Fight gobbledygook with the Plain English Campaign

The Plain English Campaign has the fantastic-sounding aim of combating jargon and gobbledygook in public English. We've all seen examples of this, whether it's the word 'stakeholder' used 12 times in a 15-word sentence or legal language so impenetrable it should come with a pickax. Apart from being annoying, such language serves to exclude large groups of people and obscure meaning. At http://www.plainenglish.co.uk you can register as a supporter, check out guides for clearer writing, download the delightfully-named Drivel Defence software or play around with the Gobbledygook Generator. It's good fun.


Effort involved: there are plenty of options on the website, so enjoy yourself.




Image from: http://www.michbar.org/generalinfo/plainenglish/columns/legalese2.cfm

Sponsor a grandparent

If you want to sponsor someone in a developing country you'll never meet, your options aren't limited to wide-eyed children being cradled by Sally Field against a swelling string arrangement. Elderly people could use a bit of help as well, so through Age UK you "can sponsor a grandparent in one of the world's poorest countries for £15 a month". Interested? Then nose on over to http://www.ageuk.org.uk/get-involved/sponsor-a-grandparent/.


Effort involved: thanks to the magic of direct debit, not much.


Image from: http://punchumgum.wordpress.com/2011/10/05/while-sarah-palin-thought-about-it-229-less-frightened-people-have-filed-for-president/

Help publicize a great website

The submission script, whatever that is, at http://www.submitexpress.com/free-submission.html will submit a given URL to search engines at no cost. Why? Possibly as a roundabout way of earning business for its other search engine optimization services. But you can use the free service to help spread the word about a fantastic site, such as, say, http://ridiculouslyinteresting.wordpress.com/. You can submit a charity website too, if you're feeling extra virtuous.


Effort involved: copying and pasting a URL. I suspect you may be able to manage that.


Image from: http://ridiculouslyinteresting.wordpress.com/2012/01/05/hidden-mothers-in-victorian-portraits/

Donate to the Scholar Rescue Fund

The Scholar Rescue Fund provides fellowships for established scholars whose lives and work are threatened in their home countries. These fellowships permit professors, researchers and other senior academics to find temporary refuge at universities and colleges anywhere in the world, enabling them to pursue their academic work and to continue to share their knowledge with students, colleagues, and the community at large. During the fellowship, conditions in a scholar’s home country may improve, permitting safe return to help rebuild universities and societies ravaged by fear, conflict and repression. If safe return is not possible, the scholar may use the fellowship period to identify a longer-term opportunity.

If you made it through all that, well done. If you've been inspired to contribute to one of these fellowships, even better.

Effort involved: reading the italicized paragraph was half the battle. The other half is transferring money over the Internet, and I suspect you're familiar with that.

Image from: http://disney.wikia.com/wiki/Teacher's_Pet

Provide items needed by trafficking victims

The Polaris Project is an anti-trafficking organization based in the US. It lists items currently needed by the people it assists at http://www.polarisproject.org/what-we-do/client-services/client-needs-list. These are things like clothes, gift cards and children's bits and bobs. It's likely that you have some of these goods already in your home. Sadly, they probably won't ever need any cans of smooth, ambiguously named marsupials, but you never know.


Effort involved: digging through your closets to see if anything would be useful and shipping what you find off to Washington, D.C.


Image from: http://realhoboscrotum.wordpress.com/2011/11/04/yummy/ 

Be a friend to bees

It's well-established that bee populations are increasingly in trouble, which puts humans' food supplies at risk. So there are ecological, conservationist and just plain selfish reasons to lend bees a helping hand. Here's a list of ways to do so:


- Avoid insecticides
- Plant bee-approved flowers
- Set out 30:70 sugar:water mixtures if appropriate
- Keep bees yourself
- Advocate politically for more bee-friendly policies


More ideas and details can be found here and there.


Effort involved: there's a range here, so it's up to you how involved you want to be.


