Ahhh, the wedding gift registry! A Chicago tradition since 1924 giving the happy couple an opportunity to communicate gift preferences to their wedding guests.
What do we want? World peace of course!
What do we need? More time off work silly!
Should you require a more romantic or practical gift idea then you might consider one of the following:
His and hers printer cartridges: HP 60 or HP 60XL Black and tri-color ink jet printer cartridges (or equivalent; why spend more?)
His and hers two stage whole house water filter cartridges (is this romantic or what?): W50PEHD first stage and WRC25HD20 second stage
His and hers table wine: Lorinda likes sweet whites and Gary likes dry reds.
(we were pretty sure you could identify these without a graphic)
If you enjoyed the wedding ceremony performance by the Congregational Church of Batavia Chancel Choir and would like to support them, you can donate specifically to the “choir restricted fund” on the church website at: http://www.congregationalchurch.org/stewardship2015.
If you enjoyed the wedding ceremony performance by Acappellago and would like to support them, you can donate on their website at http://www.acappellago.org
Now, back to World Peace; you could help us make the world a better place by making a donation on our behalf to one of the following charities rated A- or higher by the American Institute Of Philanthropy, Charity Watch.
All of the charities we have listed here are listed as top-rated charities on Charity Watch, an organization that rates charities according to how they use the money they collect. Top-rated typically spend at least 75% of their budgets on programs they support, spend $25 or less to raise $100 in public support, do not hold excessive assets in reserve, and have open-book policies.
Changing the face of cancer treatment isn’t easy. It takes time, money, an increasingly demanding level of expertise, and an enormous amount of hard work. But when you are passionate like we are about conquering cancer, you’ll do whatever it takes.
We are motivated by a very simple but important scientific fact: the human body has the ability to defend itself from cancer. Our founding scientists believed that the key to longterm survival lay in learning how to manipulate the immune system to strengthen its defenses against cancer. We set out more than 60 years ago not only to prove this could be done, but also to do something with this knowledge that would truly help cancer patients.
http://www.curesearch.org/EveryNow/index.html
Every 33 minutes a child is diagnosed with cancer. That’s 43 children a day.
So, the search for cures happens NOW.
EVERY NOW, until cures are found.
CureSearch challenges you to solve this problem with us, one step at a time. Your actions can help accelerate the search for cures and provide children with access to lifesaving treatment.
Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center — the world’s oldest and largest private cancer center — has devoted more than 130 years to exceptional patient care, innovative research, and outstanding educational programs. Today, we are one of 41 National Cancer Institute–designated Comprehensive Cancer Centers, with state-of-the-art science flourishing side by side with clinical studies and treatment.
The close collaboration between our physicians and scientists is one of our unique strengths, enabling us to provide patients with the best care available as we work to discover more-effective strategies to prevent, control, and ultimately cure cancer in the future. Our education programs train future physicians and scientists, and the knowledge and experience they gain at Memorial Sloan Kettering has an impact on cancer treatment and biomedical research around the world.
http://www.doctorswithoutborders.org
“Silence has long been confused with neutrality, and has been presented as a necessary condition for humanitarian action. From its beginning, MSF was created in opposition to this assumption.
“We are not sure that words can always save lives, but we know that silence can certainly kill.”
Dr. James Orbinski, then-President of the MSF International Council, accepting the Nobel Peace Prize on behalf of MSF in 1999.
About The Sierra Club Foundation
Founded in 1960, The Sierra Club Foundation is a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt public charity governed by an independent board of directors.
Our board and staff raise charitable funds, preserve and enhance these assets, and ensure they are used appropriately. As the fiscal sponsor of the charitable programs of the Sierra Club, we provide resources to it and other nonprofit organizations to support scientific, educational, literary, organizing, advocacy, and legal programs that further our charitable goals.
We work with individual and institutional donors to align financial resources with strategically focused campaigns, help build capacity in the environmental movement, and create partnerships with a broad spectrum of allied organizations that further our shared environmental goals.
We do this so that future generations will inherit a healthy planet with wild places left to explore.
