How To Support Charities When You Have No Money

For many of us, our hearts are bigger than our wallets. We see the ads, we watch the news, and we want to do something. But we just can't spare the extra cash.

The internet to the rescue! (How often can you say that?) No one likes ads. Many of us use ad blockers in our browsers because they are just so darn annoying! But what if those ads could be used for good?

Many charities are using the power of in-browser ads to raise money for their causes. Keep reading to find out how.

Tab For A Cause

Tab For A Cause is a free and easy to use Chrome extension and Microsoft Edge Add-on. Every time you open a new tab in Chrome or Edge, their special page opens. It contains two ads, a Google search bar, and an update on how much has been raised for their charities. You choose the cause you want to support, and go about using the internet as you normally would. The ad revenue from those two ads that only appear when you open a new tab is the donation.

"One of the simplest ways to raise money." -USA Today

GreaterGood

GreaterGood is a collection of sites that support various causes such as hunger, breast cancer, animals, literacy, veterans, and more. You must allow ads in order for this to work. So turn off your ad blocker.

Once the page loads, click the button that says, "CLICK TO GIVE - IT'S FREE!" A new page will load with more ads thanking you and offering more opportunities to click to donate. They also run a store, so you can shop for a cause too if you so choose.

GreaterGood has given more than $70 million to charities around the world since 1999.

Free Kibble

At Free Kibble, you are asked a multiple choice trivia question about dogs. Regardless of whether you get it correct or not, the value of 10 pieces of kibble is donated to a pet shelter in need. You can also click to donate food for cats and click to donate litter for shelter cats.

Freekibble’s donated over 5,556,236,648 pieces of kibble to hungry dogs and cats!

Free the Ocean

Free the Ocean is another site that asks you a trivia question. Every answer funds the removal of one piece of plastic from the ocean. The ad revenue generated funds two organizations, Sustainable Coastlines Hawaii and the Parley Global Cleanup Network. You can learn more about the process by clicking the Impact button.

Free the Ocean's mission is built on three equally important pillars: Sustainability, Education, and Action.

Freerice

Freerice is less a trivia site and more a game site. (It describes itself as an "educational trivia game.") You answer multiple choice questions in one of a great number of categories of you choosing. There are so many categories that they are divided into greater categories. You can learn a new language, brush up on pop culture, practice your math skills, and more!

In their own words: "Every question you answer correctly raises 10 grains of rice for the World Food Programme (WFP) to support its work saving and changing lives around the world. ... 100% of all funds generated via Freerice go to the World Food Programme. Freerice does not earn or keep any money it raises."

Over 214 billion lifetime grains.

BeanBeanBean

Similar to Freerice, BeanBeanBean is an charity quiz site that offers questions in five categories: knowledge, math, language, geography, and science. With each answer, right or wrong, a large dot falls to the bottom of the screen (the beans, one assumes). Sometimes they bounce off each other and roll around.

You are given a goal, and when you reach that goal, you are given the option to donate the beans you've earned. The beans are actually converted to a dollar amount, and that money is then donated to charity rather than actual beans. The focus is on "US-based food banks, natural disaster relief efforts, and other assorted charities." You can see a donation history on the site.

Beanbeanbean.com receives approximately 254 visitors and 1,217 page impressions per day. -Hypestat.com