Donations

Since starting Adsense and earning revenue from Bannerblog I stated I would donate 25% of all proceeds to charity. Well I did this last year in spades and donated a hefty chunk to charity. I actually donated all of my first 6 months of adsense cash to charity which was a sizeable amount. I just realised today that the 25% payment hasn't been done by myself and now I've got pangs of guilt for not living up to a simple promise. I recently upped my regular donations to the charities I support. I think I secretly feel guilty about when I was a kid I stole donation money from the MS Read A Thon (didn't hand in all the money I collected. Sorry Michael J Fox) and have ever since felt the need to make donations. I currently support the following charities with regular donations but only for $50-$100 a month which isn't that much at all in the grand scheme of things. Oxfam MSF UNHCR (after seeing a great doco on Darfur) and recently the WWF I am finding it hard to add new charities to the list as many of them are all tied up with religions. This CAF page isn't exactly a very good search engine for them either. World Vision used to get plenty of cash from me a few years back but after finding out it's Christian relief organisation. "Just look at their logo" I was told. I rang them after hearing this and asked them "do you use any of my donation money for bibles or other religious paraphernalia" and the response was "if that's what is needed in that area then yes" "to which I replied "since when is a bible ever needed for a person who lives in a war torn or starving nation! you can't eat a bible" and then politely ended the call. I'm also getting heaps of paper junk from these charities. This annoys me as they could have just called or emails and saved themselves money and paper. I rang them to ask not to be sent paper crap so hopefully this will cease. I guess the easiest way to do something nice for a charity is to donate your time or skills to help them out. But I think logistically this would be more hassle than it's worth to them. I can easily ask others to pick something that earns them extra income like Adsense or selling craft on Etsy or Ebay and donate 25% of that to a charity. If everyone did that I think we'd all feel better. Charities have embraced the web and made donating much easier than it has ever been but they haven't really latched onto the social media side of things. I remember seeing a widget that you could add to your blog which let people donate money and you coudl track how much your blog has contributed but I saw this at Cannes while judging. Also the system was down and I was judging a "award page" for something that looked like it had failed to get any traction. I guess Tap Project and Earth Hour are good examples but both are limited when it comes to "social media" and both of these have been led/instigated by advertising agencies not the actual charities themselves. Are the only people with good ideas the ones who are out to self promote themselves?. Or do charities just hire people with limited creativity but a big heart.