Do good by doing nothing
Exploring goodsearch.com
07.08.08
by: Jennifer Marshall

Those of you who know me would likely comment that I’m evolving into a bit of an animal nut. Between going vegetarian late ’07, adopting two rescue pugs, and filling my Google Reader with animal rights RSS feeds, forget year of the rat – ‘tis year of the animal kingdom for me.

After reading an inspiring book, I was motivated to contact my local Meals on Wheels in regards to a program called WALOP (We All Love Our Pets). Through grant money provided by Banfield Pet Hospital, local chapters of Meals on Wheels are encouraged to start pet divisions that provide food for homebound clients’ pets.

Now several months later, I have been working with the wonderful staff at Albuquerque Meals on Wheels to develop this program. As our target kick-off date of September 2008 nears, I am increasingly aware of online opportunities to help raise money for non-profits and charities.

Goodsearch.com is a search engine that lets users select his or her charity of choice. When a search is conducted, a percentage of advertisement revenue is donated to the user’s charity of choice. Currently the site estimates that 61,000+ non-profits are participating with an average of 100 more joining daily.

An element of the site that I find truly innovative is their GoodShop tool.

Over 500 companies participate with GoodShop. Notable brands include Amazon, Nike, Sears, Staples, 1-800-Flowers, Travelocity, Old Navy and Zappos.com. By clicking through from GoodShop to companies’ websites and shopping, companies will donate up to 30% of your purchase for your designated charity.

After combing through the list of affiliated companies, I estimate that my average online purchases in a year could generate a minimum of $700 in donations to my charity of choice. And by doing what? Just starting off my online buying process with a click from GoodSearch.com.

The potential to make a difference just by altering your own shopping habits online can greatly influence a local charity or non-profit. The Albuquerque Meals on Wheels Pet Program referenced above has only $1,400 in seed money for our first year. By designating the local MOW chapter as my charity of choice, I could increase total seed money by 50% - by doing nothing.

A truly powerful application of GoodShop is on the corporate level. Office Depot donates 4% of online purchases and Staples donates 2%. Or consider routing computer purchases for your office through this site – Dell donates 2%, HP 2% and Apple 1%. Even requesting travel plans to be booked through Travelocity.com will generate 1% in donations.

Intuition and research suggest that as the economy slows down there is a direct correlation with non-profit fundraising and donations. Tough times call for innovative measures like GoodShop to help develop new fundraising streams for charities – especially when it costs nothing additional to their support base.

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