Looking for a quick way to brighten someone's holiday last minute? Check out Samahope's customized Hope Cards to give a life-changing five dollar donation in a gift recipient's name to help women and children in need across the world, right from your computer.

Samahope is a nonprofit that crowdsources donations to send to doctors worldwide that help give some of the most impoverished people on Earth life-changing and sometimes life-saving medical care for treatable health problems.

This year, Samahope launched "Hope Cards," customized physical holiday cards you can send to friends and family, letting them know you've donated five dollars or more in their name to help those in need. The nonprofit even has a cute jingle/rap to show you how it works.


Despite the fun Samahope (or at least that intern) obviously has at work, the nonprofit has a weighty mission springing from a dead serious and profoundly sad story. Leila Janah, co-founder and CEO of Samahope, began the nonprofit after hearing the story of Tiengay Kaiwo, a teenager in Sierra Leone who was raped by her high school teacher.

Without access to medical care, according to Forbes, Kaiwo was forced to drop out of school and give birth without a doctor or painkillers -- she lost the child the same day it was born. Three dollars would have given her a pair of surgical gloves; a little more could have given her a medical birth and the surgery necessary to repair her body from childbirth and the rapes she experienced.

Enter Samahope, which allows people to directly fund doctors, providing life-changing treatments for women and children with treatable medical problems. Samahope puts 100 percent of the donation directly to care providers for patients in need, and they track every dollar and update you where the money is going and how you've changed lives.

From a technological perspective, the Hope Cards initiative couldn't be more user friendly. You just enter your name and email, choose a preset template or upload a custom photo, and then write a message that will be printed on the inside for your recipient.

Minimum donations are five dollars (but of course you can donate more), which gets you not just an "e-card" that will end up buried in your recipient's inbox, but a real physical card sent out to them. That's about the cost of a store-bought greeting card, but its customized, charitable, and you don't have to leave your desktop to get it. On top of that, donations are tax deductible.

Samahope's tagline for Hope Cards is "better than fruitcake." But in the season of giving -- much less the season of having precious little time to go out to get presents -- Hope Cards are better than a lot of gifts you could think of last minute.

Check out Samahope here and their Hope Cards online creation suite here.