The most wonderful time of the year is also the most commercial, but chances are that neither you nor anyone on your shopping list needs more stuff. Think of all the packaging and wrapping paper you could divert from landfills by picking presents that, quite literally, do a world of good.

Charities that operate at home and abroad have all sorts of ideas for gifts that have a powerful, positive impact on people’s lives. By helping the planet and other people, you can be sure you’ll be making spirits bright.

Plan Canada’s Gifts of Hope

Founded in 1937, Plan Canada works to alleviate poverty and improve children’s lives in 72 countries. With its Gifts of Hope, the person you’re buying for receives a card, and the gift itself—whether it’s a goat to provide a family with milk, a bed net to help prevent malaria, or a well that allows access to clean water—goes to children and families who need it.

Unicef Canada’s Survival Gifts

There are more than 60 gifts to choose from, including a Mother and Baby Tetanus Pack and Blankets for Babies, a three-pack of cozy throws to keep vulnerable newborns warm. Those two are among gifts that are matched by other organizations (Kiwanis and JoMedia, respectively), doubling your donation. You can also purchase everything from water-purification tablets to pencils to packs of Plumpy’Nut, a therapeutic, peanut-based food that boosts a malnourished child’s chance of survival.

Oxfam Unwrapped

Supporting the fight against poverty, these gifts help women and men in developing countries become more self-sufficient. A beehive comes with technical training for rural farmers to make a living off the honey they produce; a chicken, sheep, goat, or donkey provides food security as well as access to marketable products such as eggs, wool, or milk.

Amazon Rainforest Conservancy Gifts

This Orton, Ontario–based organization works to protect the area of Tambopata, Peru, which is home to one of the last blocks of intact tropical rainforest land in the world.

“Scientists have determined the Amazon rainforest plays a key role in the basic functioning of the planet,” ARC’s website states. “Preventing the deforestation of the Amazon helps mitigate climate change, which ultimately effects [sic] the health and well being of families and economies throughout the world.”

Donations go toward providing nesting sites for endangered harpy eagles, protecting howler monkeys “from becoming bush meat” for hunters, and defending jaguars from ranchers and farmers who view the creatures as threats to their livestock.

Immunodeficiency Canada’s Alastair Fund

This national organization helps promote early diagnosis and effective treatment of primary immunodeficiency, a condition in which people are born with a defective immune system or none at all.

The Alastair Fund helps families with a child who is registered as a patient at B.C. Children’s Hospital (and four others across the country) by providing financial assis-tance for things like transportation, overnight stays, food, parking, and other critical needs.

The Lung Association’s Wood Fairies Christmas Deed

Okay, this one is a tangible item, but funds from the sale of this children’s book go to the Lung Association, which supports research into and treatment of conditions like asthma, cystic fibrosis, chronic obstructive pulmonary disorder, pertussis, sleep apnea, and lung cancer.

The story, about two young children in need of some Christmas magic, is dedicated to the millions of children, past and present, who have been victimized by tuberculosis and other lung diseases. It was written by Robert George Ferguson—an iconic Canadian doctor who pioneered the first vaccine against tuberculosis and championed the first free treatment for TB in North America—for his children in 1929. Last year, one of his kids, Sheelagh Ferguson Barrable, had the story published in honour of her late father as a way to raise money for a cause dear to his heart.

Vancouver Association for the Survivors of Torture (VAST) Interpreter Services

This association helps refugees who come to B.C. traumatized as a result of torture, political violence, and other forms of persecution on the basis of race, religion, nationality, gender identity, sexual orientation, and political opinion. Survivors of torture often suffer long-term physical and psychological effects that can severely impede their ability to work, learn, and resettle in a new country.

Through CanadaHelps—which lists scores of charitable-gift options supporting organizations across the country—VAST is seeking donations that will go toward interpretation services for hourlong trauma counselling sessions.