Is there a nonprofit you’d like to support?  If it’s not registered under good search, you can submit the charity here.   You can add a GoodSearch toolbar to facilitate searches.  Most importantly, nonprofits can add GoodSearch banners, badges and buttons to encourage supporters to search.  Nonprofits can also encourage supporters to add the GoodSearch badge to their personal social networking sites.

If you online shop frequently, GoodShop will donate 30% of  every purchase from participating vendors to the charity of your choice.

Since its inception, GoodSearch has met with good reviews as a way to encourage support for many different charities.

The downside?  The GoodSearch engine will not yield as many results as stronger search engines.  However, as a way to start a search and a donor tool,  GoodSearch is a great resource.

What are other ways to utilize search engines and internet resources to donate?

Not only can a donor contribute directly to Tostan through its donation tab, the nonprofit provides other creative methods to participate in its efforts.  Tostan does well to offer site visitors a separate tab, “Free Ways to Give.”  Easily identified, visitor can find other methods, especially during a tight holiday season, to donate.

Two of the methods, Good Search and Amazon take no effort at all.  Good Search is a search engine that will make small donations to chosen charity when used.  Amazon will make a free referral to Tostan every time the site is accessed through the Tostan site.    Clearly marked and easily accessed, these donation platforms empower a youthful generation with high ideals and low cashflow to begin a relationship with an organization.

Interestingly, this post comes in the wake of a  critical NY Times article regarding the abundance of questionable 501(c)(3) nonprofits offering similar services and damaging tax breaks.  In a harsh economy and a competitive nonprofit sector,  international development organizations with unique foundation and creative methods of donating stand out.  It is important, as the Charity Navigator blog notes, to truly research your charity. 

Write a comment and share other nonprofit sites that make donating a cinch or that have a standout model.

I discussed Mercy Corps earlier regarding the organization’s poignant and strategic use of Twitter.  Today, I revisit the nonprofit for its tactic in  acquiring holiday donations.  Like some its competitors such as Heifer International , Mercy Corps packages donating as “gift-giving.”  Its differentiator, however, is  to ”give the gift that lasts a lifetime,” a Mercy Kit.    

Donors have a choice of kits ranging from $25 and up, and benefiting specific causes.  One such kit is the Play to Heal Kit.  For $75,  a donor gives a child who has experienced trauma a mentor, supplies, and a caregiver manual.  If the donation is made for someone else, the named person receives a card.  Each kit page contains a story of  a person helped, a donor testimonial and a donation widget.

One testimonial: “The way that the Mercy Kit is presented makes it feel tangible. You get a real sense of how your gift could help someone.”

Brian Powell, Cause Marketing expert and author of the blog,  Good Concepts, would say this testimonial is at the heart of effective donation garnering.  He recently noted that two important quotients of cause marketing are transparency and tangibility.  Without promoting the truth of where donation dollars go, it is hard for a  nonprofit to compete.  Powell states that donors need a 1-to-1 ratio,  ”This $75 dollar sum buys this, this and this.”  Overall, nonprofits need to package a donation in a manner that answers Powell’s big ‘D’ question, “Will this donation make a difference?”

According to Charity Navigator, human services nonprofits experienced the biggest drop in donations last year.  However, these are the organizations that need money the most during the holidays.  It seems crucial, then, that organizations like Mercy Corps ensure their messaging reflect the big ‘D.’

A personal “Thank You” displaying that 1 -to-1 ratio from Jeremy Barnicle,  Mercy Corps Marketing and Communications Vice President

What organizations also do this well?

The true reason I mention Mercy Corps, however, is for the nonprofit’s use of  Twitter.  While I sometimes debate the true effectiveness of microblogging when it comes to garnering donations, I think Mercy Corps developed the right blend of 140-character fueled public information and public solicitation, and encouraged retweeting.  Here is an example of the last few tweets:

“Writer @loudmind shares his most memorable meals from the field. (And how it all started w/ Indiana Jones.) http://bit.ly/5XIdcR about 9 hours ago from web

If you can spend $10 on cranberry sauce, can you spend $10 a help feed a family? Put the “giving” back in Thanksgiving: http://bit.ly/QKG4X about 13 hours ago from web

Take a look at what women in CAR and our team around the globe are thankful for. Then add your thanks: http://bit.ly/4oXciH #thanksgiving “

They connect followers to the Mercy Corps blog, encourage donation and foster interaction with the nonprofit. 

Interestingly, Beth Kanter, social media and nonprofit expert and author of “Beth’s Blog”, notes some interesting trends in Twitter solicitations that Mercy Corps appears to  adopt.  In particular, the fostering of “person to person asks.”

She advocates, and I agree, that the strategy behind the posts that can lead to the ultimate goal, donations.  What do you think?

I had the opportunity to work with this Maine-based organization as a project for a nonprofit public relations class, and it is too spectacular not to mention.  Working within the Justinian Hospital system, Konbit Sante strives to sustainably improve health care in northern Haiti.

In a country where poverty, food shortages and poor health care spell fatality, Konbit Sante makes a difference.  They are finding success in their development model, Konbit Sante-creole for “together for health.”

Check out the site, and find out more about the nonprofit’s efforts in one of the world’s poorest countries.

When discussing Direct Relief International, I noted that purpose and audience should drive a video’s  format, production, etc.  Direct Relief’s videos target an audience with an interest in the organization or its approach.

Charity: Water’s video follows Gillin’s AEIOU (B) rule, but in contrast is high in production and entertainment value:

I love this video.  Short, empowering and vivid, it clearly targets a larger audience pool.  Scott Harrison, Charity: Water’s founder, once worked in promotions for the New York nightlife scene.  Perhaps his experiences inform the more flashy PSAs and videos on the nonprofit’s YouTube channel. 

Charity: Water is no stranger to new media promotion and marketing, and has used the YouTube medium to its fullest advantage.  In fact, YouTube introduced me to Charity: Water;  the nonprofit won a contest as one of the top four charities viewers wanted highlighted on the site.  My first thought: “Huh.  That’s a really good video.”

Such tactics bring us back to my first point: purpose. Charity: Water is a youthful nonprofit reaching out to a wide and youthful audience.  These videos troll for donors versus inform interested parties.  Either way, “That’s a really good video.”

I was recently chatting with a colleague  about “Worldly Nonprofit,” and she suggested I intersperse my posts with creative/new/different ways to donate.  Good  idea…

…Following her excellent advice, I took a slight risk and enabled Social Vibe on sidebar of this blog.  Social Vibe partners with select charities and corporate sponsors to make microdonations for blog visitors.

To donate,  the reader needs to click the Social Vibe widget, then watch and rate a video short.  However, the risks lie in potentially annoying readers and appearing to favor one particular nonprofit organization on a blog that somewhat evaluates nonprofit organizations.

Weighing the options, I opted to try Social Vibe and support Vitamin Angels.  Based in Santa Barbara,  Vitamin Angels mobilizes resources in the private sector to provide vitamin nutrients to children in developing nations.  Of the Social Vibe partnering nonprofits, Vitamin Angels was the most easily researched.

Utilizing 99% of funds on program expenses, Charity Angels is also pursuing sustainable methods of vitamin distribution, key in my eyes.  

So, we’ll give Social Vibe a try.  Check out Vitamin Angels, and click on the widget to donate, if you’d like.  

What do you think of Social Vibe?  Have you had successes or failures with this fundraiser?