For many people,W when it comes to giving money to charity, for many people, it's all about the convenience. Giving out a yearly check to a relief fund or donating your old clothes and books to a second-hand charity store after your annual spring clean is one thing: but charities need money on a year-round basis if they're going to keep doing the good work we've come to expect of them. Recently, however, many retailers and service providers have caught on to the idea that people actually like giving money to charity - and the easier it is for them, the better.

Many credit card companies, for instance, now allow you to give a certain amount of your spending to charity every time you use your card. You simply pay for goods or services using your credit card the way you usually would, and a certain percentage of what you're spending, or a set percentage agreed with your credit card provider, is donated to charity each time.

But while this practice of charity credit cards has been available for some time, it has only recently become a global movement. Brands like Product Red, for instance, have arisen and assigned a new sense of fashion to the idea of giving to charity while buying goods. American Express has a Red credit card that gives one per cent of each transaction made by the cardholder to AIDS charity, Global Fund. Cell phone manufacturer Motorola has also launched special editions of certain phones, with a 50 per cent profit of each purchase going to the Global Fund, with some cell phone networks offering to donate an extra percentage to charity each time an outgoing call is made.

While both American Express and Motorola offer services that give to charity at a continual rate, there are other partners involved in Product Red that offer one-off opportunities to support charities and fair trade when buying other goods. For instance, the Converse shoe company sells Product Red shoes made from African mud cloth, while Gap is selling a line of clothing which includes T-shirts made from Lesotho-grown cotton.

An alternative way to give money to charity is through a hotel’s honors loyalty program. This particular method of donating to charities is particularly favourable to businessmen or frequent travellers who accrue a large number of points on their loyalty cards and aren't quite sure what to redeem them for. Many hotel loyalty or airmiles programs will let you choose from a selection of charities when you decide to redeem your points as a charitable donation, so you'll be able to put your money towards a cause you really care about.