Holiday Shopping for Liberals

Repeated from last week because 'tis the season to shop!

The Holiday season is upon us. Don't know about you, but I don't set foot in stores this time of year if I can avoid it. I prefer shopping online. Actually, most of my shopping is long gone...Barnes and Noble.com (through my own blog) and A Greater Gift are where I bought most gifts I'm giving this year.

But a political friend of mine has a business that should interest many readers: Alonovo.com. This is a business that allows you, the consumer, to find and shop at businesses that support YOUR values, whatever those values are. YOU set the criteria and Alonovo.com tells you what businesses match your values. This idea is a hit across the political spectrum, letting people feel good about being consumers.

Here is what Alonovo.com has to say about themselves:

Think of the power of a large database that collects information about how corporations behave and then integrates that data directly into the shopping experience. When you are about to purchase a TV, shoes, socks or an IPOD you can not only consider the price and the quality of the product, but can easily see what kind of behavior we are "buying into".

Our alonovo.com mission is to connect the concept of corporate behavior directly to the profit motive. When a corporation is evolving to balance people, planet and profit -everyone wins.

We are working to inform society in a very simple, visually appealing manner with regard to corporate behavior at their point of online purchase. And the reason is every time we make a purchase we are transferring power to a business. Is this power going to support ...

* Fair Labor or Sweatshops?
* Emission Reduction or Pollution?
* Recycling or Toxic Waste?
* Resource Conservation or Plunder the Earth?
* Political Neutrality or Undermine Democracy?
* Partner with Local Community or Destroy the Local Community Economy?

So by offering products from one of the leaders in the online shopping world (Amazon.com), trusted data from independent well-respected sources such as
KLD Research & Analytics, Inc., Social Accountability International and others, we provide a free experience that will gradually connect how a company behaves with their profit. And this is the importance of a large and growing alonovo.com community. If we are just a small group of people, we won't have much of an impact. However if you tell everyone you know about this service (and they tell everyone they know, and so on) we can be a large force that can make a tremendous impact in terms of how corporations conduct themselves.

When you purchase using alonovo.com, you are doing your part to send a clear message to businesses—we want blue skies, clean water, a fair and growing economy, intelligent use of our natural resources, safe and humane workplaces and sensible partnerships with local communities.

Beyond helping to shape social, environmental and political practices of businesses, you are also directly helping non-profit organizations that need funding for their critical work. We, the alonovo.com community contribute between 50% and 100% of what we earn (based upon your purchases through alonovo.com) to your cause of choice.

This is a community we can all be proud to belong to, regardless of political perspectives and ideology.

The alonovo community: the power of millions of informed, aware and caring people acting in concert. For a better world.

So, perhaps you want to do some of your holiday shopping through Alonovo.com...