The answer to that question depends on your goals. Do you want to:

1. Raise money for an existing charity.
2. Start your own organization.

If you want to raise money for an existing charitable organization, you do not need your own 501c3. If you just want to encourage your readers to donate to a specific charity, it’s easy to link to the charities website or to provide donation information. If you’d like to get more involved, contact the charity and ask if you can volunteer or organize a fundraiser on its behalf.

If you want to start your own organization, determine if the organization will have fundraising needs. If you want to ask others to donate or apply for most grants, you will need either a 501c3 status for your organization or a fiscal sponsor.

If your organization/cause  has no expenses (for example: it consists of you organizing a monthly blog carnival or regular Twitter discussion using a specific hashtag), you may not need either a 501c3 status or a fiscal sponsor.

You might be wondering what a “fiscal sponsor” is.  A fiscal sponsor is a 501c3 that lends their legal status to your project. Obtaining and maintaining a 501c3 status is a lot of work. It requires a board and often an accountant, and it can be expensive to get started.

If you have a great idea but lack the funds to pay start-up costs, a “fiscal sponsor” may be the best option. There are different kinds of fiscal sponsorship: “projects” and separate entities. If you are incorporated/registered, you could qualify as a separate entity. Otherwise, a “project” may be a good option for you. You will want to define a formal agreement with your fiscal sponsor regardless. To learn more about “fiscal sponsorship,” check out the Fiscal Sponsorship Directory.

When our co-founder Debbie Bookstaber returned from her role as Cause Marketing panelist at BlogHer 2011, she had the non-profit Share Our Strength on the brain. This non-profit was a donor recipient of session sponsor Jimmy Dean Sausage.

Not long after returning home, Debbie started working with Little Miss Muffin, a company who ran television ads www.mylittlemissmuffin.com about their “muffin”dolls which made her think of all the kids who are hungry and need food (and would surely enjoy a muffin!)

After suggesting the connection, manufacturer Jay at Play International decided to support Share Our Strength’s Great American Bake Sale® by donating 1% (up to $75,000) of all Little Miss Muffin Pop N Flip™ dolls sold in 2012.  Thank you, Jay at Play!

“Jay at Play wanted to give back to the millions of children who already love the brand Little Miss Muffin, so we decided to share our success with Share Our Strength’s Great American Bake Sale,” said Joseph Sutton, Jay at Play managing director. “We are truly honored to show our support and help with the Great American Bake Sale’s mission.”

Share Our Strength’s Great American Bake Sale^®, presented by Domino^® Sugar and C&H^® Sugar, and Duncan Hines^®, is a national effort that encourages Americans to host bake sales in their communities to support the No Kid Hungry^® Campaign, Share Our Strength’s^® national effort to end childhood hunger in America by 2015. Since 2003, more than 1.7 million people have participated in Great American Bake Sale, raising more than $6 million to make sure there is no kid hungry in America. Great American Bake Sale is supported by official bakeware partner Chicago Metallic, national television partner Food Network, national magazine partner Family Circle, and official baking ingredient partner Solo. Visit GreatAmericanBakeSale.org.

Little Miss Muffin arrives to you peeking out of her magical muffin cup. Pop her muffin top, flip the muffin cup inside out, and Little Miss Muffin becomes a soft adorable doll. With sweet expressive faces and bright smiles, there are ten Little Miss Muffin Dolls each with their own flavor to delight kids of all ages. They are available this holiday season exclusively at Toys”R”Us stores and ToysRus.com.

Shop and GIVE! It’s a win-win!

During the event, P&G Chairman of the Board, President and CEO Bob McDonald shared three aggressive commitments that flow from P&G’s Purpose-inspired Growth Strategy of touching and improving more lives, in more parts of the world, more completely:

• Pampers: P&G’s Pampers and UNICEF are partnering in a new commitment to eliminate Maternal and Neonatal Tetanus (MNT) by 2015 through the 1 pack = 1 vaccine campaign.
• Tide Coldwater: P&G’s Tide Coldwater is working with the Alliance to Save Energy through Future Friendly to educate 100 million people over two years on the importance of cold water washing in order to save energy and therefore reduce CO2 emissions.
• P&G Children’s Safe Drinking Water Program: Inspired by the CGI Action Network on the Horn of Africa Crisis, the P&G Children’s Safe Drinking Water Program and our partners will provide more than 300 million liters of clean drinking water to 2 million people affected by the famine in East Africa, preventing 10 million days of illness.

