OTHER EASY WAYS TO DONATE | Four ideas



Use a different search engine: Charitycafe.com donates money to the World Wildlife Fund, Oxfam and Greenpeace each time a user searches through its Web site. The site uses Ask.com and Lycos to search the Internet. The two search engines fund the donations as payment for the Web traffic sent to their sites. The site, which calls itself the world's first "search and donate free site," launched in October 2000.
Switch Web-based e-mail accounts: PlanetSave offers 25 MB of free e-mail space. Every time a user logs on to his e-mail account, PlanetSave sponsors donate money to "Friends of the Calakmul," a group that conserves the Selva Maya rain forest in Mexico.
Join a social networking site: New York University student Marek Grodzicki created a Facebook group pledging, "For every 1,000 people who join this group, I will donate 1 for Darfur." Though Grodzicki said he is "no millionaire by any means," as this story went to press the group had already garnered more than 453,000 members. He will tally up the numbers in January 2007, then make his donation. Other students have promised to match his pledge. Grodzicki's group has also inspired other students to begin similar groups on Facebook, pledging money for issues such as breast cancer or global warming.
Buy a product: All of the CharityUSA sites have on-site stores, the profits of which go directly to charities. Rocker Bono just launched Product Red, in coordination with partners such as Gap and Converse, to support the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. Buy a shirt, some shoes or shades, and you'll be donating money.
Source: Christian Science Monitor