Friday Idleness: Little Ways To Help Make A Difference

Every year during the holiday season, I drop money in the Salvation Army buckets I pass on the way in or out of a store. A few coins here, a dollar bill there, a five dollar bill that I just got in my change at the grocery chain. Alone, it doesn’t seem like much…a drop in the bucket. Until you combine my drops in the bucket with those of, say, 20 other people. Then you have a full bucket.

There’s a few ways you can help charities online, without spending an extra dime.

A Click A Day

The Animal Rescue Site asks folks to visit daily to simply click a purple button to donate .6 bowls of food to shelter animals. Tabs at the top of the screen let you bounce to sister sites in where you can similarly click buttons to pay for a free mammogram, protect land in the rainforest, buy books for children, donate food to the hungry, pay healthcare costs for a needy child, and protect land for natural habitats.

Making this site your home page can help remind you to click daily. All six sites also have online stores with diverse merchandise; each product description tells you how much of your purchase will go to charity.

Searching For Good

The folks at GoodSearch teamed up with the folks at Yahoo! to put at least some of the $8 billion in revenue generated each year by online advertising. Pick a charity, run all your Web searches from Goodsearch, and divert your online pennies to your charity. Yes, it’s pennies. But think of how many searches you do in a day or a week. Add them up. Then add your pennies to those of your spouse, your kids, your co-workers. The bucket does fill up.

Give Every Time You Shop

IGive works with more than 650 e-tailers to divert a percentage of every online purchase you make to your chosen charity. Create a free IGive account and pick a charity from their list (there’s currently 39,000+ to choose from). Each time you go shopping online, log into IGive first, then make your purchases. Four percent here, 8.4% there, 2.8% someplace else — it all adds up quickly. (Think of what 2.8% of your company’s monthly office supply purchase at Staples could do for a charity.) IGive provides an annual statement of your contributions so you can claim them as tax deductions. You’re going to be making these purchases anyway…why not make a non-profit’s day at the same time?

If you know of other ways to help online, please share them. There’s a lot of non-profits out there doing good work and they can use all the help the rest of us can give them.