An eventful week in world news may have distracted attention from the need for aid in Japan, but the need remains. Images of Japan’s tsunami and earthquake devastation still pour out of the country (as reflected in this Bloomberg news article), and at this point, the affected are no longer expressing shock, but the question: “How do we go about getting back to normal?”

And while it’s likely everyone is putting off shopping trips as they watch financial markets bounce around, that doesn’t change the fact that most people still want to help and donate to Japan’s relief efforts.

As mentioned in the Hartford Courant’s March 18 article on donating to Japanese relief, by Korky Vann, you can find myriad ways to help Japan, even when you are short on cash. This includes donating accumulated hotel rewards points, and in the case of United, Continental, and American Airlines, donations of $50 or $100 will get you rewarded with bonus miles on your frequent flier account.

The article also mentions Plastic Jungle: “At PlasticJungle.com, you can donate unused gift cards (minimum balance of $25) to the Red Cross, Direct Relief or Global Giving.”

If you’ve got unused gift cards, you’ve got a means to donate. Check out our Nonprofit Directory. You can donate the value of your unused gift cards in a matter of minutes to any nonprofit listed in the directory.

Begin your donation process by linking to Plastic Jungle’s Sell Gift Cards page. You will be offered the opportunity to donate part or all of the proceeds from your gift card sale to an organization of your choice. You can donate a plastic gift card (Plastic Jungle provides you with a free shipping label), or an e-gift card.

Plastic Jungle will forward the funds to your nonprofit of choice, along with a donation report, by the 30th of the following month. Remember that all of Plastic Jungle’s transactions are guaranteed. Donating via Plastic Jungle is safe, easy, and efficiently effective.

Plastic Jungle will provide you with a receipt for your tax-deductible gift.

If you’re a nonprofit and would like to become listed in our directory, go to our PJ for Nonprofits page. You’ll find out how to become a nonprofit affiliate (a very simple process), and how Plastic Jungle can help you raise funds for your local, national, or even international cause. For questions regarding the nonprofit directory, email fundraising@plasticjungle.net.

Let’s see if we can get a count on how many readers can spare an unused gift card to help Japan recovery. Please leave a comment if you’re taking the initiative to give via Plastic Jungle, and let us know who your intended nonprofit is.

We know that aid comes from many places so here are several other ways that you can help relief efforts:

American Red Cross

Your donation to the American Red Cross will help support disaster relief efforts to help those affected by the earthquake in Japan and tsunami throughout the Pacific.

Global Giving

Global Giving has already raised over $1.8 million for the Japan relief efforts.  Go to their site and make a tax-deductible contribution and they will send you progress updates so that you can see how your gift is making a difference.

eBay Giving Works

eBay is helping their users donate to relief agencies through the buying and selling of items. To ensure that all funds raised go to the relief efforts, eBay is waiving the standard donation processing fees on these donations.

Our hearts go out to those impacted by this terrible disaster and its aftermath.  We send our sincerest wishes for a thorough recovery to all those affected around the world.

January 19^th, 2011 In a segment entitled, “Ask the Experts” on the CBS Early Show, consumer correspondent Susan Koeppen was confronted with a question that many are facing in the wake of the December holidays: What can I do with all the gift cards I got for Christmas from stores I don’t shop at?

Susan Koeppen, an "expert" on the CBS Early Show

Ms. Koeppen was equipped with her reply: “You can swap or sell them … and on the website Plastic Jungle.com, you can donate your gift card and get the tax break for it.”

Ms. Koeppen is right. As the web’s largest secured gift card exchange, Plastic Jungle gives consumers the choice and flexibility to convert their gift cards into other forms of spending power, including charitable donations.

Included in the options for Payout Choice on the “Sell” page on Plastic Jungle are Check, Amazon.com Gift Card, PayPal, and Donate to Charity.

Gift Cards for Good: How It Works

Plastic Jungle calls our program which siphons off those possibly uncounted gift dollars to worthy causes “Gift Cards for Good”. It’s as easy as selling or trading unused gift cards for yourself, only in the end, you’ll have a receipt for a tax-deductible donation.

To begin, enter your gift card information in our Sell Your Gift Card form. Select the Donate to Charity offer. You will go through the transaction as if you were selling or trading your card to keep, but before you confirm your transaction, look for the blue and green ribbon to make a donation and select a nonprofit to support. You may donate all or part of your card’s trade-in value.

