essential to safely completing hand held tasks and providing for one’s family, such as caring safely for a small child.
- Productivity – Vision correction leads to a 35% increase in productivity and 20% increase in wages. A simple pair of reading glasses gives people the ability to carry out their daily tasks, work, and lead productive lives.
- Quality of Life – Regaining the ability to see clearly boosts the morale of individuals and allows them to become contributing members of a family or community once again.
- Overall Community – By providing glasses to impoverished communities without access, it boosts their education rate, median income, economic output, and the overall health of that community.
Ways to Help Restore Vision This Holiday Season
The good news is in 2018 there are plenty of ways to get involved during the holiday season, or anytime, and help restore vision to people in need around the world.
Organizations like RestoringVision are dedicated to correcting vision and providing reading glasses to people in communities that otherwise lack access. You or your organization can join forces with us this giving season and help in three different, but effective ways.
First, you or your organization can Become a Partner. RestoringVision has a strong network of partners who help in the distribution of glasses to impoverished communities around the globe. Our partners are the ones on the ground taking the glasses overseas and putting them on the faces of people in need. If you are a non-profit organization or mission group looking to make a difference in the world, becoming a partner with RestoringVision is a perfect fit.
Second, you can Become a Sponsor. At RestoringVision we are lucky to be blessed with an amazing group of corporate sponsors. These sponsors not only help provide access to glasses for people in need, but also help us create access to health, education, work, and a better life for these same people. If you are a corporation embarking on a corporate social responsibility program, consider working with us.
There are a variety of ways companies can become a sponsor and become involved in our mission. Our flexible and unique corporate sponsorship programs are adaptable to a company’s budget, structure, business activity, and Corporate Social Responsibility agenda. Our programs include:
- One for One Program: The sale of a unit of your product will result in a donation of a pair of glasses to someone in need. This is RestoringVision’s take on the classic buy one give one program. When a customer buys a product, our sponsors make a monetary donation to RestoringVision, which we then convert into a pair of glasses.
- Direct Giving Program: Our sponsors can make a direct cash donation that will immediately go to the purchase of glasses for disbursal.
- In-Kind Program: RestoringVision makes it easy for manufacturers, wholesalers, and retailer sponsors to donate their excess inventory of reading glasses or new sunglasses.
Lastly, you can get involved by donating to our cause and helping RestoringVision empower lives by giving the gift of sight to people in need around the world. Make a tax-deductible donation today and every dollar you donate will be converted into glasses delivered to people in need.
Remember, this holiday season while reflecting on the memories of the past year, carry on the tradition of giving. Whether you donate with your family or through your company or organization, consider helping those in need see and live better. There’s no better time to spread the spirit of the holiday season and make a lasting, positive, impact in people’s lives.