Image from: http://greenhorz.info/bee-coloring-pages-2.html

Thank a UN peacekeeper

Yes, peacekeepers have been embroiled in scandal before - sometimes horrific ones. But if you consider the profession a noble one, given the many hardships involved, consider thanking them using this form. It's easy enough to do, as most of the fields have already been filled out for you.


Effort involved: simply completing a few fields, or writing a customized message in addition if you're feeling wordsmithy.



Image from: http://www.rottmair.de/2011/04/14/experimental-farming-in-drc/

Start a karma jar

This is inspired by http://5050.gd/projects/the-karma-equalizer. The idea is simple: we all mess up. No matter how strenuously we try to avoid exploiting, hurting or screwing over others, some exploiting/hurting/screwing over is inevitable. One way to make such mess-ups productive and less guilt-inducing is by setting aside a jar whose contents will go to charity. Every time you do something slightly evil, put some money in the jar. Done something really bad? Throw in some bills instead of coins. Who says feelings can't be monetized?


Effort involved: most of the effort is just remembering to add money following a screw-up. Watching money disappear from your wallet into this jar could be a good incentive to reduce these screw-ups. But since the money will be going to a good cause anyway, it's a win-win. Be a jerk, give money away/be a nicebody, keep your cash.

Image from: http://www.happyplace.com/10430/the-most-enjoyably-cantankerous-notes-ever-posted-in-the-workplace

Provide a solar light bulb to a Haitian family

At http://www.powertheworld.org/index/, all it takes to donate a solar powered light bulb to a Haitian family without electricity is US$10. $10! You may be able to find that just by rummaging through the sofa or your pockets.


Effort involved: rummaging + pulling out your credit card or simply pulling out your credit card.

Image from: http://philpin.com/humour/2011/07/a-list-of-light-bulb-jokes/

Ask a travel company if it's signed up to The Code

"The Code" in question is not some esoteric archaeological relic, but The Code for the Protection of Children from Sexual Exploitation in Travel and Tourism. This may not always be relevant, but it's especially important if you're traveling to a place where child sex exploitation is rampant to ensure that you're not indirectly supporting the practice. Even though The Code... doesn't appear to have an enforcement mechanism, putting pressure on companies to sign up to it promotes awareness of consumer concerns. You can find more details about this UNICEF-funded initiative at www.thecode.org.   


Effort involved: posing a question. You don't even have to do it in writing.


Image from: http://betterbooktitles.com/post/893925922/davincicode

Help spread information about Alzheimer's

The low-effort route involves passing around this handy slideshow prepared by the Alzheimer's Association: http://www.actionalz.org/inside_the_brain.asp. The slightly more formalized route involves becoming a member of the Alzheimer's Association Early Detection Alliance. Details can be found at http://www.alz.org/aeda/aeda.asp. Becoming an alliance member may or may not include a cool superhero outfit.


Effort involved: hey, you've got two options here.

Image from: http://www.babypop.com/blog

Participate in the New Underground Railroad

The New Underground Railroad is not a nu-folk band but a community of activists and organizations around the world devoted to ending modern-day slavery. All sorts of people and groups can join the network or learn more about the members. And, of course, they can be part of something that just sounds really cool.


Effort involved: simply browsing the map won't cost too much in the way of energy expended. Becoming an active member of the network is a different story.


Image from: http://goldenstate.wordpress.com/2008/03/08/the-constitution-dead-or-alive-part-ii/

Post a recipe for ChildLine

ChildLine is a free helpline for children in trouble. At http://www.spar.co.uk/FoodAndDrink/Recipes/SubmityourRecipe/, uploading a recipe and photo of a beloved childhood dish will result in a £4 donation to ChildLine - £4 being the cost of answering each child's call. Plus, you get to revisit some food you love, so everyone wins.


Effort involved: taking a photo of your food and writing down the recipe. You can make this multitask for you and email the recipe to some buddies as well - perhaps a nostalgic group dinner is in the cards?

