Charity Christmas cards for charities, not for profit

Just how much of the price of a charity Christmas card actually goes directly to the charity?

Well that depends on who you buy it from.

Large stores such as Harrods and Liberty of Regent Street are the worst offenders, giving just 3% of the price of the card to the charity mentioned on it. They say the percentage is negotiated between the printers and the charity and has nothing to do with them. Apparently.

Cards from other high street stores, such as Boots and Marks & Spencer, have about 10% of the price going to charity while Paperchase and Clinton Cards give up to 25%.

If you buy from the charity themselves, their net revenue on card sales can be between 35 and 80%. Oxfam say that once all costs are taken into consideration, 35% of the price is a clear profit for them.

However, selling cards through a third party such as a high street store means that the charity can benefit from increased sales due to a wider market, do not bear the production costs and do not have to worry about any leftover cards which aren't sold.

Websites which sell only charity cards from several different charities can pass on 79% of the price to the charity.

Many charities just do not have the funds to produce their own cards nor the resources to sell them.

Which is where e-cards come in.

Third party websites offering e-cards mean no production costs, little overheads and in the case of Everyclick, a whopping 121% of the price of the Christmas card goes to charity.

How do they do this?

The user makes a single donation (minimum of £5) to the charity of their choice available on the website in exchange for as many personalised Christmas e-cards they wish to send, on the date that they choose.

If they are a UK tax payer and they choose to Gift Aid their donation, then 121% of the donation will go to charity.

The charity benefits much more than from any other form of charity Christmas card and a few trees are saved in the process. Less waste goes into landfill and everyone benefits.

Over 200,000 UK charities are available to support on Everyclick, which means that even the smallest charities who would not even have thought of producing Christmas cards can actually benefit from e-cards.

We're all going to buy Christmas cards anyway this year, and with belts being tightened and Christmas budgets shortened what better way to do it than send as many cards as you like for a donation to charity. Charities will be hard hit during this recession, suffering from fewer donations as donors save their cash, just at the time when they will have more people coming to them for help.

Buy charity Christmas cards on Everyclick.com and help any one of 200,000 UK charities.

How to have an ethical Christmas

If Christmas really is the season of peace and goodwill why not start planning now to make it a truly ethical occasion for yourself and your loved ones?

Charitable gestures in this season of giving are so easy to make at a cost which would even have Scrooge smiling with approval.

Just what does the way you wish someone a happy Christmas say about you? Old traditions die hard and it seems that writing a few scrawled cliches on a Hallmark greetings card is still the favoured method of most Brits.

The Royal Mail delivers as many as 150 million cards per day in the pre-Christmas run up but it is a sobering thought that these cards can take up to 30 years to decompose.

So why not send an ecard (an email wishing someone well) instead? You can actually make them more personal than a shop-bought card by pasting in a scene from a famous Christmas film (what about Jimmy Stewart's It's A Wonderful Life?) and using PhotoShop to superimpose a speech bubble with your greeting.

Charity Christmas cards are a fine alternative if this idea doesn't appeal.

Cards that you receive can be recycled by organisations such as the Woodland Trust.

A compost bin can be a good Yuletide investment which will help you recycle much of the waste that the festivities generate.

If you're dreaming of a green Christmas it is best to buy presents which don't harm the environment. Buying the adoption rights to an animal can prove to be a great gift and what better time of the year can it be for adopting a reindeer?

For just £32 a year you can adopt a Cairngorm Mountain reindeer and receive photos, souvenirs and newsletters. The money will be well-spent on food and welfare (in the form of medicine and vets' fees) for these magnificent creatures.

Polar bears can be adopted even more cheaply. For as little as £3 per month the World Wildlife Fund will let you adopt one of these Arctic animals.

It doesn't take much imagination to decorate your house without ruining the planet. Plastic trees are not environmentally-friendly so you could always grow your own holly tree instead of supporting the trade in holly branches. Put seeds, a compost pellet and a terracotta pot on your Christmas list and watch your green credentials grow!

If it's too late to do this in time for the big day, you can always contact Oxfam and make a donation so that a tree can be planted in a developing country.

No decent Christmas is complete without the chance to gorge yourself on food before slumping in front of the Queen's speech with a paper crown on your head. Buying your choice of dinner locally, perhaps at farmers' markets, is a sure-fire way of ticking the right green boxes.

With time off work, Christmas is a time to reflect on those less fortunate than themselves. You can always bring some seasonal cheer by taking part in a 'Considerate Christmas' at Everyclick. Send online greetings and buy an Everyclick eVoucher to give to someone to donate to their favourite charity before the year is out.