Each month I donate a portion of the proceeds from Indie Fixx and the Indie Fixx Shop to a different charitable organization. The organizations I choose vary from those that provide humanitarian support, focus on the arts, provide for environmental stewardship, are concerned with animal welfare and other issues and causes that are near and dear to me.

This month, I chose to donate to the Rainforest Action Network’s Protect-An-Acre Fund mostly after reading and hearing how biofuels may actually be contributing to global warming rather than helping to alleviate it. Founded in 1993, Protect-An-Acre’s goal is to protect the world’s rainforests and the rights of their inhabitants by providing financial aid to traditionally under-funded organizations and communities in temperate, tropical and boreal forest regions.

Protect-An-Acre is very different from rainforest buy-an-acre programs, which don’t necessarily address the real problems of the region and the people who actually live on the land. Instead, Protect-an-Acre works to protect threatened areas and to empower the indigenous inhabitants of the targeted areas by helping them gain legal recognition of their territory, establishing protected reserves that recognize the rights of local communities, developing locally-based alternative economic initiatives, assisting in community organization, promoting environmental education and practicing resistance to destructive practices such as logging, fossil fuel development and large-scale infrastructure projects in forest areas.

Read more here.

Image from The Nature Conservancy

Since today is Earth Day, I thought I would share some Earth Day tips with you. I’ve included some of the things I do to be more eco-friendly and some things that I am striving to implement. This is by no means a comprehensive list, there are plenty of other ways that you can reduce your impact on the planet and many others that may fit your lifestyle better. I’m also including lots of links and resources, so you can find out more about how can do more to become more Earth friendly. Every little bit does count!

My list of 22 things you can do to reduce your impact on the Earth.

1. Use cloth towels and napkins instead of paper ones.
2. Take a ‘Navy Shower’, which basically means turning of the water when you are soaping up.
3. Use Craig’s List, freecycle, swaptree, peerflix, bookins, half.com and others to get rid of stuff you don’t want anymore. Of course, you can always donate it to local charity shops as well.
4. Cut your grass less, use an electric mower or plant clover or another good ground cover that does not need to be mowed.
5. Use reusable shopping bags instead of paper or plastic as much as you can.
6. Hang your clothes out to dry on a clothesline or drying rack instead of using the dryer all the time.
7. Combine errands, so you don’t make as little trips in the car.
8. Reuse plastic and glass containers to store your leftovers in instead of buying those disposable containers. You have to wash them out to recycle them anyhow. Use any paper bags or newspapers you collect as wrapping paper. Cup up any 8 ½ x 11 scrap paper you collect into quarters and use padding cement to make your own notepads.
9. Buy local food and produce.
10. Eat less meat or become a vegetarian.
11. Have a home energy audit.
12. Replace your lightbulbs with compact fluorescent bulbs and turn the lights off when you leave a room for any length of time.
13. Reuse shipping and packaging materials. I reuse as much as I can in the Indie Fixx Shop.
14. Buy goods that are made from recycled material.
15. Fly less.
16. Use the library instead of buying all your books, magazines and dvds.
17. Share magazine subscriptions with friends and/or donate your magazines to the library, doctors’ offices or senior centers.
18. Plant native species in your yard and replace and avoid planting invasive species.
19. Try to make your workplace more environmentally friendly by organizing office recycling, affecting purchasing decisions, encouraging less waste and more.
20. Recycle used electronic equipment responsibly.
21. Eat out less.
22. Walk more, drive less! It’s good for you and the Earth.

Please feel free to share some of the eco-responsible things you do in your life.

Here’s a list of resources to learn more:

National Audubon Society
Environmental Defense Fund
Friends of the Earth
The Nature Conservancy
Natural Resources Defense Council
Sierra Club
National Wildlife Federation
Rainforest Action Network
American Wind Energy Association
Worldwatch Institute
World Wildlife Fund
Earthday.gov
Carbon Footprint Calculator
Conservation International
EPA
National Recycling Coalition

Earth Day coverage from some of my must read blogs:

Etsy Storque
Treehugger
Craftzine
Apartment Therapy
Crafting a Green World

Each month I donate a portion of the proceeds from Indie Fixx and the Indie Fixx Shop to a different charitable organization. The organizations I choose vary from those that provide humanitarian support, focus on the arts, provide for environmental stewardship, are concerned with animal welfare and other issues and causes that are near and dear to me.

