You can get credit cards for almsot any charity, and the National Trust is no less worthy than any one of those others.  If keeping your country’s heritage and natural beauty is an important consideration in your life then the National Trust thank you dearly and recommend that you do your shopping with the National Trust credit card.

When you do your grocery shopping with the credit card, everything you spend will be calculated at the end and a total of it will be sent to the National Trust to do with as they please (hopefully to maintain the heritage of England).

So if your environment and the future of England’s heritage are at the top of your list then you need to support them with a credit card.  Your children may thank you for being so ecological  when they grow and inherit the earth.

Whatever charity you look out for the most, there is almsot certainly going to be a credit card for it.  I refer of course to the major charities out there like: RSPCA, WWF, Cancer Research, National Trust, and various others.  Those local charities that you support, like you local hospice or children’s home will not of course be listed.

How it works is that you get the credit card and everytime you spend money on it you donate a little towards the charity of your choice. However, the beauty of it is that you don’t actually donate any money at all, your credit card does the job for you.  Just imagine if we all used charity credit cards; the world might be a different place.

For those of you who support more local charities, you too can donate via a credit card, although it’s a little more expensive for you.  You could get yourself a cashback credit card and donate the cash you get from making purchases.  In many respects it works out that the charity get more money anyway.

To begin with, let it be said that i am not against giving money to charity, and certainly not in this way either; any way to get money to your favourite charity is good no matter what, i am merely going to advocate an alternative by the end of this post.

How it works is that the bonus that you usually get from your credit card in the form of reward points or airmiles is now paid directly to your favourite charity in the form of a percentage of the purchases you have made.  This is great and it’s an wasy way to get money to the people you care about and the charity you trust with your donation.

The next best thing is that you don’t actually have to give them anything, this is done by your credit card on your behalf.  The trouble is though that the percentage of what you donate with each purchase may not be as much as you actually could give.  How do i mean?

Well it’s like this.  If you are disciplined enough to save money then it would be much more lucrative for the charity if you were to get a cashback credit card and donate the money you get from this directly to the charity yourself.  You get much better rates on cashback credit cards, particularly if you’re a big spender and you’ve got the right cashback credit card.

If you can do this then you can make them a lot more money.  Although i do appreciate that many people don’t have the time to sort this out, or perhaps the financial control; therefore a charity credit card is probably best for them.

If you support the Britsh Heart Foundation because you lost a loved one to heart disease then this is likely to be the best charity credit card, as opposed to perhaps the Dogs Trust perhaps.

The fact remains though that no charity can be said to be better than another, this is pure and simply subjective.  However, the charity credit cards can be better, disregarding the actual charity.  Each charity is backed of course by a credit card company or bank and these are the things that differ.  The difference in the credit card come in the form of what they do for the customer, not what they do for the charity; and sadly this will more than likely be what a customer looks at as a priority.

The best charity credit cards will always be the ones that:

• Pay the most to your chosen charity
• Give you the longest interest free period on purchases and on balance transfers
• Offer the best typical APR
• Add extra rewards of features for the customer, other than the donations to the chosen charity.  Sometimes these credit card feature don’t have to be rewards for the customer in a material sense, they may sometimes be something as simple as paper free billing to allow the customer to feel good about themselves for choosing to save the environment a little.  It’s the little things that add up!  The Dog’s Trust credit card offer paper free billing.

That’s right, you can get a world class credit card with all the usual benefits and bits and bobs on it, yet you can also use the credit card to donate to charity.  The WWF charity credit card offers:

• 12 months interest free on balance transfers
• 0% interest on purchases for the first three months
• Typical APR of 16.9%
• Contributions to the WWF

Now that sounds like a pretty decent credit card doesn’t it?  And something you’d be proud to have in your wallet, and even prouder to hand over when paying for your goods and services.  Not only do you get to support your charity directly, but you are also indirectly brandishing the WWF brand name in front of people so that it increases exposure for the charity too.

It would be interesting to know just how much money these credit cards have actually made for the WWF in order to establish whether or not they are worth the trouble, or whether it might just be better to donate cash somewhere.  However, if you were to decide to donate cash somewhere or set up a direct debit, the chances of you putting it off or canceling the debit are high.  With the charity credit card you cannot get out of donating the money, and you don’t have to pay for it either!

That’s the important thing isn’t it, sadly?  No-one wants to pay out anything to charity, and that’s why there has to be such a thing as charity.  So if you’re willing to meet everyone halfway and just provide support almost passively then you need to get a hold of charity credit card.  The best one on the market today is the UNICEF card, and depending on where your priorities stand, it’s a damn good charity to support.

UNICEF stands for teh United Nations International Children’s Fund and it does exactly what you might think it does from its title.  UNICEF primarily provide emergency healthcare and food to children in devastated areas of the world.  They are a very dilligent and caring organisation and they continue to work for the same causes time after time, really quite tirelessly.

Your contribution to UNICEF can make a difference, and if you don’t want to put your hands in your pocket to rake out any cash, all you have to do it get the UNICEF credit card and spend your money like you always do and pay it back off the card.  Every time you spend your money on the credit card, the credit card company will pay UNICEF a percentage of what you spend.

This is the perfect way of contributing to charity without even knowing about it.  We should all do this shouldn’t we?

Well some might not think so, and they have fair point.  While you may think you are donating to your favourite charity, whether it’s cancer research or the WWF, there may be a way you can do more with very little effort.  We all know that you don’t actually pay the charity yourself and that your credit card company does this on your behalf.  We are expected to believe that there is a benevolent force in the world of credit cards that just wants to give money away are we?

Well i don’t buy it!  To begin with, you better get the idea of them paying the charity on your behalf right out of your head, simply because the extra interest that you pay on a charity credit card should cover that nicely for them.  Also consider what you could do that might better this deal.  I’ve worked out that the tiny percentage of cash that your charity credit card pays to your chosen charity can be quite easily beaten it you were to choose a credit card that offers cashback, and you gave the charity the cash yourself through gift aid so they can claim back the tax.  Not only would the charity get more money, you might even be able to keep a little yourself.

            The charity credit card is perfect for all these considered factors. Imagine, a credit card that caps all these, you can be sure that you’ll never be wrong. How does a charity credit card work? In lay man’s term it is like a cash back card, however for this type of card, percentage of the amount of your purchases will be accumulated back into your credit card as earnings. You can then choose if you want point’s equivalent to your earnings or if you want that “returned” cash to be added to your credit card balance. For charity credit cards, it’s quite similar in a way. Your purchases will have an equivalent percentage based on the card provider’s criterion or your charities needs, etc. This certain amount then will be forwarded to your chosen charity or your chosen cards sponsored charity. This way, you are able to donate for a cause without exerting extra effort and most of all it’s at no cost to you.  Due to the popularity of charity credit cards ever since its introduction, several charity organizations are now a part of this, adding to the list that one can choose from.

            Like all other credit cards, a charity credit card provider will give you 3 months of 0% interest rate usage of your card. Its 12.9% APR remains the lowest in the market. It’s easy to apply for and you are assured that even if there are only limited banks or financial institutions that are offering this type of card, it will not be difficult to apply for.

            So the next time you go shopping or go splurge on an expensive trip or cruise perhaps, using your charity credit card to pay for all the expensed would at least leave you guilt-free. Wondering why? Mainly because, each single pound you spend a part of it will go to your credit cards sponsored charity.