UEnd Blog

I’ve never kept a New Year’s resolution for the entire year. There, I said. They usually last the first two weeks of January. I make a “commitment” to run every day. I “promise” I will finally master that song on the guitar. But I don’t. Feel the same? Still bummed about those 10 pounds you didn’t lose? Or the trip you didn’t take?

Let’s make a different choice for 2012.

This holiday season we introduced the idea of gifting differently. We provided the ability to give the gift of giving through a UEnd gift card. Did you pick one up?

My family got them in their stocking stuffers! Family members who had never heard of UEnd were thrilled to hop on the ol’ internet and check out the website! It was my favourite gift I gave this year.

So with that warm, gooey feeling that made my heart grow three sizes this holiday, my resolution (a manageable one!) is to keep that feeling alive. Why does giving have to end there? We North Americans love our holidays, birthdays, weddings and so forth. So let’s keep gifting different year round!

And why do we have to treat other people? Buy yourself the gift of giving.  Sign up for U:Powered or give directly to a project of your choosing. 

Let’s not pick resolutions that will bring us down. Let’s pick ourselves up and end poverty while we’re at it.

With only 4 days left in 2010 it is time to think of your New Year’s Resolutions. Now…one can joke that a resolution is a bit like a Miss America pageant question. You know that one where they ask what the contestant wants more than any else in the world… with world peace being the pat answer.

Now you might think that an end to extreme poverty is along these same lines- a dream for those that have not thought the answer all the way through. However if you are reading this then you might be thinking otherwise.

If we know that North Americans spend 1 trillion dollars on Christmas each year (using 2008 numbers). And we know that the World Bank says we need 50 billion over 15 years. WB says that if these funds are spent wisely the extreme poverty rates would be cut by half. Now do a bit o’ math dividing the Christmas spending by the World Bank number and it works out to about 5% of the annual gift spending of North Americans. Knowing this detail, it can now be argued that we have the means by which we can end extreme poverty.

It is no longer just a dream, it is possible. But to make it happen, we need your help. UEnd: Poverty asks you to consider making one of your 2011 resolutions a commitment to help end poverty? It doesn’t require you to go to any gyms or campaign on behalf of a cause, in fact it requires very little change in behaviour beyond a commitment to gifting different. If you would buy at least one gift of a $20 value in 2011 that goes towards ending poverty and you ask your friends to consider it for themselves (or you buy them a small gift to show them how) we can in fact start changing the world.

That’s not so hard is it?

Help us, help you change the world by resolving to gift different!