More charities are doing good by doing well online
By Heidi Dawley Jan 8, 2008
If the web seems increasingly about community and sharing, it only makes sense that the spirit of giving back would find its place in this evolving digisphere, and it is.
In addition to offering advantages for for-profit sites, such as credit card transactions, allowing givers to donate without having to reach into their pockets or write a check, the internet offers charities unique and often clever opportunities to draw in givers.
Some are lifted from social networking sites, others from lotteries.
“We are seeing interest in charitable giving but seeing it morph into other forms,” says Heather Dougherty, director, research at Hitwise, which tracks internet usage.
Everyclick.com, a British search engine that may come to the U.S. this year, splits its ad revenue, giving half to a range of charities. The person using Everyclick.com gives by the mere activity of conducting a search, without actually parting with a cent.
At FreeRice.com, users are offered a chance to bone up on their vocabulary, and in so doing earn grains of rice for the world's hungry, again without parting with a cent themselves. Those pennies come from advertising.
At the Hunger Site, a donation is made every time the user clicks on a yellow box. Again, the advertiser makes the actual donation.
A new twist this year was charity gift cards, which enable the receiver to donate the money to the charity of their choice. Charitable gift cards were a big search term this year for the first time, according to Hitwise.
These new forms of giving would seem to work. Everyclick, launched in June 2005, has earned nearly $750,000 for charity in Britain and is now the country’s No. 8 search engine, according to Hitwise.
FreeRice, launched in October 2007, has already donated over 13 billion grains of rice though the World Food Program, while the Hunger Site, launched in 1999, has provided $68 million pounds of food. These two sites were No. 1 and No. 2 in Hitwise’s humanitarian category in December (see chart, below).
But established charities are also benefiting from the internet.
“It has had an enormous impact,” says a spokesperson for the Institute for Philanthropy, a London non-profit that aims to raise the profile of effective philanthropy.
Those that have done best are the big charities with the resources to set up and market their online donation sites, says Salvatore LaSpada, chief executive of the Institute for Philanthropy.
Over at Save the Children, for instance, a spokesperson says that in the immediate aftermath of a disaster, most individual donors now give via the internet.
But even smaller charities are figuring out how to benefit from the internet. Now intermediary sites are emerging with information on a number of charities.
One example is Firstgiving, which works a little like a social network. Folks raising money can put up a personalized page where donors can contribute.
By the looks of things, charities have just begun to tap into the internet's true potential for raising money. Online giving is still a tiny fraction of total giving.
A study by the Chronicle of Philanthropy, a newspaper for the non-profit sector, found that online donations increased 37 percent from 2005 in 2006, rising to $1.2 billion, but for most of the 187 organizations online still represented less than 1 percent of all donations.
Meanwhile, in online ratings for the week ended Dec. 30, according to Nielsen Online, Google claimed the top spot among parent companies, followed by Microsoft, Yahoo, Time Warner and News Corp. Online. The top five brands were Google, Yahoo, MSN/Windows Live, Microsoft and AOL Media Network.
NexTag was the No. 1 advertiser with 4.1 million impressions, followed by No. 2 Netflix at 3.6 million. With 23.4 million ads served, Yahoo was again the top advertising site, well ahead of No. 2 MySpace at 1.2 million.
Sessions per person per week were down two from the previous week to 14, and domains visited per person were down three to 35 during the holiday week. PC time per person slumped more than 15 percent compared with the previous week, to 14 hours and 4 minutes.
Community - Humanitarian Monthly Market Share of U.S. Visits
Rankings for the month of December 2007
Rank
Name
Domain
Market Share
1
FreeRice
www.freerice.com
17.96%
2
The Hunger Site
www.thehungersite.com
9.62%
3
Idealist.org
www.idealist.org
4.20%
4
World Vision United States
www.worldvision.org
3.99%
5
United Nations
www.un.org
3.57%
6
American Red Cross
www.redcross.org
2.99%
7
Heifer Project International
www.heifer.org
2.83%
8
One Laptop Per Child
www.laptop.org
2.47%
9
Human Rights Watch
www.hrw.org
2.00%
10
Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations
www.fao.org
1.99%
Note - the Hitwise data featured is based on U.S. market share of visits, which is the percentage of online traffic to the domain or category, from the Hitwise sample of 10 million U.S. Internet users. Hitwise measures more than 1 million unique websites on a daily basis, including sub-domains of larger websites. Hitwise categorizes websites into industries on the basis of subject matter and content, as well as market orientation and competitive context.
Source: Hitwise
Top 25 parent companies Through Dec. 30
#
Parent
Unique Audience (000)
Reach %
Time Spent per Person (hh:mm:ss)
1
Google
82,903
60.7
0:30:06
2
Microsoft
80,079
58.6
0:40:42
3
Yahoo!
74,808
54.7
0:54:03
4
Time Warner
62,941
46.1
1:12:30
5
News Corp. Online
42,150
30.8
0:49:45
6
eBay
31,024
22.7
0:47:30
7
Amazon
27,329
20.0
0:16:12
8
Apple Computer
26,410
19.3
0:51:01
9
InterActiveCorp
25,070
18.4
0:11:51
10
Wikimedia Foundation
18,569
13.6
0:08:24
11
RealNetworks, Inc.
18,465
13.5
0:15:34
12
Landmark Communications
17,744
13.0
0:09:45
13
Walt Disney Internet Group
17,665
12.9
0:19:02
14
New York Times Company
17,651
12.9
0:07:49
15
AT&T Inc.
16,879
12.4
0:18:47
16
E.W. Scripps Company
13,527
9.9
0:06:05
17
CNET Networks
13,190
9.7
0:07:26
18
Comcast Corp.
