In giving, partygoers receive

Guests donate to charities and go home with a warm feeling

As party invitations go, this one was a bit strange.

It wasn't only that Perri Kersh, the hostess, was asking guests to bring their checkbooks. Plenty of parties are organized around selling items, from Tupperware to Avon. The odd twist was that Kersh offered no merchandise at her spendfest, only good will.

It's called a giving party. Kersh came up with the idea last year, after seeing former President Bill Clinton promote his book "Giving: How Each of Us Can Change the World" on "The Oprah Winfrey Show."

Kersh hoped to inspire guests to forgo potentially needless gifts for friends and family and instead make charitable donations in their names.

She scheduled last year's event a week after Thanksgiving. Of the 175 people invited, 65 attended. Representatives from several nonprofit groups gave presentations. Kersh set up computers so guests could donate online to any charity using credit cards. And at the exit, she put a box in which people could anonymously report how much they'd donated.

In three hours, she raised more than $12,000.

"What we really want to emphasize is how easy it is to give a party like this," says Kersh, a professional organizer from Chapel Hill who also writes a blog about living simply called "Enough is Enough." Kersh created a Web site, www.giving-party.org, and a blog, givingparty.wordpress.com, to spread her new idea.

"Not to be too big thinking," she says, "but we were like, 'Let's start a movement here where it's easy to do.' "

Casey Saussy, a party guest, was inspired. At the 2007 party, she saw photos of children that World Vision was trying to help. She committed to spend $35 per month to sponsor a child in Zambia.

Making a difference

"Those of us that were mothers, all of us were thinking, 'For $30 to $35 a month, I can make a difference in this child's life?' " says Saussy, of Chapel Hill. "We all just felt so good about it. Everyone was whipping out their checkbooks or credit cards. Instead of picking out clothes or earrings, we were changing lives."

Saussy's giving didn't stop that night. She later paid for World Vision to provide some chickens to needy people in her father's and aunt's names. She gave her relatives toy ducks to signify their gifts.

"My aunt said it made her so happy to see that duck every morning on her windowsill, because she knew that in her name there was a little village somewhere in the world being benefited by this gift," Saussy says. "So there was the residual afterglow of it."

The guests' donations ranged from $20 to $700, Kersh says. The Durham-based Michael & Laura Brader-Araje Foundation provided each guest with an additional $100 gift certificate to donate to a school project of his or her choice through DonorsChoose.org.

Concept catches on

Saussy loved the party so much that she signed on to help organize this year's event, which drew more than 80 people last week and raised more than $15,000 plus $7,000 in matching grants and DonorsChoose.org certificates.

Kersh isn't alone in her charitable quest, according to Elizabeth Levene, the development and program director for Communities in Schools of Durham, one of Kersh's 2007 spotlighted charities. Levine says a retired couple who volunteer for the organization's Weekend Backpack program hosted a similar party recently after the charity lost some of its funding and had to scale back. Weekend Backpack provides food to needy Durham students. The party raised almost $2,000.

"What was so magnificent about the experience was that it didn't come from us, the organization, going to somebody and saying, 'We need help with this program. Can you help?' " Levene says. "It came from people in the community saying, 'This is something that we do. This is something that we believe in.' "

Kersh's party has inspired others, too. She helped organizers in Charlotte and in Charleston, S.C., organize their own parties this year. She also wants to develop a giving party kit, including gift tags and other helpful items, that she would distribute at cost to any host.

Saussy is proof that altruism can be contagious. This year, she plans to sponsor two children through World Vision.

"It's kind of empowering to me," she says. "It feels like I'm taking back the good news, because right now all the news is really not great. And it's that 'pay it forward' concept that those that can make a difference do. And if you get a lot of people together and everybody gives a little, it adds up."