Step 1: It's not your money anyway....
Difficulty level: Negligible
Click-to-donate sites are about the easiest possible way to do good from
your home PC. Just surf to the website, click the "donate" link (usually
very well marked), and Voila! You've made a charity donation. These sites
are funded by advertisers and sponsors who pay donations to the charities
listed on the page in exchange for the banner imprint you see.
The Hunger Site
The granddaddy of all click-to-donate sites, The Hunger Site was originally
founded by a young do-gooder who soon found the volume of traffic too much
to handle by himself. It is now owned and operated by Tim Kunin and Greg
Hesterberg and their for-profit company CharityMall.com (who also own The Ecology Fund) and includes 5
cause-related sites: Hunger, Breast Cancer, Child Health, The Rainforest,
and Animal Rescue, as well as a large charity shopping mall. A good bet for
beginners.
End Homelessness Now
What I love about End Homessness Now is that it is still run by a generous
individual, named Heather Guillen, who has run this site at her own expense
since its inception. Now incorporated in California as a federal nonprofit
organization, Creating Social Justice, this website features click to donate
for a variety of charities that help the homeless - and Heather will take
any suggestion for a new charity if you email her - as well as a number of
projects from stamp auctions to benefit foreign aid to knitting blankets for
the homeless to distributing free purple ribbons for domestic violence
awareness. This site is at risk of going under if they don't find more
advertisers, so help them get their hit counts up asap, and if you're
interested in sponsoring, email Heather at heather@cybercsj.org.
Poverty Fighters
Probably the most bang for your buck with click to donate, Poverty Fighters
donates approximately twenty five cents a click, for up to two clicks per
day per IP address, to organizations that provide small business loans to
some of the poorest people in the world. For more info on microlending
click here. Also, if you're
in college, check out Poverty Fighters' Oxfam Collegiate Click Drive to show
support for your college while helping charity.
The Care2 races
Care2's solution to click to donate? Make it a game! Choose to register
and compete against other clickers or click anonymously, your clicks will
count either way. Several causes including the rainforest, breast cancer,
sponsoring children, and animal rescue, ,and they just keep adding new
races. While you're there, check out Care's site, which is an all-purpose
environmental site with info, free email, forums and really nice free
e-cards.
Other sites to check out:
Quick Donations - Index of click
to donate sites
Donation Junction - Another
index
One
Click Charity Check - Rates and evaluates click pages
Planet Save - Free web based email,
supports rainforest protection with each use.
Want to do more for charity? Try Step 2: Donate Stuff