The Hunger Site. The Breast Cancer Site. The Rainforest Site. Chances are, if you’ve got an e-mail account, you’ve received one of these (or other similar sites) to your inbox.
The concept is simple. Click on the pretty pastel box and you have automatically – and at no cost – donated food, a mammogram, or 11.4 square feet of rain forest. Sound too good to be true? Skeptical of online giving? Yes, you should do some homework, but don’t pass up a great chance to give either.
For example, after a Wikipedia search and some Googling, I discovered that these and other sites are owned by CharityUSA.com, a for-profit group that is the parent company of the Greater Good Network. According to their Web site, “100% of the funds generated through the GreaterGood Network pass through GreaterGood.org to our partner charities. GreaterGood.org has ultimate authority and discretion with regard to the distribution of its funds. All expenditures made are consistent with the exempt purposes of GreaterGood.org.”
Nonetheless, each site claims that 100 percent of donations go to the actual charity. There are also sites for children’s health, animal rescue and literacy. Other links on the sites show their partners, year-to-date funds raised, and stories from the press.
CharityUSA does not hold a monopoly on giving sites, though. In fact, online giving is becoming fairly common. The Washington Post reviewed a few sites worth checking out – goodsearch.com donates 50 percent of its revenue to more than 45,000 charities and schools. For you cybershoppers, igive.com donates to charity up to 25 percent of each purchase from stores like Macy’s and Best Buy. American Express allows you to donate every time you use your card (americanexpress.com/give) and other credit card companies allow you to donate your earned points. And, you can donate your frequent flier miles to the Make-A-Wish Foundation at donate.wish.org/donate/miles.
Kiva.org is especially interesting. According to its site, Kiva.org allows you to loan money to small businesses in the developing world. As these microloans are repaid, you get your loan money back. According to Bill Clinton’s book Giving, the repayment rate on kiva.org loans is a whopping 93 percent!
I have set up the Hunger Site and the Breast Cancer Site as daily reminders on my computer each morning. As the monitor wakes up and my coffee kicks in, I donate a cup of food and a mammogram with a few clicks before getting down to business. And I just donated $50 to kiva.org to help a furniture maker in Ecuador start up his own independent business.
So fire up that computer and click your mouse. Go find a few sites you like – some will even send you daily reminders. Point. Click. Serve! Easiest giving you’ll ever do.
Get out and give back.
Hi Jane,
I read your article in Community Readers about igive, greatergood and kiva, and I thought you might be interested in our new website that turns online purchases into donations to your favorite charity without costing you or the nonprofit a dime.
Anytime you use maatiam.com and shop at any of our 200 prominent online partnered merchants, a percentage of your purchase is donated to the nonprofit of your choice. You pay the same price for the item as you normally would. We’ve been partnering with GuideStar to make available all the registered 501c3 nonprofits of the US on our site. Furthermore, we’ve created an easy-to-use, viral and engaging platform where nonprofits can create their own branded website and customers can personalize the shopping home page with their favorite retailers and nonprofit.
The donations don’t cost consumers a dime. And now nonprofits have a free and effortless way to raise funds.
Maatiam aims to contribute to build on the trends of socially conscious online shopping and “gift giving 2.0” (as TechSoup recently labeled it).
For more information, check our website http://www.maatiam.com and our news release I’ve pasted below. And please call or email me with any questions you have.
Best regards,
Caroline
Good for people to know.
Hey Aunt Jane!
Great job on the site, but the pink-ish background isn’t really my style.
Anyway, I’ve been reading through quite a few of your (very inspiring) articles about getting out and giving back.
So to help give back, I’m starting here.
I’d like to inform you (and all who reads this) of a great site called “FreeRice” ( http://www.freerice.com/index.php )
FreeRice donates 20 grains of rice to every multiple choice question you get right through the UN World Food Program. Now 20 grains of rice, isn’t too much, but when you start donating 7 thousands grains of rice each time you visit, it starts to add up.
Not only are you donating to hungry little children, you gain knowledge through many different subjects including math, grammar, art, chemistry, etc.
Haha, just thought I’d post this b/c it goes with you’re whole computer-based topic.
You’re a huge inspiration.
-Mark