This month, Mr. Indie Fixx wanted to get in on the action and he chose the organization One Laptop Per Child. The mission of One Laptop per Child is to provide children in the developing world with new opportunities to learn, experiment and express themselves. It is at its core an educational project with the goal of empowering children with the greatest educational lesson…the ability to learn how to learn. To reach that goal, a powerful, durable and fun $100 laptop was developed by the MIT Media Lab. A long-time project in the making the mass production of the $100 laptops finally began in November 2007. You can read more about One Laptop per Child here, here and here.

Giving Back: read more about the other organizations that I have donated to.

When I started my monthly Giving Back feature, I put a call out for indie shops and designers who donated their time and/or money to charitable organizations. I was totally inundated with emails and was just blown away by how charitable people are and by the variety of organizations and projects that you all are involved with. A good many people wrote me about organizations they are involved with or have founded and I wanted to share a few of those organizations with you.

Nest

Nest is a non-profit organization founded by Rebecca Kousky that provides micro-loans to women in developing countries to help them build and develop sustainable arts and crafts businesses. The money to provide these loans comes from the sale of clothing, accessories and homewares, which are produced exclusively for Nest by a group of artists and designers. Carrie Sommers of Sommer Designs in one of the participating designers and Carrie produces one or two hostess apron designs that are excessively sold at Nest each season. Alena Hennessey is another artist involved with Nest, her Mimi Bird print is pictured above. You can read more about Nest and their mission here.

Crafters for Critters

Started in 2004 by Melissa Dettloff, formerly of Lekkner and now of Severed Unicorn Heads, the goal of Crafters for Critters is to simultaneously support independent design and to raise money for animal rescue organizations. Indie crafters, designers and artists donate their goods to Crafters for Critters and 100% of the profits from the sale of those donated goods are donated to a variety of animal rescue groups. In the past, funds have been donated to the Greyhound Protection League, Great Lakes Rabbit Sanctuary, Compassion without Borders and more. A little over $17,500 has been raised over the last four years!

Softies for Mirabel & We Heart Mirabel

Looking to raise money and awareness for the Mirabel Foundation, an Australian foundation that works to assist children who have been orphaned or abandoned due to parental illicit drug use, Pip Lincolne of Meet Me at Mike’s organized Softies for Mirabel. Crafters donated stuffed toys, which were presented to the Mirabel Foundation and donated to the children of the group. This year, Pip started the We Heart Mirabel campaign and encouraged crafters to donate a stuffed heart to be sold at Meet me At Mike’s for $10 apiece. So far, $400 has been raised for the Mirabel Foundation and you can see some of the hearts displayed in the Meet Me at Mike’s window. If you live in Fitzroy, Australia, go buy one!

As some of you may have noticed, there’s a new link listed under the contests section, Giving Back. I’ve always been a person who has donated time and money to causes I find worthy. I think if one is fortunate enough to have a comfortable and secure life then we have a duty to share with those who are less fortunate and in need. I also think that there are causes of the utmost importance that I want to help support and promote.

Until this point, I’ve not really shared my charitable giving, choosing to keep that info mostly to myself, but I’ve decided to use the platform that I have here at Indie Fixx to help promote and publicize those organizations that I find worthwhile and those to which I personally donate.

To that end, each month I will be donating a portion of the proceeds from Indie Fixx and the Indie Fixx Shop to a different charitable organization. The organizations I choose will provide humanitarian support, focus on the arts, provide for environmental stewardship, be concerned with animal welfare and other issues and causes that are near and dear to me.

Each month, I will share here and at the Indie Fixx Shop the organization that I have chosen to highlight. I hope this new feature will help those who are able to get involved either with donating time, money or goods to a cause(s) that you find important. I also hope to help you discover new and worthy causes and organizations you may not have heard of.

2008 Giving Back Recipients
January

Kiva - Provides micro-loans to individuals in developing countries. You can lend money to specific individuals and choose to reinvest your donation when it is repaid. I’ve donated several times in the past and have even reinvested my original donation.

February

Playpumps International- Their aim is to provide a source of clean drinking water in Africa where a major source of illness is contaminated drinking water. They have an ingenious approach to this problem-merry-go-rounds! Installed near schools, the PlayPump system doubles as a water pump and a merry-go-round for children. Inexpensive and easy to install, over 950 have been installed in South Africa, Swaziland, Mozambique, and Zambia.