Image from: http://realhoboscrotum.wordpress.com/2011/11/05/deeeelish/

Ensure that your Itunes purchases benefit UNICEF

If you're going to be buying books, music, apps, movies or TV shows using Itunes anyway, part of your purchase may as well support the work of the United Nations Children's Fund. www.buytunes.org makes this possible. Only 4% of each purchase goes toward the donation, but 4% is still, well, 4 percentage points better than 0. Use this impeccable math to your advantage!



Effort involved: simply using the buyTunes portal. Put the website on your bookmark bar, leave a sticky note with the URL - whatever it takes to remember to use the site.


Image from: http://combatblog.net/?p=146

Design a virtual T-shirt and win a trip to London

Well, this is an odd one. The UN Environment Programme is running a...well, I'll just let the webpage say it: "Create your own T-shirt and win a trip to London to meet Vivienne Westwood and get a tour of her 'attic of creativity'!" No, I don't know what that is, but the 'creativity' part makes the 'attic' bit seem slightly less spooky, maybe. Another oddity is that no contest deadline is given. Presumably entries will be accepted until one comes along that's so impressive blows the monogrammed socks right off the UNEP execs. 


Effort involved: microscopic in comparison with the work to create an actual T-shirt. This online T-shirt is only a matter of clicking away to select colors and patterns.

Learn about the Guide to Giving's priority areas

The number of charitable causes clamoring your attention can be overwhelming. But rather than curling into the intellectual equivalent of the fetal position and deciding that it's better not to give money at all than to risk giving it inefficiently, you could take a look at this Guide to Giving. It comes from the Copenhagen Consensus Center, which assembles economists to conduct research into priority areas for international development investment. These are areas where investment and intervention have been proven to be cost-effective and impactful. Helpfully, the report also provides practical information on donating in the areas mentioned.


If you're lucky enough to have money to donate (and if you're reading this blog it's likely you are among the lucky), it makes sense to be as thoughtful a donor as possible. After all, this is money you could be blowing on exotic pets or obscure collections; if you're going to spend it on something else, it may as well be in a high bang: buck ratio situation.

Image from: http://www.onegreenplanet.org/animalsandnature/protecting-the-adorable-pint-sized-philippine-tarsier/

Pledge to give non-bought gifts

The endless cycle of gift-buying is generally bad for the environment, as well as for your bank account. It can also be mentally taxing; I mean, what can you possibly give a 95-year-old woman that she hasn't seen in various iterations dozens of times before? You might end up buying something you suspect she'll neither want nor need, just for the sake of buying something. Well, if it's the thought that counts, put it to the test. Ask your loved ones if they'll agree to stop exchanging purchased gifts for the next holiday or the next year. This should result in an upswing in homemade gifts/gift experiences (cookies, drawings, sweaters for pets, free babysitting, a get-out-of-jail-free card for an argument, etc.). It should also result in a downswing in waste, stress and unnecessary parting with money.

Effort involved: well, you don't have the leave the house to enter a store. For those wiseacres who immediately think of online shopping - well, you don't have to dig out your credit card.


Image from: http://vegansaurus.com/.

Surprise someone with a massage

I shouldn't have to say this, but make it someone you know! Non-creepiness is always good.


Effort involved: certainly no more than an hour. Hopefully a little more than it took to write this post.


Image from: http://www.back-in-action.co.uk/Pages/Massage.htm

Create a water-themed ad to win €5,000

#1: Are you European? If yes, proceed to #2. If not, console yourself with the thought that your currency is probably less likely than the euro to implode at any second.


#2: Do you have the design skills to create an ad? If yes, proceed to #3. If not- seriously, it's not that hard. Take a pretty picture, draw a simple something, play around in Paint, whatever. You can do this.


#3: Can you create an ad promoting awareness of water conservation for the UN's Drop by Drop campaign, using the logo provided on its website and respecting the deadline of February 29, 2012? If yes, visit http://www.dropbydrop.eu/en/. If not, see the second part of #2.


