We’ve been hearing a lot lately about “donor fatigue”, which dictionary.com defines as, “a general weariness and diminished public response to requests for aid to needy people or donations to charitable causes”.
Between the natural disasters and the puppy mill raids and the increased need for services in this economy, it is easy to see how people might start to grow weary of the concept of “giving”.
The other day, Jacqueline, who blogs at 365 Give, reminded me that there are several ways to “contribute” online without shelling out the cash. She pointed me to Click to Give, a website that supports six charities in different areas of need. The concept is that all we need do is click a link, and the site’s advertisers make a small donation to the cause. Clicking through the six links for the six causes doesn’t take much time, even when I am conscientious about looking at the advertisements.
The Greater Good Network is a group of websites that does similar work. They have a “click to give” program as well as merchandise sales that support charitable causes, include many Fair Trade items that I am flagging for the holiday season. According to their website, in 2010 they contributed over $400,000 to the Petfinder Foundation alone. Not an animal lover? They also contributed $579,000 to the National breast Cancer Foundation.
Finally, if you really enjoy wasting time on the internet, Free Rice is a website that has games to make charitable contributions. There are six subject areas (when did they add Literature?!) with multiple choice trivia questions. For each question that you answer correctly, 10 grains of rice are donated by advertisers. That doesn’t sound like much, but I have cleared 600 grains just while fooling around for this post!
So if you are like me and spend too much time online, please visit these sites. Every click counts!
Also posted to Glenview Patch.
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