You can help families in more than 90 countries tackle poverty, hunger, and injustice.
Nearly one out of three of us lives in poverty. But we see a future in which no one does.
WCS is the world’s preeminent science-based conservation organization, founded in 1895. Learn about us and how you can join our team.
In 1946, when the Guide Dog Foundation for the Blind was founded, its mission was simple: to provide guide dogs and training – free of charge – to people who were blind or visually impaired.
http://www.childrensdefense.org
The Children’s Defense Fund has always believed that “children do not come in pieces” and that children need comprehensive, integrated supports and services from birth through adulthood.
http://www.savethechildren.org/
Save the Children invests in childhood – every day, in times of crisis and for our future. In the United States and around the world, we give children a healthy start, the opportunity to learn and protection from harm. By transforming children’s lives now,
we change the course of their future and ours.
The Environmental Working Group is a non-profit, non-partisan organization dedicated to protecting human health and the environment. Our mission is to empower people to live healthier lives in a healthier environment. EWG drives consumer choice and civic action with its game-changing investigations and research on toxics and environmental health, food and agriculture, and water and energy. For two decades, EWG’s groundbreaking research has changed the debate over environmental health. From households to Capitol Hill, EWG’s team of scientists, policy experts, lawyers, communication experts and programmers has worked tirelessly to make sure someone is standing up for public health when government or industry won’t.
| Defending democracy. Resisting corporate power.Public Citizen advocates for a healthier and more equitable world by making government work for the people and by defending democracy from corporate greed. You can help. |
Who We Are
Since its founding in 1951, AWI has sought to alleviate the suffering inflicted on animals by people. In the organization’s early years, our particular emphasis was on the desperate needs of animals used for experimentation. In the decades that followed, we expanded the scope of our work to address many other areas of animal suffering.
Today, one of our greatest areas of emphasis is cruel animal factories, which raise and slaughter pigs, cows, chickens and other animals. The biggest are in our country, and they are expanding worldwide.
| One of America’s Most Inspiring Companies |
THIS YEAR YOUR DONATED STUFF HAS HELPED GOODWILL® GET
259,244 PEOPLE BACK TO WORK
http://www.lupusresearchinstitute.org
Pioneering Discovery to Cure Lupus
The world’s leading private supporter of innovative research in lupus, the LRI champions scientific risk-taking in the hunt for solutions to this complex and dangerous autoimmune disease. The LRI is supported by a National Coalition of patient advocates led by our founding organization, the S.L.E. Lupus Foundation.
The American Kidney Fund leads the nation in providing charitable assistance to dialysis patients who need help with the costs associated with treating kidney failure. In 2013, more than 87,000 people—1 out of every 5 U.S. dialysis patients—received assistance from the American Kidney Fund for health insurance premiums and other treatment-related expenses.
Building Movements that Drive Progress
Since 2003, the Fund for Global Human Rights has had one goal: to move human rights forward by providing resources and tools to the people and organizations on the ground who have real potential to generate positive change. Over ten years later, we’ve seen major progress in achieving that goal.
Our grants and technical assistance are focused on crucial and difficult work that otherwise might falter for lack of resources, bring financial stability to human rights groups, and help human rights defenders increase their visibility and impact. The Fund supports a wide range of human rights issues, such as defending indigenous land rights in Guatemala, promoting women’s rights in Morocco, pressing for accountability for war crimes in West Africa, and ending the practice of bonded labor (a form of slavery) in India.
OUR VISION:
Our vision is a literate America in which all children have access to books and discover the joys and value of reading.
OUR MISSION:
To motivate young children to read by working with them, their parents, and community members to make reading a fun and beneficial part of everyday life. RIF’s highest priority is reaching underserved children from birth to age 8.
Reading Is Fundamental (RIF) is the largest children’s literacy nonprofit in the United States. We prepare and motivate children to read by delivering free books and literacy resources to those children and families who need them most. We inspire children to be lifelong readers through the power of choice. RIF provides new, free books for children to choose from and make their own. The seeds of inspiration in these books have motivated children to follow their dreams and achieve their potential. Yes, it seems incredible for a book to launch a life, but it happens every day as hungry, inquisitive young minds reach out and grab hold of the new people, places, and ideas that books bring them.
