Surf report: How to donate without spending a dime
- Tab for a Cause browser extension lets you donate just for Web surfing
- Charity Miles app lets you pick a non-profit to benefit from your exercise
- Shopping apps also have charitable options
It's that time of the year again: a season of giving. But for the well-intentioned and cash strapped, we've found apps (and even a gadget) that will let you donate to charity without spending a dime.
Extension donates with every new browser tab
Tab for a Cause is one of the simplest ways to raise money without lifting a finger (well, almost). Every time you open up a new tab, the non-profit's sponsors make a small donation to charity.
The Chrome and Firefox extension replaces blank tabs with new ones that display a donation tracker, news about different causes and an ad. That last one means every new tab donates fractions of a penny to a choice of seven charities, including Human Rights Watch, Save the Children and Educate!, a non-profit organization that fosters entrepreneurship in Uganda. The total funds, if they reach at least $40, are donated at the end of each fiscal quarter; if the sums are less than $40, they roll over to the next quarter. Getting started is as simple as a click to install. There's nothing to sign up for, so just start tabbing away.
Walk for charity (without asking friends and family for money)
Every mile that you walk, run or bike with the Charity Miles app (iOS, Android) means money raised for your choice of nine non-profit organizations, including Habitat for Humanity, Autism Speaks and the Michael J. Fox Foundation. Sponsors of the app donate a dime for each mile that's biked and a quarter for each mile traveled by foot, up to $1 million, the sum of Charity Miles' initial sponsorship pool.
Likewise, walking with the smart pedometer Striiv can benefit a variety of causes. With the help of corporate sponsors, every time you reach 18,000 steps, you earn enough to donate clean water to a child in South America, polio vaccinations for a child in India or conserve about a parking lot-sized area of rainforest in Tanzania. For now, it's the older Striiv pedometer ($99.95) that has this donation program. The company needs to work with Apple to incorporate this charity feature with the roll out of the newer Play smart pedometer ($69.95) and iPhone app.
Donate mobile payments rewards to Sandy relief efforts
The mobile payments app LevelUp (iOS, Android) also has a charitable side to it. The app has a built-in loyalty rewards program with participating merchants. But instead of pocketing the savings, you can donate a fraction or all of that to a selected charity from a list of more than 25, including the National Wildlife Federation, Jumpstart and Whole Planet Foundation. In the wake of Hurricane Sandy, LevelUp is encouraging its users to donate to relief efforts, with proceeds distributed to chapters of the American Red Cross, Salvation Army and AmeriCares, organizations it has no official partnership with.
Shopping with a conscience
Lastly, we're highlighting two charitable shopping apps. Shopkick (iOS, Android) lets you earn points, or kicks, each time you walk into stores, such as Target, Macy's and Best Buy — no purchase necessary. If you link your Visa or MasterCard to your account, you'll earn additional kicks for your shopping trips. When it's time to redeem these rewards, you can choose to get vouchers and gift cards for various retailers, but there's also an option to donate your kicks to causes, such as clean water for people in developing countries, meals to the hungry, books for children and more.
With another app, Socialvest, a percentage of your purchases from more than 600 retailers can be donated to more than 1.5 million charities. There are two routes to earn Socialvest dollars: You can shop through the company's online website or at physical stores the app has partnered with (eg. Barnes and Noble, Macy's, Gap and hundreds more) using a registered credit card.
E-mail Alice Truong at techcomments@usatoday.com. Follow her on Twitter: @alicetruong.