How You Can Make the World a Better Place, One Gift at a Time

ChangingThePresent.org offers donation gifts to help change the world, in exactly the way you want. For instance: for just a few dollars, you can provide a child with her first book; fund an hour of cancer research; protect an acre of the rainforest; or restore a blind person's sight with cataract surgery.

You can share these gifts with your friends and family, or use them for your own nonprofit giving. We provide a full range of inspiring gifts from hundreds of leading nonprofits, so you're sure to find something that moves you.

Our Advisors

ChangingThePresent.org benefits from the expertise and support of a world-class Board of Advisors, including Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Jody Williams and the heads of more than 125 nonprofits, including Teach for America, Lance Armstrong Foundation, Sierra Club, and Sesame Workshop.

Participating Nonprofits

ChangingThePresent.org already features thousands of donation gift items from hundreds of leading nonprofits, and the list is growing daily. You can browse for nonprofits with featured gifts or search by name to find any of half a million nonprofits.

Donation gifts

Donation gifts are also a wonderful way to honor friends and family for their birthdays, weddings and holidays. (After all, how many of us really want another pair of fuzzy slippers?) Wish lists and registries make it easy to find the perfect gift, which you can share with a personalized greeting card.

Imagine, for one delicious moment, how much good we could do by capturing for nonprofits even a little bit of the $250 billion that Americans spend each year buying presents for one another. As this site catches on, it will become the standard way many of us will show how much we care. If you're here now, you're at the front of the pack.

Meaningful $1 Gifts on facebook™

Every day, thousands and thousands of facebook™ members spend real money sending $1 virtual gifts to one another: a picture of a balloon, a coffee cup, or whatever. It’s a nice way to show your love.

Now, there’s an exciting new alternative: you can show your love and make the world a better place. $1 gifts from ChangingThePresent on facebook™ are actually donations, and the pictures your friends receive show what you did in their names to make a difference.

About Us

ChangingThePresent.org is the website of ImportantGifts, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. A Board of Advisors, with over 125 leaders of prominent nonprofit organizations, provides ChangingThePresent.org with deep expertise and broad support.

Finding Donation Opportunities

Browse by cause to find thousands of donation opportunities from leading nonprofits. Or search by name to find and support virtually any nonprofit. See how your nonprofit organization can Register for a Premium Listing.

Information About Nonprofits

Profile pages provide information about any nonprofit.
See this sample

Donation Drives

You can make a bigger impact by recruiting friends to support your favorite donation items or nonprofits. We make it easy for you to start a Drive.
See a sample Drive here

Your Profile

Your Member Profiles lets you share your favorite causes and favorite nonprofits. Your Wish List lets you show the donation gifts you would especially welcome.

Registries

Registries for weddings, graduations and other events let you request your favorite donation items..

Donations

ImportantGifts, Inc., a §501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, operates ChangingtThePresent.org. Visitors to the website may make donations to ImportantGifts and recommend that ImportantGifts distribute those donations as grants to other §501(c)(3) charitable organizations in good standing with the IRS, and for use to fund particular donation gifts listed by the nonprofits.

ImportantGifts makes grants to the nonprofits at the end of the month following the online donation. ImportantGifts deducts only a small transaction fee of three percent and thirty cents per donation item, primarily to cover its merchant expenses in processing the Website donation and certain other processing, overhead and administrative costs.

Greeting Cards

We make it easy for you to personalize a printed greeting card, which we will mail to announce a donation you've made in a friend's name. (Please note that unlike the donations, greeting cards are not tax-deductible). For the cover of the card, select a photo from our collection. Then select or write a caption.

Inside the card, we will provide a photograph and description (but not the price) of the donation item you have selected. You can add your own personal message.

Currently, we mail cards by first class mail each Friday.

Our greeting cards are environmentally friendly. The cards and envelopes contain at least 30% post-consumer fibers. They are completely biodegradable and recyclable, elemental chlorine-free guaranteed, and Forest Stewardship Council Certified.

More

We will soon add many more features. Please check back often or join our mailing list.