How to Be a Philanthropist with No Money and Only Ten Minutes a Day
By Lillie Ammann
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Do you have favorite charities you support? Would you like to increase your giving without increasing your spending?
If so, then take advantage of the many "click-to-give" sites on the Internet. These sites are sponsored by advertisers who donate a small amount every time you click on a banner or button.
As with offline charities, you need to do a little research to determine which charitable sites to frequent. First, you want to be sure the money is going to a cause and an organization you support. The button may say "click to help children" or "click to fight cancer," but you may have delve a little deeper to find exactly which organizations receive the funds. The best sites include detailed information about each organization that receives support, so take a few minutes the first time you visit to ensure that you agree with the group's philosophy.
There are so many click-to-give sites that no one would have time to support all the worthy causes. I have reviewed a number of sites and decided which ones merit a few minutes of my time each day. Part of my daily routine is to click on each of these sites. Most will credit only one visit a day, so there's no value in clicking over and over again on the same button or banner.
QuickDonations.com < http://quickdonations.com > has a menu of free donation sites, including many that list multiple causes. The menu can be daunting at first glance - there are a hundred or more links. However, they are grouped by category: hunger, diseases of all kinds, disasters, ecology and the environment, homelessness, landmines . There are many needs in the world.
Charities include such well-known organizations as The Red Cross, the City of Hope Medical and Research Center, and the United Way. Tiny, specialized groups are also represented: Street Angels Africa (to build a drop-in center for street kids in Dakar, Senegal), All Farmers Rural (to support the Royal Flying Doctor Service in the Australian outback), Give A Minute (to provide medical care for the impoverished Tarahumara Indians in Creel , Mexico), SolvePoverty.com (to provide micro-loans for economic development and job creation in Third World countries), and DonateMusic.com (to provide instruments to music institutions). Whatever your interests, you can find a cause close to your heart.
How much is each donation worth? It varies considerably -- the highest I have seen is $1.00 per click. Some are only about 1/10th of a cent, but most are measured in terms of cups of food, hours of medical care, feet of rainforest saved, or other indication of the results. Each individual donation may seem insignificant, but when thousands or millions of Internet users are clicking every day, the total funds raised for charity can make a huge difference in the world.
I click on about twenty free donation buttons and banners each day. I am helping organizations and people around the world, just like a rich philanthropist, but it only costs me ten minutes a day.
There are also "shop-to-give" sites, such as iGive.com <http://www.igive.com >. If you enter a shopping mall or merchant through iGive, a percentage of your purchase will be donated to the charity of your choice. You pay the same price you would if you went directly to Amazon.com, Barnes&Noble.com, Powells.com, Borders.com, or any of the other three hundred-plus participating stores. However, if you start your shopping at iGive.com, those merchants will make a donation (ranging from .4% for computers to over 25% for some magazines) to your favorite charity. Won't you feel better about your shopping spree knowing part of what you spent is a charitable donation?
Choose a few favorite charities to click on every day, and you too can be a philanthropist with no money and only ten minutes a day.