P&G also took time at CGI to recognize the accomplishments of some of its key partners in global sustainability efforts, giving the following awards:

P&G Distinguished Sustainability Partner Awards:

• The Carrefour Group: For supporting Pampers and UNICEF 1 pack = 1 vaccine campaign in over 20 countries worldwide and helping to protect to date 6 million mums and their babies from Maternal and Neonatal Tetanus
• UNICEF Uganda: For being a strategic partner to Government of Uganda in eliminating Maternal and Neonatal Tetanus in the country with support from the Pampers 1 pack = 1 vaccine campaign

P&G Sustainability Partner Awards:

• Target: For providing more than 1 million days of clean drinking water through partnership on the June 2011 P&G brandSAVER
• National Geographic: For partnering with P&G Future Friendly to create consumer education programs that promote household and lifestyle conservation habits
• USAID: For providing clean drinking water to more than 2 million flood victims in Pakistan and to 1 million people living with HIV/AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa

Spokespersons Lisa Ling and Mandy Moore were also on hand to share their own experiences in their related P&G partnerships.

Did you know that early detection of breast cancer helps save thousands of lives every year? In fact, the five-year survival rate of a stage-one diagnosis is 98%. That’s why P&G and the National Breast Cancer Foundation (NBCF) are teaming up for their fourth year of GIVE Hope – a program designed to increase awareness about the important of early detection, provide tools for women to create their own plans, and help all consumers get involved through simple actions and every day purchases.

We hope you’ll join P&G and spokesperson Lisa Ling to help “Do it for the Girls.”

What can you and your readers do to help? It’s simple!

1)     Raise awareness: Use the images and details on this blogger toolkit to create posts about the program and get your readers involved! There’s a special blogger badge you can use, too! http://media.synapticdigital.com/PG/GiveHope/

2)     Show your support: Visit GIVE Hope on Facebook and show your support for breast cancer awareness month by creating badge in honor of the fabulous women in your life! For each badge created, P&G donates an additional $.25 to NBCF (up to $10K). And, in early October, you (and your readers) will have the chance to win a spa day – so stay tuned!

3)     Save and give: Alert your readers to P&G brandSAVER coupons available in newspapers on October 2 and October 16 – for each coupon redeemed, P&G donates $.02 to NBCF to help provide mammograms to women in need.

On July 31, P&G will distribute its brandSAVER coupon booklet in newspapers across and country and for each coupon redeemed, P&G will donate $.02 to Communities In Schools, the nation’s leading dropout prevention organization. The donation is uncapped – so the more you save, the more you give.

We hope you’ll join P&G and John Legend in helping to “School the Nation” and keep more than 1 million kids in school. Here’s how you and your readers can help!

• Use the tools in this digital toolkit to create posts about the program and encourage your readers to get involved.

• Join GIVE Education at www.facebook.com/pgmygive for simple, shareable tools you can use to help the cause.

• One blogger who writes about GIVE Education by August 12, 2011 and includes the link to their post in the comments on this post or in our BlogFrog discussion board will be chosen at random by Bloganthropy.org to win an iPad 2! (Note: you must be 18 to enter. Open to US Residents only.)

Thanks for your support of programs that give back!

P&G sponsored the June 24 Bloganthropy Awards and the July Blogger of the Month to help support bloggers who are making strides for important causes. Bloganthropy would like to thank P&G for supporting Bloganthropy members by helping to spread the word about their cause efforts and how you can get involved. The Bloganthropy.org founders are not compensated by P&G for supporting GIVE Education, but P&G is providing the iPad 2 to the winner of this contest. We genuinely support the mission of P&G GIVE Education and hope you’ll participate.

Each month when the time for Bloganthropy Blogger of the Month submissions rolls

around, we are thrilled to read about the inspiring bloggers who are dedicated to making a difference using their social media platforms.

In March, we honored Sian To of Mummy Tips, an accidental activist from the British countryside. Sian attended the BlogHer conference in 2009 on a whim, and was there inspired to help found “the UK’s premier blogger conference,” CyberMummy, in January 2010. After speaking at the first CyberMummy conference, Sian was contacted by a representative from Save the Children, and was offered a position as a blogger for their recent Blogadesh campaign. Her work with Blogadesh has helped bring awareness of the issues related to the UN’s 2010 Millennium Development Goal Summit to over 75 million people worldwide. You can read about her bloganthropic journey here.

On June 24, we will be recognizing five AMAZING finalists at the 2011 Bloganthropy Awards at the Type-A Parent Conference. You can read about these inspiring women here. P&G GIVE EDUCATION is the 2011 Awards Sponsor, and they are generously giving prizes worth $5000 to the five finalists.

We want to recognize one blogger each month who has used his or her social media influence to make an outstanding volunteer or charitable contribution to her community.

Bloganthropy is built on the idea that we can use our social media influence to amplify the good we do. By calling upon the strength of your online network, you send your message viral, inspiring others to give.

