Sheep and chooks are replacing socks and jocks as people remember those less fortunate at Christmas.

Sydney Morning Herald - 2nd Dec 2009 - By Elinore Martel

Sheep and chooks are replacing socks and jocks as people remember those less fortunate at Christmas.

It's not spoiling Christmas for Sydney project manager Cathy Mien to say her family is buying groovy goats, funky chickens and the like for each other.

These animals won't turn up under their own Christmas tree. These are Oxfam animals and the money goes towards projects and programs that will help poverty-stricken communities learn skills such as animal husbandry to make a living.

"We do an extended family Kris Kringle," Mien says. "It used to be a $30 allocation and a wish list but last year, after having discussions at various family functions, we discussed the charity option."

Last year's Christmas, when most family members chose Oxfam, the Royal Flying Doctor Service and the World Society for the Protection of Animals, was so successful that her family is doing it again this year.

Mien says her own motivation came out of her redundancy. "I was feeling what a lot of people might have been feeling at the time. I thought, 'Damn this, I'm going to do what I can with my $30 and see what I can do for other people."'

She says she feels better about helping other people rather than the "Chinese plastic fantastic option".

Oxfam's fund-raising manager, Leigh Stewart, says when the charity started its Christmas catalogue five years ago, it raised $1.5 million. Last year, at the height of the global financial crisis, the charity raised $6 million.

It is aiming for at least the same amount this year, which will go towards projects from rice banks that allow farmers to bypass money lenders, to building bridges in Cambodia to allow children to get to school and go to market. The money doesn't all go overseas. Australians can also buy presents such as breakfast for an Aboriginal child for $20.

Stewart says there's a shift in the attitude towards consumerism, with people feeling they have enough, and wanting to go back to the original spirit of Christmas. "You still get to give something; you're still choosing something that suits your friend or relative," she says.

"While trends come and go and many of us no longer use the gifts we received last year, a goat is something that will keep on giving milk and manure to the people in Mozambique long into the future."

(See Oxfam Unwrapped, www.oxfamshop.prg.au.)

Oxfam is not the only charity doing catalogues. Tear Fund has a full catalogue where you can buy sacks of rice or sheep or HIV education and there are many more organisations in on the act.

In fact, there's even a charity currency. People can give "karma currency" as a Christmas present, to be spent on any of several hundred charities. (See karmacurrency.com.au.)

Since launching two years ago, the site has raised $300,000 towards causes, including 69 virtual hugs for people in need for DepressioNet, 448 sets of three exercise books and pencils for Unicef and 23 weeks of water for Engineers Without Borders Australia.

The website presents the argument that unwanted gifts worth more than $1 billion are stashed in wardrobes and dumped in landfills every year. Charity gifts could save a child, protect a forest or find a cure for a disease.

It's hard to tell where the growing trend towards giving to charity for Christmas came from.

Is the proliferation of Christmas charity donation catalogues a response to a desire by people to buy something more meaningful than unwanted platters and socks and candles, or has our desire to give to charity for Christmas grown from the charities' marketing strategies?

A professor of marketing at the Australian National University and London School of Economics, John Roberts, says charities are becoming incredibly sophisticated.

Their challenge, to which they've risen admirably, has been harnessing the spirit of Christmas giving.

"People feel a need to express goodwill and share things with other people," he says. "They want to express their affiliation with and love for other people. That's what gift giving is all about."

The problem for charities, he says, has been that people don't customarily associate with charities their need for affiliation with close friends and relatives.

Charities can change this, he says, with two strategies. The first is challenging the reluctance of people to think about belonging to a wider community. "Charities could broaden the horizon of people so it's not just about the local tribe."

The second is tapping into the desire to share with someone's nearest and dearest. "Charities could say charities are a fantastic vehicle for undertaking that sharing."

Charities have been incredibly successful at starting to change the Christmas present relationship from that between two people - giver and recipient - to that between three - giver, charity and recipient, he says.

The whole concept is sensible, Roberts says. "Why would I give yet another pair of woollen gloves to my sister, that she doesn't want and will never wear, rather than giving something to a cause we both believe in?"

His daughter, who is getting married in February, has a charity donation register as well as the more conventional gift register at David Jones, he says.

From all this philanthropy, the giver can still receive a real Christmas present - gifts to certain charities can be tax deductible.

The ATO says in order to qualify, gifts must be to registered deductible gift recipients, lists of which can be obtained from the ATO website.

Those wishing to obtain deductions should keep receipts and records.