KINDNESS MEETS BOTTOM LINE onlineBy SYD BAUMEL
Click a mouse, feed the hungry. Shop online, support a charity. Philanthropy and business have found a happy new medium: The Worldwide Web.In a win, win, win situation, online visitors to thehungersite.com can click on a button to donate food to the world's 800 million hungry or starving--and have someone else pay for it.
Is there a catch? Only if you're really cynical.
To begin with, you can't donate more than once a day. (You can try, but the site will only register your first donation.) And with five to ten companies or individuals (on an average day) each committed to pay for a quarter cup of staples for every online clicker, that still means "you" can feed one or two meals a day to a hungry person.
Catch number two: The sponsors--who wind up cutting a cheque for about $1000 a day to the UN's World Food Program (WFP)--are rewarded with more than just a good conscience and a tax write-off. Their clickable banners are featured on the thank-you page. Click once to feed the hungry. Click twice to visit proflowers.com.
The brainchild of an Indiana software programmer named John Breen, the equivalent of nearly 200 million cups of cooked staples--rice, maize, beans, etc.--have been donated to the WFP since the hunger site's debut in June of 1999. It's a slight, but significant dent in the hunger of a world where--as the animated map on the hunger site's homepage demonstrates--someone (usually a child) dies directly or indirectly of starvation every 3.6 seconds.
In addition to educating websurfers about world hunger, the hunger site has a page of links to major hunger organizations and relief agencies. Click on those links to learn more and to make a donation on your own dime. But before you do, sign the Hunger Site's petition to "the United Nations and its governing bodies to increase its resource commitment to end world hunger." The hunger site hopes to have one million names on that electronic world poll when it delivers it to the UN's Food and Agricultural Organization on World Food Day, October 16, 2000.
What's that you say? You have online shopping to do?
Thanks to another Internet innovation, you now can shop at dozens of online businesses and have up to 20 percent of the money you spend donated to a not-for-profit cause of your choice.
There are at least half a dozen websites where you can select or request a cause (Amnesty International, The Red Cross, Unicef--you name it, literally) and then link to any of the sites' affiliated businesses, reasonably confident that a stated percentage of any purchase you make will really go to that cause. At 4charity.com, super retailer Amazon.com gives up to 15 percent, while Healthshop.com and WholeFoods.com hand over a generous 20 percent of any purchase. At Amazon.com, you can continue your charitable splurge by buying the compilation CD, No Boundaries. Featuring 15 of the world's kewlest rock artists (Pearl Jam, Peter Gabriel, Sarah McLaughlin), all the proceeds benefit Kosovar refugees.
There's one significant hitch for Canadians. So far, only US websites--4charity.com, MyCause.com, GreaterGood.com, iGive.com, shoptogive.com, shopforchange.com--appear to be involved. And they only want you to donate to causes registered with the American IRS (Internal Revenue Service). The idea (another catch) is that they or their affiliate businesses (all or most of them American) can make a tax deduction. But MyCause.com founder Brendan Wyly says they're considering adding non-American causes--tax deductions be damned. And if you pay for your purchases using one of Citizens Bank's Oxfam, Amnesty International, or Shared Interest VISA cards, Canada's bank with a social conscience will also donate a dime (literally) every time, online or offline--and $20 to $40 when you sign up for the card (www.citizensbank.ca; 888-708-7807).
Any other catches? I consulted two of the majors: MyCause.com and 4charity.com. Both seem sincere and without exploitative agendas. 4charity.com boasts of being able (unlike mycause.com, for instance) to pass along every penny its affiliates are willing to donate, because it uses its website to attract other business. "Our business model," explains representative Karen Askey-Vaughan, "generates revenue by offering services to corporations, advanced internet tools for non-profit organizations, and advertising."
Business model?
That's right. Ironically, all or most of these sites are themselves businesses, not "not-for-profits."
But the purpose of mycause.com has never been to get rich, says Wyly. "We would love it if MyCause would take over our lives and warrant spending all our energies on it and pay a decent salary in return. However, if that does not happen we are content to run it with the more modest goal of covering expenses and feeling good about our efforts."
Because MyCause.com doesn't run a side business like 4charity.com, it has to pay those expenses by requesting a small commission from its affiliate businesses, reducing the amount those businesses can donate to your cause.
One way or another, a healthy new blend of altruism and self-interest is alive and well on the Net.
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