Monday, 27 November 2006

A PLANT THAT MAKES ELEPHANTS SNEEZE, AFGHAN SHEEP and self-heated food – all star in Intelligent Giving's Christmas Gifts Awards this month.

On Monday the donors' website, intelligentgiving.com, will celebrate the public's new-found enthusiasm for buying goats, cows and toilet blocks for Third World countries - to replace gifts they'd normally buy their friends at Christmas. The light-hearted award scheme lays out the most original gifts, with a bias towards more reliable sources.

Intelligent Giving researcher Adam Rothwell said: "The range of gifts these days is genuinely interesting and sometimes hilarious - there is something for everyone, from toilets to hens to rocket launchers (which are turned into school bells) – and we have reflected that in our choices. But we have also looked at what your money actually buys you, because what you see isn't always what your African farmer gets."

Intelligent Giving says there are only three major charity gift catalogues which guarantee to buy what you pay for. They are:

• The Good Gifts Catalogue
• The Save the Children Wishlist
• Help the Aged’s Cows ‘n’ Things

Rothwell says, “Most of the other catalogues and websites we found could not guarantee that when you bought, for example, a goat, the recipient would get a goat. The usual explanation was that the money would go to something like a goat, or that the charity would spend the money on something else entirely, where it judged there was the greatest need.

“But that's like paying for an iPod and getting a radio. We don't think most people would be happy with that - and in fact 69 per cent of people polled by ICM for the Charities' Advisory Trust said they felt ‘misled’ by the clever wording which only reveals itself in the small print.”

Ends

> Our Charity Gift Awards 2006
> Our article, "Which charity gifts will get your goat?"

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