12,948
9.5
0:21:39
19
Bank of America
12,178
8.9
0:22:26
20
Wal-Mart Stores
12,074
8.8
0:09:54
21
Viacom Digital
11,958
8.8
0:22:42
22
Verizon Communications
11,756
8.6
0:16:13
23
Facebook
11,024
8.1
0:32:43
24
United Online
10,243
7.5
0:28:52
25
Hewlett-Packard Company
10,210
7.5
0:07:19
Source: Nielsen Online
Top 25 brands Through Dec. 30
Parent
Unique Audience (000)
Reach %
Time spent per person (hh:mm:ss)
1
Google
75,303
55.1
0:21:19
2
Yahoo!
74,123
54.2
0:54:11
3
MSN/Windows Live
57,976
42.4
0:36:32
4
Microsoft
51,877
38.0
0:20:37
5
AOL Media Network
51,733
37.9
1:20:56
6
Fox Interactive Media
37,788
27.7
0:52:45
7
YouTube
31,009
22.7
0:23:30
8
Apple
26,410
19.3
0:51:01
9
eBay
25,982
19.0
0:50:41
10
Amazon
22,629
16.6
0:15:32
11
Real Network
18,458
13.5
0:15:34
12
Wikipedia
18,427
13.5
0:08:21
13
Weather Channel
15,698
11.5
0:09:58
14
Ask Search Network
15,320
11.2
0:12:55
15
Blogger
13,463
9.9
0:06:24
16
AT&T
12,285
9.0
0:21:27
17
CNN Digital Network
12,030
8.8
0:16:28
18
Bank of America
11,947
8.7
0:22:16
19
About.com
11,347
8.3
0:03:05
20
Wal-Mart Stores
11,205
8.2
0:09:22
21
Facebook
11,024
8.1
0:32:43
22
Comcast
9,724
7.1
0:26:29
23
IMDb - Internet Movie Database
8,984
6.6
0:10:07
24
Target
8,740
6.4
0:06:15
25
Chase
8,713
6.4
0:12:35
Source: Nielsen Online
Top 25 advertisers (excludes house ads)
Through Dec. 30
#
Company
Impressions (000)
1
NexTag, Inc.
4,065,735
2
Netflix, Inc.
3,562,885
3
Experian Group Limited
3,353,304
4
Deutsche Telekom AG
2,085,171
5
eBay, Inc.
1,139,141
6
AT&T Corp.
1,057,874
7
Ford Motor Company
970,962
8
Verizon Communications, Inc.
922,312
9
InterActiveCorp
677,400
10
Privacy Matters
641,085
11
Wachovia Corporation
628,276
12
GiftFreebies.com
625,324
13
General Motors Corporation
563,613
14
Countrywide Financial Corporation
555,024
15
HSBC Holdings plc
537,650
16
Bose Corporation
530,727
17
Echostar Communications Corporation
457,825
18
Scottrade, Inc.
443,368
19
E*TRADE FINANCIAL Corp.
433,633
20
Microsoft Corporation
414,200
21
Bank of America Corporation
402,121
22
RefurbDepot.COM
402,083
23
Fidelity Investments
385,757
24
Low Rate Source
355,576
25
American Express Company
335,071
Source: Nielsen Online, AdRelevance
Note: Nielsen Online, AdRelevance service estimated online advertising expenditures account for CPM-based image-based advertising. All reported estimated expenditures and impressions do not account for the following placement types: text only, paid fee services, performance-based campaigns, sponsorships, barters, in-stream ("pre-rolls") players, messenger applications, partnership advertising, promotions and email campaigns. AdRelevance currently does not report estimated spending for paid search advertising. Also, Nielsen Online, AdRelevance reporting data reflects advertising activity served on pages accessible via the World Wide Web and not within AOL's proprietary service.
Top 25 advertising sites (excludes house ads)
Through Dec. 30
Company
Impressions (000)
1
NexTag, Inc.
4,065,735
2
Netflix, Inc.
3,562,885
3
Experian Group Limited
3,353,304
4
Deutsche Telekom AG
2,085,171
5
eBay, Inc.
1,139,141
6
AT&T Corp.
1,057,874
7
Ford Motor Company
970,962
8
Verizon Communications, Inc.
922,312
9
InterActiveCorp
677,400
10
Privacy Matters
641,085
11
Wachovia Corporation
628,276
12
GiftFreebies.com
625,324
13
General Motors Corporation
563,613
14
Countrywide Financial Corporation
555,024
15
HSBC Holdings plc
537,650
16
Bose Corporation
530,727
17
Echostar Communications Corporation
457,825
18
Scottrade, Inc.
443,368
19
E*TRADE FINANCIAL Corp.
433,633
20
Microsoft Corporation
414,200
21
Bank of America Corporation
402,121
22
RefurbDepot.COM
402,083
23
Fidelity Investments
385,757
24
Low Rate Source
355,576
25
American Express Company
335,071
Source: Nielsen Online, AdRelevance
Note: Nielsen Online, AdRelevance service estimated online advertising expenditures account for CPM-based image-based advertising. All reported estimated expenditures and impressions do not account for the following placement types: text only, paid fee services, performance-based campaigns, sponsorships, barters, in-stream ("pre-rolls") players, messenger applications, partnership advertising, promotions and email campaigns. AdRelevance currently does not report estimated spending for paid search advertising. Above data does not include any house advertising activity. Also, Nielsen Online, AdRelevance reporting data reflects advertising activity served on pages accessible via the World Wide Web and not within AOL's proprietary service.
