Hi Diana & Susan, Susan, I think you are being a bit harsh here - as the link provided by Eugene <http://www.hoax-slayer.com/breast-cancer-email.html> indicates:
> However, 100% of funds generated via clicks on the "Fund Free Mammograms" > button and a portion of the purchase price for products sold in the site store > are used by the non-profit National Breast Cancer Foundation to provide free > mammograms to minority, and low-income women in the United States. However, having said that, personally my charitable leanings would not be directed to a charity that is restricted to helping people (however worthy) in the USA - I prefer to let the charitable population of the USA do that ;) Personally, I prefer to direct my charity either to Australian causes closer to my heart or to poorer countries that do not have the resources to help themselves (relatively speaking). The basic idea of clicking on a link as a simple way to direct money to charity is not, in itself, a scam. Basically online advertisers tend to pay on a basis of the number of times their advert is "viewed' and the idea is to then direct this revenue to a good cause. Where you have to be careful, however, is whether the set-up is legitimate (ie does the money actually go to the charitiy) and what cut (if any) gets siphoned off by the organizer for "overheads" or other fees. You may remember that I recently posted to the list regarding the "Ripple" organisation that I came across, which works on the same general principle of directing revenue from online advertising to charitable causes. I came across the site via an article about online business models (or similar) rather than by any direct promotion - so I was happy that it was a legitimate concern. The Ripple home page <http://www.ripple.org/> offers the same "click the button to send money to charity" function as the page that was referenced in Diane's original post - except that there are four buttons so you can choose what cause you are helping - water, food, education & money (small loans to poor borrowers). This page <http://www.ripple.org/click-handles.html> gives more detail as to how the money is applied. Three things particularly attracted me to this site: 1) They are an Australian venture (based in Melbourne) 2) They pass on ALL the advertising revenue to charity. 3) They do not apply the money themselves, they just generate it and pass it on to other legitimate charities - I liked this "arms-length' separation of functions. For anyone that is interested, here is some further info: >From the Ripple FAQ: > Okay right, but how does it work? > > It's simple. When you click on a give button you will be shown some > advertisements. We pass the revenue from these advertisements onto your chosen > charity. Set us as your homepage and click away. > > How much money does one click give? > > It ranges from 1c to 20c. It doesn't sound like much but it adds up quickly! > > If you're not making any money for yourself what motivated you to make this > site? > > Well here are a few facts that speak for themselves: > > * More than one billion people in the world live on less than one dollar a > day. > * In total, 2.7 billion struggle to survive on less than two dollars per > day. > * Every 3.6 seconds another person dies of starvation. Most of these > deaths are children. > * More than 2.6 billion people do not have basic sanitation, and more than > one billion people still use unsafe sources of drinking water. > > If we can, we should all be doing something about poverty. > > So how much money do you give to charities all up? > > Well, this is where you come in. If we have a community of 100, 000 users who > visit 3 times a week we could raise over $1.5 million a year. If we had as > many members as MySpace we would raise over $2 billion dollars a year. We pee > our pants a little just thinking about it. Ripple on Wikipedia: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ripple_%28charitable_organisation%29> (with links to a couple of articles in The Age newspaper) Just my 2c worth ;) Cheers Neil -- Neil R. Houghton Albany, Western Australia Tel: +61 8 9841 6063 Email: n...@possumology.com on 10/2/10 10:30 AM, Susan Hastings at susanhasti...@me.com wrote: > > Yes, you are right to be suspicious, don't click on the link. > > --- > Susan Hastings > Mobile: 0409688004 > > > On 10/02/2010, at 10:05 AM, Diana & Graham Stevens > <diag...@iinet.net.au> wrote: > >> >> Hi all the knowledgeable people >> >> A friend in England sent me this message: >> >> QUOTE >> Every morning, or evening, when I first sign on to see if I've any >> mail, I click on this link, and in some magic way give money for >> breast-cancer research! It doesn't cost me a penny! >> >> I believe they hope I'll read the many adverts on the page.....which >> is why it is worth-while for them! >> >> Thought you might like to do the same? >> >> www.thebreastcancersite.com/clickToGive/home.faces?siteId=2 >> UNQUOTE >> >> I have an aversion to clicking on anything foreign but I am >> interested to know if it is a scam and if not how it works. >> >> Best wishes from Diana >> -- The WA Macintosh User Group Mailing List -- Archives - <http://www.wamug.org.au/mailinglist/archives.shtml> Guidelines - <http://www.wamug.org.au/mailinglist/guidelines.shtml> Unsubscribe - <mailto:wamug-unsubscr...@wamug.org.au>
