Easy and Cheap Ways to Help Charities

One of my biggest goals for my money is to be able to help people more. Right now, when I'm in a position where I have a lot of time, but not a lot of money, I'm always looking for creative and low cost ways to help charities. Over the years, I've developed an arsenal of ways to help, from the low commitment/low impact to the high commitment/high impact, and have gone in and out of using them over time.

Super Low Commitment

1. Click Probably the easiest way to help charities is to spend about two minutes every day on click to donate sites. These are sites that accumulate sponsors willing to donate a set amount of money to charity per page view, click, or action. The click amounts generally range from about 2 cents per click to about 25 cents, with an occasional temporary click drive that pays up to $1 per click. The original click site is The Hunger Site, which has now expanded to serve several causes, including Breast Cancer research and Rainforest protection. My personal favorite is the Care2 races, which also include a lot of content, tips, and information. When I have more time, I go to this click to donate index and try to click on as many extra sites as I can. I figure every little bit helps!

2. Search I recently discovered a search site called Search Kindly, which uses Google's engine, but donates proceeds to charity. You can even add it to your search box in IE, making it just as easy as searching Google, but with a benefit to charity.

3. Email For my primary web mail, I use Planet Save Email in place of Yahoo or Hotmail. It's a free email server that, to me, is just as good as the big ones, but donates a portion of profits to rainforest preservation. They have had a few glitches in the past but seem to have resolved them. Other sites that offer free charity webmail support Breast Cancer Research and the environment.

Slightly More Commitment