Charitology
Tool · For donors

Gift Giving

Make a card for a donation given in someone’s name, with what the gift does, a personal message and the reasons you chose it. No amount required.

Live

Make a gift card

Your draft is kept only in this browser.
In plain words, for example: “Keeps a family housed for a month while they get back on their feet.”
Why this gift (optional, up to 3)

Each reason comes from a question in the Giver’s Checklist and becomes one short sentence on the card.

Style
Charitology

What it does

Why this gift

    Give through the charity first; the card doesn’t make the donation. Want to keep track of it? Log it in the Giving Dashboard.

    How it works

    Fill in who the gift is for, who it is from, the charity, what the gift does and a personal message. Then tick up to three reasons you chose it. Each reason comes from a question in the Giver’s Checklist and becomes one short sentence on the card. Pick a style, Classic, Modern or Seal, and either download the card as an image or print it. Printing shows the card alone. Your draft is kept in this browser, so you can come back and finish it.

    What the card says, and what it leaves out

    The card leads with what the gift does. There is no amount field. Charitology’s working hypothesis, the Prestige Economy, is that status in giving follows a gift’s size and visibility more than what it achieved. A card about what a gift does, and why it was chosen, points the admiration at the result.

    The reasons work the same way. “It goes where few other dollars go” or “It answers the size of a need, not just the loudest story” turns a private choice into something the person receiving the card can see. Giving tends to follow faces and stories more than the size of the need, which Charitology calls the Story Bias. A card that names the reasons is a small way to show another basis for choosing.

    What it isn’t

    It isn’t a receipt, and it doesn’t make the donation. Give through the charity first, then make the card. The reasons are yours to choose: the card doesn’t check whether a charity meets them. Nothing you type is sent anywhere.