For the month of July, we are partnering with P&G’s GIVE Education to honor another incredible Bloganthropy Blogger of the Month with an exceptional prize– $1,000 for your charity and an iPad2 for you.

In keeping with the P&G GIVE EDUCATION objective, our goal this month is to find candidates who are using social media to support education-related causes.

If you or someone you know uses blogging and social media for educational advocacy or charities, fill-out the Bloganthropy Blogger of the Month nomination form, right now!

The winning blogger will be announced here on Bloganthropy.org and may also be recognized by our sponsor and in press releases. We know you are a powerful voice, supporting and inspiring your community–let us know what you are doing to use your social media influence for good so we can help spread the word!

You may nominate yourself or another blogger. Read the “fine print” to find out more about eligibility and the nomination and selection process. Nominations for July’s Blogger of the Month will close July 15, 2011.

Cora's Photo Used With The Permission of Kristine Brite McCormick. (Please do not reprint this photo without obtaining Kristine's permission.)

Kristine Brite McCormick was a 2010 Bloganthropy Award Finalist and is a current member of the Bloganthropy Blogger Advisory Board. Please read this guest post by Kristine and support her efforts if you can by writing about this issue, contacting your state representatives and using your influence as a blogger to inspire others.

It’s a simple test. A fifth vital sign. Inexpensive. Quick. Non-invasive. Like taking a baby’s temperature.

It might have saved my daughter’s life.

But, we’ll never know because Cora wasn’t screened with pulse oximetry before leaving the hospitals. Hospitals don’t routinely use pulse oximetry on infants that appear healthy. And, Cora appeared healthy. She scored 9s on both her Apgar tests and was a beautiful baby.

One early morning I was feeding her and looked down after looking at my husband for just a moment. Cora was pale, limp and not breathing. Just like that, Cora was dead. Turns out she had an undetected congenital heart defect. I had never even heard of CHDs until the coroner told me. I later learned about
pulse oximetry.

I’m not a fan of interventions and interrupting important mother-baby bonding time. Pulse ox doesn’t do either. Pulse ox can be done while a mother holds the baby, and in fact is better when the baby is calm like in mom’s arms. Pulse ox can detect some of the most critical heart defects.

I wrote my State Senator and told him about Cora. After some emails back and forth, he authored a bill to make pulse oximetry standard in my home state, Indiana. The bill made it’s way out of committee and will be voted on by the full Senate in Indiana soon. I’m urging Hoosiers to help me. No mother should have gone through what I did. No mother should find out about her baby’s heart defect from the coroner. If you’re from Indiana, please consider writing your Senator. If you have friends and family from Indiana, please consider spreading this story along.

Pulse Oximetry Advocacy at the State Level

Sadly, what happened to Cora could happen to any of our children. CHD is sometimes genetic, but doesn’t run in my family. And, CHD occurs in any racial, socioeconomic  and geographical group across the nation.

Amazing efforts have taken place at the federal level thanks to so many groups, including 1in100.org, Saving Little Hearts, Mended Little Hearts, the Congenital Heart Information Network and Children’s National Hospital. In fact, recently the Secretary’s Advisory Committee on Heritable Diseases in Newborns and Children recommended to the Department of Healthy that pulse oximetry be added to the newborn panel. The Secretary of the Department of Health hasn’t answered that recommendation, but eventually this will be implemented.

I know this is a lot to take in at once, but if we stand together, so much can be accomplished. I’d love for other people to work on legislation in other states. Currently, bills are in the works in Indiana, New Jersey, Tennessee and Missouri.

You have the opportunity to take a stand for babies. Pulse oximetry doesn’t detect every CHD, but it’s a start. And 1 in 100 babies have a CHD. CHD is the most common birth defect.

Write your local representative and ask for him or her to author a bill mandating pulse oximetry screening. For reference, attach the following links:

Children’s National Pulse Oximetry Site

The text of the federal recommendation

Research studies:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17590190

http://www.medpagetoday.com/Pediatrics/GeneralPediatrics/12397

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2675337/

Pulse Oximetry Advocacy in Hospitals

If you work in a hospital or have contacts at a hospital, work on getting pulse oximetry screening for every newborn at that hospital. The screening should take place around 24 hours of life for the lowest false positive rates. The baby should also be calm. If the reading is under 95, repeating the test,  or ordering further tests like an echo-cardiogram are recommended. Several hospitals already screen newborns for congenital heart defects with pulse oximetry.

For information about protocols, visit the Children’s National Hospital pulse oximetry website.

More Information

I know I just threw a lot at you, but I also know that the Bloganthropy blogging community is full of some of the most compassionate, articulate and driven people I know. I hope that you’ll consider writing a hospital or an elected official about this.