Nearly two-thirds of low-income families in the U.S. own no books.
Planting seeds of inspiration in our nation’s most vulnerable children is what RIF and a network of more than 400,000 volunteers do. Whether in schools, homeless shelters, or community centers—wherever you find children—RIF volunteers spend countless hours distributing books, staging reading motivation activities, and promoting the importance of literacy in their communities.
RIF is generously supported by corporations, foundations, community organizations, and thousands of individuals. Your generosity is what allows us to fulfill our mission and positively impact the lives of our nation’s children and their families.
http://www.ncoa.org/about-ncoa/
The National Council on Aging (NCOA) is the nation’s leading nonprofit service and advocacy organization representing older adults and the community organizations that serve them.
Our goal is to improve the health and economic security of 10 million older adults by 2020.
For more than 60 years, NCOA has been a trusted voice and innovative problem-solver helping seniors navigate the challenges of aging in America.
We work with local and national partners to give older adults tools and information to stay healthy and secure, and we advocate for programs and policies to improve the lives of all seniors, especially the most vulnerable.
– See more at: http://www.ncoa.org/about-ncoa/#sthash.mPwBLaxr.dpuf
Who we are
IPPF/Western Hemisphere Region is a leader in the international movement to secure sexual and reproductive health care as a human right for all. In partnership with 41 Member Associations in the Americas and the Caribbean, we provide more than 30 million services each year and work to safeguard and expand policies that improve lives and communities.
We introduced family planning in Latin America and the Caribbean and have developed innovative strategies that meet the needs of women, men, and young people throughout the region. Our local partners continue to respond to the demand for sexual and reproductive health information and services, while also addressing a wide spectrum of issues that affect the well-being of individuals and communities.
Mission
IPPF aims to improve the quality of life of individuals by campaigning for sexual and reproductive health and rights through advocacy and services, especially for poor and vulnerable people. We defend the right of all young people to enjoy their sexual lives free from ill health, unwanted pregnancy, violence and discrimination. We support a woman’s right to choose to terminate her pregnancy legally and safely. We strive to eliminate sexually transmitted infections and reduce the spread and impact of HIV/AIDS.
Our Mission
Starlight Children’s Foundation partners with experts to improve the life and health of kids and families around the world.
Our History
The early 1980s witnessed the rise of philanthropic commitment to pediatric care.
http://www.bbbs.org/site/c.9iILI3NGKhK6F/b.5962335/k.4DD4/Start_Something_for_a_child_today.htm
For more than 100 years, Big Brothers Big Sisters has operated under the belief that inherent in every child is the ability to succeed and thrive in life. As the nation’s largest donor and volunteer supported mentoring network, Big Brothers Big Sisters makes meaningful, monitored matches between adult volunteers (“Bigs”) and children (“Littles”), ages 6 through 18, in communities across the country. We develop positive relationships that have a direct and lasting effect on the lives of young people.
Vision: all children achieve success in life.
Mission: provide children facing adversity with strong and enduring, professionally supported one-to-one relationships that change their lives for the better, forever.
Accountability: by partnering with parents/guardians, volunteers and others in the community we are accountable for each child in our program achieving:
- Higher aspirations, greater confidence, and better relationships
- Avoidance of risky behaviors
- Educational success
http://sunlightfoundation.com/
Our Mission
The Sunlight Foundation is a nonpartisan nonprofit that advocates for open government globally and uses technology to make government more accountable to all. We do so by creating tools, open data, policy recommendations, journalism and grant opportunities to dramatically expand access to vital government information to create accountability of our public officials. Our vision is to use technology to enable more complete, equitable and effective democratic participation. Our overarching goal is to achieve changes in the law to require real-time, online transparency for all government information, with a special focus on the political money flow and who tries to influence government and how government responds. And, while our scope began with only a focus on the U.S. Congress, we now are defining open government on the local, state, federal and international level.