Print the FREE shipping label, and drop your gift card in the mail. Upon receipt, we will verify your card’s balance and process your donation. You will receive an email receipt for your generous tax-deductible contribution.

Just some of the organizations Plastic Jungle works with include: The American Red Cross, Autism Speaks, DonorsChoose.org, various preschool, Parochial and private high schools and education funds across the country, the Starlight Children’s Foundation and many more.

If you’d like to get your nonprofit organization involved in accepting donations via Plastic Jungle, see below, and don’t hesitate to Contact Us.

PJ for Nonprofits: How to Begin Utilizing Donors’ Gift Cards

For nonprofits interested in fundraising with Plastic Jungle, here’s a simple overview.

Plastic Jungle offers your organization a safe and simple way to turn hidden treasure into unrestricted funding to further your mission.

With Direct Sales, nonprofits collect gift cards from individual and corporate donors, via a gift card donation drive or by asking donors to bring a gift card as the cost of entry to an event. Plastic Jungle provides a prepaid envelope for nonprofits to send the cards in, and after verification, we send you a check (for up to 92% of the value of each card*).

Donors can specify your charity as they cash in gift cards at PlasticJungle.com. These Donations can be all or part of the proceeds from the gift card sale. Plastic Jungle will forward the funds to you, along with a donation report, by the 30th of the following month, and Plastic Jungle provides the donor with a receipt for his tax-deductible gift.

With Implement PJ Payments, you can accept merchant gift cards as a donation payment option from your website and raise funds with this highly incremental source of contributions. Learn more »

If you’re a nonprofit interested in learning more about Gift Cards for Good or PJ for Nonprofits, please contact our Business Development Team.

* Plastic Jungle will purchase eligible cards from your organization at our standard purchase rates, which are available on our website.

No, I’m not talking about using gift cards to pry open the bathroom door your daughter locked from the inside. (In fact, I wouldn’t recommend that at all! Turns out they snap into pieces.)

Let’s say you’ve got a gift card in your hand that you know has a balance on it, but there’s no way you’ll be able to take advantage of it: it’s for a steakhouse and you’ve been vegan for ages; it’s to a store you’ve vowed to stay away from because you consistently overspend there; it’s a gas card, and you’ve just decided to reduce your carbon footprint by moving to the city and only take public transportation.

Whatever. Just bypass the procrastination and realize that you can easily, quickly, and securely get something for that gift card on Plastic Jungle, and I’ll tell you how.

Sell Gift Cards for Cash, Funds in your PayPal Account, or an Amazon.com Gift Card

1) Did someone mention CASH?
That’s right. You can sell gift cards with as little as $10 remaining on them (it doesn’t even have to be an even number, it can be what’s left over after you’ve made a purchase) for CASH. Plastic Jungle honors gift cards from over 400 stores, from Walmart to Tiffany to PETCO to Bass Pro Shops. Once your gift card is verified (by mail or online), Plastic Jungle issues your check or deposits money into your PayPal account, whatever you choose. (Then, don’t forget that you can purchase discounted gift cards to get a deal at another one of those 400+ stores!)

2) Exchange gift cards for Amazon.com Gift Cards.
And what doesn’t Amazon.com sell? From ebooks to grills to groceries, Amazon.com is among the best places to have a store credit. Plus, in this gift card exchange, you’ll receive more than what you’d get in a cash payout – 5% more!

3) Trade in gift cards for Facebook Credits.
We know how fun and addictive those games get. From Farmville and MafiaWars to Happy Aquarium and Zuma Blitz, you can trade your gift card for Facebook Credits using the Plastic Jungle Gift Card Exchange App on Facebook. Just be logged into Facebook and search Plastic Jungle. You’ll see our fan page (Like us!) and the Application page.  When you’re on the App page, you’ll need to allow pop-ups. Then you’re good to start trading.

4) Convert gift cards to GamePoints.
At GamePoints you’re able to exchange gift cards for a virtual currency you can use on hundreds of social games. Log in at GamePoints.com by creating a free account, or using your Facebook account.

5) DONATE gift cards to your favorite charity!
You’ll find that Gift Cards for Good through Plastic Jungle is a very safe, convenient and efficient way to get the balance left on your gift card to your favorite charity or nonprofit. Have your charity check in with Plastic Jungle (at PJ for Nonprofits) to make the process even easier.

So don’t let unused gift cards waste away in your sock drawer when you have all these great options… sell them to Plastic Jungle today!

