Winter has come and that means one thing - the holiday season is soon to follow.
You can always buy the traditional gifts like a scarf for your favorite Aunt or a sweater for your brother, but why not do something different this year and buy a gift that also supports a good cause - a gift that also gives something back.
Whether you celebrate Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Boxing Day, or Festivus, these great holiday gifts and charities will be a hit with your friends and family.
1. Hand in Hand Scented Bar Soap
For every all-natural, lightly fragranced soap sold, Hand in Hand will give a bar to children in need and support clean water efforts. The company started its buy a bar give a bar program in 2011 working with My Neighbor's Children. 100 percent of donations go to the children of Haiti.
Cost: $6
2. Little Future World Changer T-Shirts from Sudara
Sudara is a clothing brand that provides training and living wage employment to women in India who have escaped from or are at very high risk of human trafficking in India. Sudara also started the Sudara Freedom Fund that women and children with education, housing, and micro-loans.
Cost: $29
3. Cookies from Cookies for Kids' Cancer
There are 10 irresistible gourmet cookie flavors. Every box ordered supports research at the nation's leading pediatric cancer centers. Your cookies will be baked fresh to order and delivered in a gift box with a note explaining the significance of your gift.
Cost: $29-$119
4. Hand-Made Dog Collar from Found My Animal
For the perfect gift for your fur baby, Found My Animal supports animal adoption and donates a portion of the profits from their colorful rope and leather collars, harnesses, and other pet accessories to animal rescue organizations around the US.
Cost: $20-$62
5. Personalized Paper Culture Memory Game
The customizable Paper Culture Memory Game is the perfect gift for a child and is great for the environment. The game is made from 100 percent post-consumer recycled paper and for every purchase, a tree is planted where reforestation is most needed for each purchase.
Cost: $25
6. Tasty Coffee from Grounds and Hounds Coffee
Buy the coffee lover in your life a pound of delicious organic fair trade specialty coffee and Ground & Hounds Coffee Co. will give 20 percent of the company's sales to help support animal rescue initiatives and organizations that provide a second chance for dogs in need.
Cost: $13.99-$50
7. Banned Books-Themed Apparel from Out of Print
Give your favorite bookworms a pair of Banned Books Socks or one of the many other really cool designs. For each pair sold, Out Of Print donates a book through Books for Africa to support literacy programs.
Cost: $12
8. Anchors Away Blu Bag Reusable Tote from RockFlowerPaper
RockFlowerPaper sells Blu Bag reusable shopping totes in a large variety of colors and patterns that will help your environmentally conscious friend or family to cut back on using plastic bags. Every Blu Bag Sale supports Ocean Conservancy.
Cost: $10
9. Watch Made From Repurposed Whiskey Barrels
A great gift for a man on your list is an Original Grain watch. As part of their Whiskey Collection, the brand has several models of 100 percent handcrafted wooden watches using repurposed wood from American Oak bourbon barrels, as well as sustainably sourced materials. Thanks to a partnership with Trees for the Future, a tree is planted in Senegal for each hardwood-and-stainless-steel watch sold.
Cost: $143 and up
10. Beautiful Scarves from Bloom & Give
Bloom & Give carries a line of handloomed scarves made of cotton or silk. The company provides a sustainable livelihood to almost 20,000 weavers. Everything is done by hand and does not require any electricity, so the products have a near zero eco footprint. Half of Bloom & Gives profits are used by the nonprofit Educate Girls to fund girls education projects in places where there are obstacles to education girls including 1000,000 girls in India.
Cost: $45-$160
11. Lula's Garden Jewel Garden
A succulent plant garden from Lula's Garden is a great gift for a family member, friend, or coworker. Each garden is hand-planted in Los Angeles using locally grown succulents. Every purchase from Lula's Garden supports Water.org and other groups that provide access to clean water.
Cost: $25-$125
12. One Hope's Vintner Collection California Sparkling Wine
Wine is always the perfect gift to bring to holiday parties or dinners. With One Hope you can give some holiday cheer and help support a great cause at the same time. One Hope has given over $3 million in donations that support global health care, forever homes for shelter animals, 1.8 million meals for children and much more. Every bottle you buy gives funds to a good cause.
Cost: $25
13. Love Your Melon Beanies
Knitwear company Love Your Melon has a line of beanies that will warm any head. It will also warm any heart because Love Your Melon is on a mission to give every child battling cancer in the US a knit beanie and has so far given over 156,000 of their hats to children around the country. 50 percent of net profit from the sale of all Love Your Melon products is given to the Love Your Melon Fund to support our nonprofit partners in the fight against pediatric cancer, create therapeutic experiences and fund charitable programming initiatives for children and families battling cancer.
Cost: $30
14. Starling Holiday Scented Candle
Candles make a great gift. Starling Candles are all American made hand-poured fragrant soy candles that burn for approximately 60 hours. The Starling Project was founded in 2015 to help provide solar energy to under-resourced countries across the globe, granting needy communities access to electricity, clean water, safety, health, education, and more.
Cost: $55
15. Giving Keys Never Ending Key Bracelet
The Giving Keys encourages people to pay it forward by embracing the word on your key and then giving it as a gift to a person who needs the message. In addition to spreading positivity, every purchase supports job creation for people transitioning out of homelessness.
Cost: $42