Effort involved: depends on you, really. But if you spend 2 hours and 14 minutes making the ad and end up winning, your hourly rate will have been €2,238.81. Not too shabby.


Image from: http://www.britishbattles.com/egypt-1882/tel-el-kebir-1882.htm

Copy an Earth Day pledge

Take a look at the pro-environment actions people have pledged on http://act.earthday.org/, and adopt one of these ideas yourself. Or you could go the extra mile and post an original pledge yourself, hopefully inspiring someone to steal your brainwave. This is one case where theft of ideas is a good thing. 

Effort involved: there's a big range here, from "Bye bye lunch bag, hello lunch box" to "Green my vote" to "Help turn my school into an eco school" to...well, we could do this all day, but all good blog posts must eventually come to an end.



Image from: http://devosdevine.com/2011/05/plagiarism-or-copyright-infringement/

Watch and discuss an IRIN movie

IRIN is a Nairobi-based humanitarian news source. This page lists IRIN's most-watched short films of 2011. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the topics range from hugely depressing to marginally less depressing, but the films are interesting for opening a window into little-known areas. One of the movies, for instance, centers on a 70-year-old transgender Cambodian who's been a sex worker since the age of 14. Watching and sharing these movies are easy ways to become more informed and spread information about international aid issues. It's also free entertainment, if you want to look at it that way.



Effort involved: equivalent on average to roughly 4 YouTube videos in terms of length and mental effort, I'd very unscientifically say.


Image from: http://www.zazzle.co.uk/watch_me_tshirt-235737526662260965

Support an artistic project with Kickstarter

Kickstarter is one of those brilliant ideas you wish you'd had, but aren't too envious about because you're just glad it exists at all. It connects creators of movies, books, music, public art and other endeavors with people who want to throw money at them, to make sure that these proje cts actually get made. Funders get rewarded in various ways, such as through credit or copies of the finished works. There's also, of course, the satisfaction of knowing that instead of just complaining about the preponderance of crap in movie theaters, galleries, top 40 radio stations, etc., something concrete can be done to resist it. So kick away, by all means. 

Effort involved: roughly more than throwing coins into the hat of a street-performing mime, but there's also more choice and variety involved too.

Image from: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/manhattan/kicked_out_for_prank_8itjNST1uZYzxodQW3GwhM 

Ask "How are you" and really mean it

In some places - ahem, the UK - "How are you?" is similar to "Hi". The only acceptable answers are rote variations of  "Good", "Fine" and, if things are really bleak, "Ok". In fact, you're horrified and discomfited if anyone actually takes this question seriously, as doing so seems to break some unspoken yet obvious code of interpersonal interaction. What next, utter social anarchy? It's only a few small steps from this to people cutting ahead in line, peeing on toilet seats and eventually, of course, machine-gunning embryos and crafting clothes out of their gelatinous skins just because they can. It's possible, however, that some people might actually like to have serious conversations about how they're feeling. I can't verify this myself, but you may like to explore this possibility.


Effort involved: well, you'll have to brace yourself for a conversation. But it just may be a good one.

Image from: http://daily-songs.com/2011/10/07/how-are-you-by-david-byrne-fatboy-slim-feat-nellie-mckay/

Download music for a charity

Fairshare Music is a music download site. So far, so typical. What makes this site different is that it donates half of the profit from each downloaded song to the charity of your choice. The charities you can choose from include Amnesty International, Marie Curie Cancer Care and World Wildlife Federation - all heavy-hitters in the nonprofit world with good reputations. Thus, even if you're downloading, say, the definitive worst song ever created, you don't have to feel TOO guilty about it.

Effort involved: well, you can never have too much music.


