Community Service Links

Please Note: The links which follow will direct you to outside content. Once you leave the River Rock website, please understand we are not responsible for the content of these sites. This information is provided as a resource for educational purposes only and is not to be considered all inclusive.

Although we do support both personally and professionally many of these organizations, endorsement is not necessarily implicit.

Virtual Volunteering Opportunities

You'd like to pitch in at your local soup kitchen one night a week or offer your services to Meals On Wheels or UNICEF -- problem is, you just can't find the time. However if you can go online, and there's a host of ways to give to your favorite charities in minutes.

In many cases, you can help out for free or contribute just a few dollars and still reap plenty of satisfaction. "Get enough small donations from lots of people, and big things are possible," says Kathleen McCarthy, director of the Center on Philanthropy and Civil Society at the City University of New York. Virtual volunteering is a great way to involve your children in charity, and it's especially important as nonprofits struggle with increased demand from victims of layoffs, foreclosures, natural disasters, and more.

Following, are easy ways to give back with just a few clicks of the mouse.

www.GlobalGiving.com This Web site pairs donors with grassroots organizations and community-based projects here and abroad -- and matches your contributions dollar for dollar. You can buy $35 in supplies for cooking classes at the Homegirl Cafe in Los Angeles to help at-risk Latinas escape the cycle of gangs and violence, or contribute $25 toward a desk-and-chair set for a student in earthquake-ravaged areas of rural China. Sign up for regular updates with this Washington, D.C.-based group, and a tree will be planted in your honor in Mexico, Haiti, Brazil, India, or Australia to support reforestation projects and combat climate change.

www.MarkMakers.org Protect the environment, fight poverty, or promote world peace at this mall-like site tailored for tweens. Choose your charity, and the nonprofit MarkMakers Foundation will forward the donation for you. Give $1 to a broad cause (providing vaccines to children in developing countries) or a weekend's worth of babysitting money to a specific project ($30 covers the adoption and care of an injured seal at the Marine Mammal Rescue Center in Sausalito, California).

Lend a Hand Right from Your Desk or Laptop

www.VolunteerMatch.org Enter a project keyword (like "family" or "environment") and check the "virtual opportunities" box to narrow down a database of 50,000 local, national, and international nonprofits that need your help. One example is In2Books, a mentoring and literacy program that matches a "penpal" adult with a disadvantaged K-12 student, who correspond online about five books they read together during the school year.

www.OnlineVolunteering.org With this United Nations Volunteers program, you can commit to as little as one hour of virtual work a week -- e-mailing press releases, translating documents, drafting proposals -- for international charities, based on your skills. One mother and her teenage son, who has cerebral palsy and is confined to a wheelchair, found people online to donate tennis rackets and soccer balls to a home for AIDS orphans in Zambia.

Make a Microloan!

www.Kiva.org Browse profiles of real people in need, like the woman in Mali who wants to start a dressmaking business or a family in Bolivia seeking to increase their potato crop. Then use a credit card or PayPal to make your donation (the minimum is $25), and Kiva's microfinance partners will pool and distribute the funds. Loans don't earn interest (so you won't profit), but you should recoup your investment in six to 12 months, allowing you to use the same money to help someone else in need.

www.MicroPlace.com This microloan company, a division of eBay, requires at least a $50 loan and a two-year investment, for which you can earn 2 to 3 percent interest. MicroPlace's mission is to help alleviate global poverty by enabling everyday people to make investments in the world's working poor.

Our idea is simple. Microfinance institutions around the world have discovered an effective way to help the world’s working poor lift themselves out of poverty. These organizations need capital to expand and reach more of the working poor. At the same time, millions of everyday people here in the United States are looking for ways to make investments that yield a financial return while making a positive impact on the world. MicroPlace simply connects investors with microfinance institutions looking for funds. The result: more microfinance in the world, satisfied investors, and above all, fewer people living in poverty.

Pay a Visit, Pay It Forward: Donating online is almost as easy as feeding pennies into your piggy bank. Add up the change, and it can make a world of difference.

www.FreeRice.com Quiz yourself on math, vocabulary, geography, and other subjects to rack up charitable contributions on this site. There are different levels for all ages, and for each answer you get correct, the site's sponsors donate 20 grains of rice to the United Nations World Food Programme. Last year the program generated enough rice to feed more than two million people.

www.GoodSearch.com : Each time you search the Web using this free site, you'll generate money for the charity of your choice (there are more than 69,000, from the ASPCA to Ace & TJ's Grin Kids in Charlotte, North Carolina, for special-needs children). GoodSearch donates half of its revenue from advertisers, a penny per search. It adds up: Save Darfur, for example, has netted $8,500 in the last three years.

www.SearchandGive.com : Microsoft's free search site includes nearly one million nonprofits and schools and donates a penny each time you do a search. You can also play games -- solving the crossword Flexicon, for example -- to earn a quarter for your favorite charity.

www.GreaterGood.com : Breast cancer, child health, hunger, literacy, the rainforest, or animal rescue -- choose one or all six, hit the "Click Here to Give -- It's FREE" button, and this site donates a portion of its ad revenue to established charities linked with each cause. Last September visitors paid for 216 mammograms, supplied 47,085 books for kids in low-income neighborhoods, and preserved 994 acres of rainforest. You can set up a daily e-mail reminder to visit the site, where a half-dozen clicks takes less than 30 seconds.

www.RelayForLife.org Relay For Life is the American Cancer Society’s signature activity. It offers everyone in a community an opportunity to participate in the fight against cancer. Teams of people camp out at a local high school, park, or fairground and take turns walking or running around a track or path. Each team is asked to have a representative on the track at all times during the event. Relays are an overnight event, up to 24 hours in length.

Teams of people from all walks of life have fun while raising much-needed funds to fight cancer and raise awareness of cancer prevention and treatment. No matter who you are, there’s a place for you at Relay. To participate, form a team, or dedicate a luminaria at your local American Cancer Society Relay For Life, please call 1-800-ACS-2345 or visit http://www.cancer.org/.

The i’m™ Initiative is a new program that enables you to help the Red Cross assist people in need through Windows Live™ Messenger. Every time you have an instant message conversation using i’m, Microsoft shares a portion of the program’s advertising revenue with the Red Cross. With no set cap on the amount donated, the more i’m conversations you have, the more money goes to help the Red Cross respond to disasters of every size and scope through its Disaster Relief Fund.