Last week’s launch of the iPhone seemed to get everyone excited to the point where queues formed early at many stores that quickly ran out of stock. What if you are an early adopter and already had a first generation model? Give it to a sibling? Dump it? What do you do with old cell phones anyway?

Here’s something you could think of doing, courtesy of Suw Charman: donate to your local Oxfam shop. Apart from being a socially repsonsible thing to do, it means that money raised via Oxfam goes to good causes. Another alternative suggested by an AMR analyst is to donate to local battered wives homes. All cell phones can call emergency services so this is a way where your riches can directly benefit those less fortunate.

While on the topic of good causes, my good friend Thomas Otter, ex-SAP and now with Gartner is planning to spend a week in August putting himself through what to me seems like an excruciating amount of pain in an effort to raise money for the Zimbabwe Benefit Foundation. Modern technology allows anyone to donate painlessly. This is one cause I thoroughly recommend. As I said elsewhere:

The pain he will be putting himself is as nothing compared to the pain of those he is supporting. He gets to choose. They don’t.

And while we’re at it, it’s worth mentioning SAP. Its community of more than 1.5 million code heads and business process experts creates blog posts and wiki content at a phenomenal rate. Each piece of individual activity on the SAP Community attracts a certain number of points. This year those points are going towards a specific target. When the number of points earned reaches 2.5 million, SAP will donate €100,000 to the UN World Food Programme. The more points, the more money given. If the total reaches 3.5 million points then SAP will give €200,000. Apart from being a laudable objective, the knowledge created inside the SAP community is an invluable resource to those looking for help across a broad range of topics.

Disclosure: I am a mentor in the SAP community. It is a pro bono engagement. I create some content for SAP’s BPX community on a paid basis.