Teodoro Costa, for his fifth birthday party in 2017, had an odd request for his friends and family: He didn’t want any presents. Instead, he asked them to donate money to a “gift fund”, with half the amount going to a cause he felt especially passionate about.
That year, he donated $600 to the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. For his sixth birthday this year in 2018, he made another donation with the same amount to the Animal Concerns Research and Education Society (ACRES).
The six-year-old, who is passionate about animals and the environment, hopes that his birthday “cash” will go towards helping animals “not (become) extinct“.
Turning a celebration into an opportunity to help others is the idea behind social enterprise Gift-It-Forward, the brainchild of Ms Theresa Karling Evanoff, 42.
The Canadian national, a mother of three children aged three, five and six, had the idea to start the platform after going to one too many birthday parties.
“As a mum of three young kids, we go to a lot of birthday parties. But I saw that gifting – especially for kids – can be very wasteful,” she said.
So she came up with the idea of Gift-It-Forward – a platform that could balance both.
Here’s how the platform works: Instead of getting guests to take individual gifts to a party, they’re asked to contribute to a “gift fund”. Gift-It-Forward pools the contributions, and sends a portion – between 50% and 100% – to a charity of the user’s choice. If there is any balance, it’s returned to the user.
Depending on the charity, the platform may also arrange study trips for the users. One child, for example, chose ACRES as a beneficiary for his birthday. The platform also helped to arrange a tour of ACRES for him and his class.
Since its official launch in 2016, Gift-It-Forward has collected over $70,000, with more than half the amount donated to charities.
While it’s most frequently used for children’s birthday parties, Ms Evanoff said other occasions such as weddings and baby showers were also opportunities to raise funds.
Nevertheless, parents remain the most staunch supporters of the platform, with many praising its convenience and educational value.
While she is glad of what her platform has accomplished, Ms Evanoff said she is proudest of how this experience has affected her children.
“Personally, that’s my biggest achievement – that they now believe that birthdays are not just about them.”
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Source: The Straits Times, 30 May 2018