Giving Anonymously is excited to announce that we’ve been nominated for MSN’s 2010 Butterfly Awards!

We are honored to be nominated alongside a few other organizations who are all doing incredible work.  We’d love it if you take the time to go and vote for us.  But we’d love it even more if, as you vote, you think of one person you know who you could send an anonymous gift to this week.

Although we would love to give our award to our non-profit of choice (more on that below) we would love even more to see this holiday season marked as the most anonymous gifts ever given to your friends and neighbours.

Why? We found out this week that the Butterfly Awards were named for the idea that one small waving of a butterfly wing can potentially alter whole weather systems on the other side of the globe. (In fact it’s why the butterfly was chosen as the MSN logo, too.) Wikipedia says:  It is  “a minor change in circumstances causing a large change in outcome.”  We are hoping for a “a large change of outcome” through generosity this holiday season, starting this week.

This effect is often described or alluded to in books, movies and popular culture. Our favourite example is in Frank Capra’s ever popular movie It’s A Wonderful Life where James Stewart as George Bailey sees what a difference it makes when his friends come around him and see his need and give.

We have seen (and we hear on the voice messages coming in daily) that one small gift has the power to change someone’s entire life.  “It’s turned my world around”, as Michelle Millar said on NBC.

We’d like to ask not only for your vote for our Butterfly Award, we’d also like to invite you to  become a part of the butterfly effect we are hoping for through Giving Anonymously!

We are hoping for that in our community through giving our award to our local women and children’s shelter – that $10,000 will make a change in many precious lives that need it right now the most. We are hoping for that in your community and amongst your neighbours where only you can see what changes and hope is most needed. And ultimately – our big, big dream – is we are hoping that we will see a nation-wide effect of generosity in our economy, health care and in how we treat each other as neighbours all over.

Here’s how you can join the Butterfly Effect:

An individual can vote once per day, every day until the competition closes on January 4th, 2010.

1) go to this link: http://entertainment.msn.com/flashback/

2) click on any of the small face pictures on the right side of the page (Lionel and Misha, our directors, are pictured third from the left)

3) choose one celebrity cause you appreciate as well

4) select “vote now” and submit your votes!

5) come back and do that as many times as possible until 4 January, 2010

6) link to our post from your facebook page or blog to help us start this change of hope through giving

7) go to GivingAnon.org and make a check out for as little as ten dollars to give to someone you want to include in the dream of having a butterfly effect of hope and generosity

Thank you for your vote and please let us know how we can help you surprise someone with a gift through Giving Anonymously.