How do I love thee, Internet? Let me count the ways …
Well no, that would take entirely too long. I won’t even pretend I’m not a die-hard Internet junkie. I rely on it for so many things: it’s my school, my store, my teaching tool, my window into the world I can’t always get out into, it’s even my yellow pages (and yes my daydream distraction). But one of the most important things the Internet has given me is the chance to make a difference, to be charitable when I don’t have money or resources or spoons. Thanks to click-to-donate charities, I can do something good every single day, in a matter of minutes.
A few notes before we get started: the links are relatively well diversified between American and international charities. Most sites are in English and the ones that aren’t are easily translatable. Almost all recipient charities check as non-problematic. I’ve noted the ones that are controversial.
Ok, I think that covers the caveats, so let’s go do some good.
These sites have links/tabs to multiple charities. You can click each charity once per day.
Care2 (note: the breast cancer click funds Susan G. Komen exclusively)
The Hunger Site (note: The Breast Cancer Site does not fund Susan G. Komen; The Autism Site does fund Autism Speaks, among others)
These sites give you options of which charity to click, but you can only pick and click one per day:
These sites are singular:
Okruszek (note: this is the only site Google couldn’t translate at all. I really have no clue about it, other than it’s a food charity and it’s been around at least a couple of years.)
These sites are game/education based – you play games or answer questions and the more points you earn, the more you give.
Click to Aid – Choice of several games to play.
Give Vaccines – Correctly answer questions from one of four categories: medical terms, english words, pneumonia, and business.
Free Rice – Correctly answer questions from one of eight categories to donate: humanities, math, languages, science, english, chemistry, geography, and SAT prep.
Good Search – This is a search engine that funds various charities, including local charities and schools (you can pick what charity you want your points to go to and change your preferences as often as you wish). You can also register credit cards to earn money at local restaurants, or shop online to earn a percentage of purchases.
And for those times you do have a spare five dollar bill or free time, these charities need traditional donations of time or money.
Autistic Self Advocacy Network – A comprehensive organization dedicated to awareness and disability rights, by and for Autistic people. (Personal opinion time – if you truly want to make the world a better place for Autistic people, this is the group to support. These are the voices the other groups don’t actually listen to.)
Doctors Without Borders/M̩decins Sans Fronti̬res РInternational medical humanitarian organization providing emergency medical care and advocacy worldwide.
Donors Choose – Provides funds to teachers and classrooms for specific projects or needs.
FORWARD – The Foundation for Women’s Health Research and Development is an African Diaspora women’s campaign and support charity advancing sexual and reproductive health and rights for African women and girls.
Foundation 58 – Provides and helps with financial assistance for emergency responders dealing with cancer.
Girls Write Now – A writing and mentoring program for at-risk and underserved high school girls in New York City.
Global Girlfriend – A fair-trade boutique offering 100% women-made, fair trade, eco-friendly apparel, accessories and gifts. (This is also one of my favorites; it’s win-win. You get one-of-a-kind items and they get money to fund micro-loans and grants that help raise indigenous women out of poverty.)
Harvest of Hope Foundation – Provides emergency aid and assistance to migrant workers and families.
Kiva – An organization for micro-finance loans worldwide. Instead of donating, you loan money. At this time there is a 98.98% repayment rate. Once you are repaid, you can re-loan or withdraw the money.
National Network of Abortion Funds – Provides funds for individual abortions as well as training and support for activists.
National Coalition for the Homeless – Working to help people who are homeless and advocating to end it.
Save Wash – A fund set up for Wash Pratt-King, who has terminal brain cancer. Funds are used for day-today expenses, medical bills, and funeral arrangements.
The Fistula Foundation – Raising awareness of fistula and funding for fistula repair, prevention, and education.
11 replies on “A Little Bit of Clixie Dust”
Always nice to read something from one of the most insightful women I know. ;)
Thank you sugar. It’s wonderful to see you here :-*
Brenda, you mention Aut $pks as a downside and Promote ASAN as a good charity to give to? ILU FOREVER.
I’ve written The Autism Site to ask beg them to drop A$, no luck so far. ASAN really does deserve all the money, hopefully with enough people talking about it everyone will see which is the more worthy charity.
Just to clarify, if you aren’t actually donating money, how does clicking help? Is there an organization that pledges so much money per click, does it use money generated by ads on the site? How is it funded?
Most work on the principle that advertisers pay on x amounts of clicks – here’s the scoop directly from The Hunger Site:
Site sponsors purchase small ads on the Thank You page for a certain amount of time. The Hunger Site then tabulates the number of people who click during that time frame and bill the sponsor for the appropriate amount. The Hunger Site divides the click monies between three leading hunger relief organizations: Mercy Corps, Feeding America (formerly America’s Second Harvest), and Millennium Promise.
100% of sponsor advertising fees goes to our charitable partners.
Okay, thanks. That’s one of those things that always had me side-eyeing places. Except Free Rice cause I freaking love vocab games, so I never really thought about it.
Free Rice is one of my favorites, thanks to them I’m no longer geographically illiterate (I’ve moved up to ignorant :-)
I….. thought ‘Clixie Dust’ was going to be in reference to something…. else.
*ahem*
As you were.
Oops, my bad for misleading – but that’s an idea for the next list :-D
I did too! Ah ha ha ha. .