'Tis the season for spending. In fact, consumers are about to unlease over $100 billion in holiday spending. The holidays is also the time of year where nonprofits make the push for seasonal donations. Several nonprofit giving sites have found ways to help nonprofits harness some of the huge holiday expenditures towards their own causes.

I had the chance to speak with Robert Tolmach and Jill Golden of WellGood LLC about their new charity giving site, ChangingthePresent.org. A very early beta version of ChangingthePresent.org got up and running last year just before the holidays, but this is the first year that the fully-developed, robust site will be available for nonprofits and donors alike to use.

ChangingthePresent.org works by tapping into the shopping behavior that already exists, but re-channeling it towards nonprofits. Much as a shopper could go to an online store and shop for various gifts, ChangingthePresent.org gives donors the convenience of a supermarket, where they can "shop" for the charity gifts of their choice. The gift might be a pair of shoes, hot meals for the hungry, or pay for several hours of staff time for a nonprofit. For a friend that love kids, you might purchase a new playground swingset or for the animal lover, you could provide a vet with vaccinations. You can shop by individual cause, dollar amount, or area of interest.

Having specific gifts gives potential donors the satisfaction of knowing exactly what they're going to accomplish. When you write a check to an organization, you don't always know exactly how it is applied. This way receivers have the gratification of knowing something meaningful is being done in their name--and really, isn't that better than getting another necktie?

Nonprofits can follow a simple registration process and register gifts of different amounts according to their needs, as well as creating wishlists and fundraising drives. ChangingthePresent.org provides nonprofits with various tools to help spread the word, from banners to greeting cards to widgets to a Facebook application. Best of all, the site offers many social networking and community components. Users can upload photos, add friends and designate favorite causes. These features offer further means for nonprofits, particular smaller nonprofits, to spread awareness for their cause.

But if you're not wanting to forgo the retail stores completely for the holidays, Maatiam, another giving site, gives you the opportunity to have some of those dollars you spend online go to a good cause. Maatiam has partnered with 200 different online merchants and retailers who donate up to 25% of an item's cost to the nonprofit of the shopper's choice at no extra cost to the shopper. Any nonprofit can join and create a branded page within the Maatiam community. It's an effortless way for nonprofits to raise money and consumers to give through their regular seasonal purchases.

Another unique way to give is through Kiva. Kiva allows you to buy micro-loans for a person in need, on behalf of another person, as a gift. Similarly, Kiva is using the power of a specific, personalized gift as a meaningful way for donors to give. By putting a face to a cause, donors can have a personalized connection to where their dollars go and the lives that their donations touch.

These sites are just a few of 2.0 ways you can leverage your nonprofit's fundraising, as well as your own personal giving.