Several months ago, my friend and coworker Steven Garrity started displaying Google AdSense advertisements on his weblog as an experiment. Thankfully, he's using some simple filtering so the only people who see his ads are those that arrive via a search result, so regular readers never see them at all. Apparently, from these visitors he's been taking in a reasonable amount of money. Not enough to retire on, but more than just a little pocket change.
Steven's too modest (surprisingly) to mention the one extraordinary thing about his implementation of AdSense on his weblog: he's not keeping any of the money. That's right, he's giving it all to charity. Each month, when his AdSense cheque arrives in the post, he chooses a suitable charity and sends those earnings on. So far I'm pretty sure he's helped the Creative Commons, an immigrant family coming from the Ivory Coast, the Mozilla Foundation, and various others.
While I'm sure Steven's not the only person in the world doing this, I thought it was commendable and writing about it might encourage others to do the same.
Comments
Steven Garrity - November 18, 2004 7:00 pm
Thanks for the post Daniel. It was the Electronic Frontier Foundation rather than the Creative Commons (though I think they might be somehow affiliated).
Feels nice to give - and it's not so hard to do when it's just supplimental income like this (even if it's not a huge amount).
Levi - November 21, 2004 9:51 pm
Steven, does your charity include subsidizing my education expenses? (U of S - favicon at right)
A good socialist recognizes the value of contribution to a fellow comrade in need. Besides, it will feel nice. And you'll buy more reputation.
;)
Chris Hodgdon - December 14, 2004 10:28 pm
I happened across your site while search for some information on Adsense. I am happy to see someone that is will to help make a difference by donating their funds to worthy causes. I wanted to come and leave a note and to also say that if you are intrested in helping find missing children (kidnapped, abducted, lost, run-away, etc.) that our orgnization can use your help.
We are always in need of funds to help continue our efforts. We also accept funds to help disaster victims around the world, but right now are looking for more funds for our children's program. If you did not know, between 2000 to 3000 children are reported missing each day in the US, yes, I said each day. That's about 2 kids every 45 seconds.
We accept donations through various sources, include PayPal, StormPay, e-Checks and more. You can view more information on our site <a href="http://www.southernrescue.org/secure" target="_blank">http://www.southernrescue.org/secure/</a> (leads to links for various donation options), or just check out our site in general <a href="http://www.southernrescue.org" target="_blank">http://www.southernrescue.org</a>, and our new Missing Children's site, <a href="http://www.findchild.org" target="_blank">http://www.findchild.org</a>.
We are a registered 51(c)(3) organization and all donations are <b>100% Tax Deductible</b>.