Have you ever wanted to help out in some way, but just didn’t know what to do, so instead you did nothing? Unfortunately, many of us are in this boat. According to the latest Google trends, interest in “how to donate to charity” has increase significantly since 2007.
Perhaps you’re incredibly busy, incredibly lazy, or you simply have no extra cash to spare. Thankfully, it is becoming increasingly easy to donate to any cause online.
Not only can these methods be used from the comfort of your couch, but they are also totally free. If doing something good for others without spending a cent sounds too good to be true, read on to discover these clever and fun ways to give to charity for free.
Free Rice
Freerice.com is a bored philanthropist’s dream come true. Whether your nodding off at work, or relaxing with your Ipad at home, freerice allows you to play trivia games and donate food for free.
How it Works
There’s no need to sign up, just visit the site and select your language in the right-hand corner of the screen. You can begin playing right away or select the Subjects tab and choose the trivia topic you want. The site is perfect for kids, as there are a variety of educational subjects like science, literature, and math.
You can then immediately start playing. For each answer you get right, the World Food Programme donates 10 grains of rice to relieve world hunger. You can watch your rice pile up in the side bowl as you play. You can even join groups and track your amount of grains donated over time (and brag about it on Facebook and Twitter obviously).
Click to Give
Clicktogive has literally compacted the donation process down to two clicks. There is really no valid excuse not to visit this site for a moment each day.
How it Works
Visit the homepage and select which cause you’d like to donate to (you can do more than one). There are a variety of causes for children including homelessness, abuse, and cancer aid. You can also donate to animal care. Once you click on your cause, simply click again when the “Click to give” button appears, and that’s it. Two clicks of a mouse and your donation is processed by sponsors.
There is an option to register, which would enable you to receive points for your clicks. (Yes, you can be rewarded for your charitable mouse-clicks). Also, you can sign up for a daily click reminder, which would take no more than 30 seconds out of your daily routine.
Give 2 Charity
Of course, it wouldn’t be a proper list if we left out ways to donate through your smartphone. Give 2 Charity is a free mobile app that allows you to earn points and later redeem them for donations to charities like Make-a-Wish Foundation and the Sierra Club.
How it works
According to Google play, “Give 2 Charity measures device data, including location, apps and web activity, for the purpose of analytics and reporting.” Now don’t get yourself in a huff. Give 2 Charity assures that no individual user info is given to third parties, and the data is never used for ad targeting.
Amazon Smile
Amazon Smile is a popular, recently launched program that enables you to give to charities while shopping on Amazon. Prices and products are the same on Amazon Smile as they are on regular Amazon. The checkout process is also the same.
How it works
The only difference in shopping through Amazon Smile is that you must visit smile.amazon.com. While not every product for sale is eligible, you can easily determine which ones are by looking for “Eligible for AmazonSmile donation” on each product’s detail page. On the first visit, you must select a charity.
To make sure your selection was recorded, go to smile.amazon.com and look towards the top left of the screen. If you are signed in, you should see a link that says “Supporting:” and the name of your charity. By clicking on this, you can then click “change you charity” and search for more, or select one of Amazon’s spotlight charities.
Amazon donates .5% of your purchase price to the charity of your choice, while you pay no extra costs. If this sounds meager to you, it is. However, consider the number of purchases Amazon receives daily. A few cents per month from thousands of people can add up fast. In order to make a genuine impact, return to this section of Amazon for all of your future purchases.
There are currently close to a million organizations set up with Amazon, so you shouldn’t have much trouble finding causes to support. If your favorite nonprofit doesn’t seem to be set up with Amazon Smile yet, direct them to org.amazon.com where they can register to receive donations.
The Hunger Site
The Hunger Site is similar to Click to Give in that donations are super easy and fast. There is a button at the top of the webpage that allows user to click and donate food in a matter of seconds.
How it works
Across the top of the site, there are a variety of other causes you can donate to in the same way, including Autism, Literacy, and Rainforest funding. There are also several categories to shop from, like Kitchen and Garden tools, Jewelry, and Clothing. Purchases help fight famine in Africa and hunger in the United States.
Conclusion
So there are a few quick and outrageously simple ways to give to charity for free. Most of these methods take as little as a minute to complete or set up. Your excuses are no longer valid, so get online and donate!