Image from: http://cdn.idolator.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/my-humps.jpg

Rent instead of buying

There appears to be a slight similarity between the title of this post and http://rentnotbuy.com/. But at least I added a preposition. And whatever part of speech 'instead' is. The aim of this site, as well as the many other local ones that adopt the same principle, is to unite people who own stuff with other people who want to use that stuff, but temporarily - such as if you're, say, in need of a life jacket for just one day of watersports. It's a means of saving money (of the borrowers), making money (of the lenders) and reducing consumption and waste overall. 

Effort involved: no more than the effort to buy or sell, probably. Plus you get to declutter your home a bit. This may just be the best idea since life jackets for dogs.


Image from: http://www.ooh.com/blog/tag/dog-surfing/

Enter the Rio+20 Global Youth Music Contest

Here's another long-winded UN name for you: United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development (Rio+20 Earth Summit). Yes, it may be difficult to craft a song whose lyrics include all that, but luckily you don't have to. All you need to do is create a song with a sustainable development theme, and if you're the winner you'll be able to attend the conference in June 2012. The conference, by the way, is in Brazil. So you'd best start plumbing your brain for words that rhyme with things like 'equity', 'biodiversity' and 'sustainability'. (Not really, but you may have noticed that, handily, 'city' rhymes with all those things if you have an unconventional singing style.) You have until February 15 to submit your masterpiece and more information is available at http://www.glocha.info/.

Effort involved: have you listened to radio lately? I'm sure you could do better than plenty of these people.

Buy loose produce wherever you can

Packaged fruits and vegetables aren't actually convenient, as it's no more difficult to plop some pears into a bag yourself than to buy them already plastic-wrapped. Plus, you can reuse little produce bags. Plus plus, buying loose produce allows you to choose the best-quality items. Plus plus plus, it will save you money in almost every case. There seems to be an impression that pre-packaged produce is cleaner or more reliable, but this isn't actually the case. Adding unnecessary packaging to a product is simply another way to add the appearance of value and thus separate consumers from even more of their money, while contributing to packaging waste.


Effort involved: just bringing small bags along when you buy produce. (Did you see all the +es above?)


Image from: http://deadmonkeycomics.com/blog/2007/03/important-cereals-of-the-80s/

Play online poker for International Medical Corps

Yeah, I don't see the connection either. But if 'play poker to raise funds for an international humanitarian organization's work in Lebanon' is at the top of your list of resolutions for this year, you can visit
http://www.quanto.com/AllinforLebanon.php to cross that one off.


Effort involved: anteing up, choosing cards, etc.


Image from: http://pixelbunny.deviantart.com/art/Cartoon-Dog-Poker-132423839

Click for autism therapy

This is another of those strange Internet-magic sites where simply clicking causes website sponsors to donate money to a certain cause. The cause in question is therapy for autistic children, but this site also engineers donations toward literacy, rainforest conservation, child health, veteran support, animal care, mammograms, and anti-hunger initiatives. And seriously, all you have to do is click. Repetitive strain injury, here you come!


Effort involved: well, you don't even need both hands.

Image from: http://www.fotothing.com/MrSelfDestruct/photo/64b312c085584f3db53cd02d55ee5da6/

Use a charity credit card

Charity credit cards only make sense for you and for the charity if you're a credit card user who might forget or neglect to donate to charity when not using your card. A summary of some of the issues can be found here. But if these cards make financial sense in your case, it's a useful way of supporting a charitable cause without even having to think about it - although not "even having to think about it" might be a slightly dangerous thing when it comes to credit cards...


Effort involved: Step 1) do a search for "charity credit cards" or "affinity cards" in your country. Step 2) sign up. Step 3) spend. Step 4) there is no step 4! You're done!


Image from: http://hellokittycreditcard.net/black-credit-card

Send a care package

Care packages are fun to put together. And apart from the postage, they don't need to involve any expense; you can simply throw things lying around your home into a box, and still be assured of a smile on the receiving end. Care packages tend to be the most effective when they involve items that the recipient loves but can't easily find wherever he/she is, such as, er, tortillas in a small Cambodian town...


Effort involved: honestly, standing in line at the post office might be the most annoying part of this procedure.