Charitable Clicking

Numerous web sites allow you to do exactly that. These web sites aren't purely altruistic: Most are for-profit ventures that generate money through advertising. But they have vowed to direct part of their advertising revenues to charitable causes — provided you click on their site.

Now, most of these sites aren't generating huge dollars for your charity of choice, notes Ted Hart, president of the ePhilanthropy Foundation, which helps nonprofit organizations use the Internet for fund raising. But they do generate something . So while you shouldn't give up on your other charitable donations, a few extra clicks will only take a few seconds — and should ultimately help someone in need.

You can do good while:

1. Searching the Web
Instead of using Google, Yahoo or MSN, try Goodsearch.com, a new Yahoo-powered search engine that donates a portion of its advertising revenue to charities.

How it works: Donations are generated each time users click on the sponsored ads that come up in a search. (The sponsored advertising model is used by all search engines: Advertisers pay for their links to appear in a special box above or to the side of search results when specific search terms are entered. For example, if you search the term "mortgage broker," along with your search results the engine returns a number of links that will cost the advertiser a fee each time users actually click on them. No money exchanges hands if people don't click on the sponsored links.)

Goodsearch.com founders Ken and J.J. Ramberg (who are brother and sister) plan to direct half of the revenue that their search engine generates toward charities that users specify using a pull-down menu on the search engine home page. Currently, more than 900,000 charities and schools are listed, according to Ken Ramberg. If your favorite charity isn't there, you can submit its information online and it will be added after verification.

How much can you expect to generate in terms of donations? According to Ken Ramberg, a small charity with 100 supporters who use Goodsearch.com twice a day would receive about $730 a year from those searches. (That averages one penny per search.)

A note of caution: While only actual clicks on the sponsored ads generate ad revenue, users should not be tempted to click on these ads just to raise money for their charities. This is considered click fraud, Ramberg explains, and Yahoo and the other search providers have tools to track it. Should folks do this consistently while using Goodsearch.com, the search engine will lose credibility — and advertisers. In other words, just use Goodsearch.com as you normally would use any other search engine — the average penny-per-search is calculated based on this "normal" behavior.

2. Reading the News
Instead of going to Yahoo or MSN for your daily news fix, go to Givesmart.com — a new web portal that launched in mid-December that will direct at least 25% of its advertising revenue toward charities selected by the users.

How it works: GiveSmart.com generates revenue through online advertising, parts of which it will redirect to charities. Users are not required to click or search anything in order to "donate." Currently, the web site runs news provided by the Associated Press (but GiveSmart.com is working on forming additional partnership to provide more content, according to founder Brian Carrozzi), has a search engine and can serve as a shopping portal through partnerships with more than 700 merchants.

By simply browsing the site and reading the news, Carrozzi estimates a user can help contribute about $20 to $25 to their charity of choice each year. The contributions can grow substantially if the site is used as a shopping portal, since a portion of all user spending will also be donated.