Our friends at DailyFeats put out this announcement last week… we wanted to make sure you saw it too

Please let us know what you think.  And start checking in your positive actions – saving money with discounted gift cards as well as selling / exchanging / donating your gift cards can bring you even more value now!

New York, NY (PRWEB) December 3, 2010

Managing your money and trading in your gift cards became a lot more fun and rewarding today, as the innovative positive-action site DailyFeats announced a pioneering partnership with the web’s largest secured gift card exchange Plastic Jungle to help people discover, share, and earn monetary rewards for actions that strengthen their wallets and help them improve their lives.

DailyFeats is a social platform for positive actions that support the body, mind, home, and community; its members earn points and rewards for the positive actions – or feats – they complete and check in. Members of DailyFeats’ private beta, now including Plastic Jungle users, can check in their feats online at DailyFeats.com or from their mobile phones via SMS, and then share those actions both at DailyFeats and throughout their social networks. By offering users the opportunity to earn rewards for a wide range of positive feats, DailyFeats and its partners seek to encourage people to live as well as they possibly can.

Through the Plastic Jungle marketplace and its proprietary payments applications, users can sell unredeemed gift cards for up to 92% of the verified gift card balance or buy gift cards to their favorite stores at up to 30% off. Plastic Jungle will now directly sponsor two specific feats at DailyFeats related to trading and donating gift cards, boosting the point value of those feats.

DailyFeats members and Plastic Jungle users collect points each time they complete one of these sponsored actions, or any of the hundreds of other feats available at DailyFeats.com, allowing them to unlock access to a suite of rewards from partners like 1-800-FLOWERS, American Airlines®, Marriott®, Staples, and many more, plus over 170,000 rewards from local merchants across the country.

“We’re excited to be teaming up with Plastic Jungle,” said Morley Ivers, COO of DailyFeats, “because our missions align so well. DailyFeats and Plastic Jungle share the common goal of enabling people to improve their lives; together we’ll help people find the motivation and tools they need to take control of their finances, one step at a time. Plastic Jungle is the latest organization to join DailyFeats’ coalition of companies, all of which are alike in their desire to make a meaningful difference in the world by encouraging people to take positive actions in their daily lives.”

Approximately $30 billion in gift cards are sitting unredeemed in sock drawers across America, according to recent estimates. “Imagine the difference we can make if even a fraction of that money makes it back into consumers’ wallets, or goes to support worthy charities,” added Kristin Donelson, Vice President of Marketing for Plastic Jungle. “DailyFeats and Plastic Jungle will help make that happen.”

DailyFeats will launch publicly in 2011; meanwhile, it’s available for free at http://www.dailyfeats.com, where new visitors can sign up to join its ongoing private beta.

Read the press release on DailyFeats Announces New Partnership with Plastic Jungle to Save Consumers Money, Encourage Positive Action

About DailyFeats
DailyFeats makes positive actions easy, fun, and rewarding. It’s built on the idea that the world would be a better place if more people had the time and energy every day to accomplish “feats”: actions that are good for our bodies, minds, homes, and communities. Whenever you do something good — whether you’re running, reading, volunteering, or doing any of hundreds of other actions — check it in at DailyFeats.com, where you can earn points to redeem for rewards, plan with friends, and find more good things to try. The goal is for you to live as well as you possibly can.

Written by John Haydon

It’s no secret that fundraising for a nonprofit in today’s economy is hard work. Donations from corporations, major gifts and private grants have all shrunk. Fundraising with social media is uncharted territory where best practices are in their infancy.

However, a recent partnership between givezooks and Plastic Jungle allows non-profits access to a $40 Billion in unused gift cards. And with Christmas around the corner, the timing couldn’t be more perfect!

Recycled fruit cake and giftcards

According to Plastic Jungle, the average household has about $400 worth of unused gift cards in their top dresser drawers. You know, the Home Depot gift card from Uncle Ralph who always forgets that you live across the street from Lowe’s. The Barnes & Noble gift card you wish you could redeem on Amazon. And my favorite, the Exxon Mobil gift card given to the vegan bike messenger who only last week protested at a rally on clean energy.

Turning donors into fundraisers

givezooks! is a social fundraising platform for non-profits that empower individual donors to become fundraisers. The platform embeds sharing on Facebook and Twitter directly into the donation process. This makes fundraising much more effective simply because folks are more likely to donate to a cause if it’s recommended from a friend.

And now, the partnership between Plastic Jungle and givezooks means that friends can convert convert that gift cards into cash for their favorite cause.

To learn more about the givezooks social fundraising, please visit givezooks.com.