A basic vital sign could have saved my daughter’s life. A test that costs about $1.

Should you have any questions or want more information, please don’t hesitate to email me directly, kbrite at gmail dot com. For more about pulse oximetry screening, visit Cora’s Story.

Each year, the United States and Canada salute our hospitalized veterans during the week leading up to Valentine’s Day.  We can all help boost the morale of our wounded veterans by making Valentines for Veterans and delivering them to our local VA Hospital.

We asked bloggers to volunteer to make Valentines for Veterans and earn a donation of clothing from Dollar Days for Sew Much Comfort.

I’ve been touring the bloggers who have already posted and am incredibly touched not only by their efforts but also by the comments from their readers–soldiers who are thankful for the support, amputees who recognize the importance of adaptive clothing, people familiar with Sew Much Comfort attesting to this organization’s amazing work, those who never knew about Sew Much Comfort but who want to help, and others who just want to salute our veterans. There’s even a funny discussion about whether or not to “macho” up the valentines for our rough and tumble veterans.

Please show support for the team of bloggers and help each earn an extra $50 for Sew Much Comfort (more will be added as posts come in):

• Fairly Odd Mother
• Life with my Special Ks
• The Ever Changing Life of a Military Wife
• Health, Beauty and Family
• Cora’s Story
• Army Wives Lives
• Mamanista
• Emily @ The Jar Group

You can help our veterans, too!  Here are some ideas of ways to help:

• You can make Valentines for Veterans, too! Locate your nearest VA hospital and call to make sure they can accept your Valentines.  Canada also salutes its vets during this week and has some tips on making Valentines for Vets. Share your project on your blog, facebook, or twitter feed to inspire others to do the same!
• Comment on the posts: Dollar Days will donate $50 retail value in clothing for each post, plus $50 more for each post that receives at least 10 comments.  The total donation will be well over $1000 worth of clothing.  So, please comment!
• Donate to Sew Much Comfort: Sew Much Comfort provides adaptive clothing free of charge to wounded veterans and is able to do so through generous donations and volunteer hours. Financial donations are always helpful and there is also a list of needed clothing and fabric.  Sew Much Comfort specifically would love to receive t-shirts, long sleeve t-shirt or sweat shirts with logos of local sports teams in any area of the United States (size large is most needed). The wounded soldiers love having sport themed clothing but it is hard to get unless you live in that state.
• Volunteer with Sew Much Comfort: Sew Much Comfort relies on its 1600+ volunteer seamstresses to make clothing for wounded soldiers–and they can always use another pair of hands. If you know your way around a sewing machine, find out more about volunteering here.

Photo Credits: US Air Force and Azalea W

Valentines for Veterans is a project to boost the morale of Veterans during National Salute to Hospitalized Veterans Week (February 7-13).

Sew Much Comfort provides adaptive clothing for wounded veterans, through the volunteer efforts of seamstresses and donations of clothing and fabric.

Dollar Days will sponsor a large clothing donation to Sew Much Comfort in honor of the National Salute to Hospitalized Veterans Week.  Dollar Days will donate $50 retail value in clothing for every post that is officially part of the project, plus, to encourage your community to talk about the cause, $50 more for each post that receives at least 10 comments.

We are looking for bloggers who will:

1. Make and deliver at least 12 Valentines for your local Veterans’ Hospital.  You can do this with friends, as part of a playgroup, with a classroom, with a blogger meet-up or tweet-up–have fun with it!  Canada also salutes its veterans on Valentine’s Day and has some great tips for making Valentines for Veterans.
2. Blog about the project by February 8. You can explain your craft project, share photographs of making the Valentines, focus on the idea of helping hospitalized veterans, or let your readers know more about Sew Much Comfort.  Please remember to thank Dollar Days for their donation and explain the mission of Sew Much Comfort.

During Salute to Hospitalized Veterans Week, we will be sharing more about how people can volunteer with and donate to Sew Much Comfort and will link up to all of the wonderful bloggers who post on this project.

Please click here to fill out this form (by February 4) if you are interested in participating.  Feel free to share this information with your friends and community if you know of other bloggers who would like to get involved!

Photo Credit: US Government

We had the opportunity to work with Sesame Street Live “When Elmo Grows Up” to arrange giveaways on three blogs, plus provide 12 tickets to New York City-area children’s charities.

Madison Square Garden is no stranger to giving, either: The Garden of Dreams Foundation “makes dreams come true for kids in crisis”.

As soon as we have the charity choices, we will be sharing more information about these wonderful organizations and how you can help out with your local chapters.

Please head over to support these blogs and, if you are able to attend, enter the contests they are hosting for charity:

• 5 Minutes for Mom
• Real Moms Guide
• Mamanista