With the litany of disasters in the news recently, charitable giving looms large in the minds of many. But charities need donations throughout the year, and often our limited finances make it tough to find money. Fortunately, we don’t have to; there are apps that will donate for the things we do every single day.
Donate A Photo
Johnson & Johnson has a brilliant idea for our photo obsessed culture that’s a bit like a cross between Instagram and GoFundMe. Charities sign on with goals they want to meet, and you find them in the app. Once you find a charity you want to donate to, take a snap, donate it through their app, and that donation goes towards the charity’s goals. Every charity gets a minimum donation, and, of course, if they go over their goal, they make more. Do it once a day and you’ve contributed $365 a year. Granted, that’s a lot of photos of your dog, or your kids, or that funny thing on the sidewalk, but snapping a photo worth taking, and doing some good with it, might be the most rewarding way to donate without paying a cent.
Charity Miles
https://www.instagram.com/p/BY3BXZ5F-2i
Charity Miles turns all the walking you do into a charity 5K. The app has a donation pool raised from sponsors and a set of charities it’ll donate to. The charity with the most miles gets the highest donation out of the pool. Pick a charity, start walking, running or biking, and the app does the rest. As you rack up the miles, you’ll raise the amount that the charity gets. Every charity involved gets a donation, with the goal, of course, being for you to step up and contribute by getting healthier. Especially if you’re marathon training, or if you need motivation to keep running as it starts to cool off, it’ll help get your feet on the pavement.
Tinbox
Tinbox is an interesting approach to giving that’s a bit more direct than most. The idea is that instead of just donating to a charity, charities and companies team up on specific projects, with the company providing the donation. Your part is that once a day, you pop open the app and pick a project you think is worth donating to. Once you pick the project, the company makes the donation. The broader idea is that charities and companies get a better understanding of where people want dollars to go, and how they can improve the visibility of more obscure causes. But on the practical level, you can literally do this right when you wake up every day, starting the day off right.
Check-in For Good
The title really says it all: Businesses sign on to the app to donate every time you check into that business on the app. The more check-ins a business racks up, the higher the donation they make to a cause. Then, well, you just check in. The main roadblock in some cases can be finding a business to check in to on the app, but if there’s one you stop into every day, or one you’d like to start going to, it’s perfect for your morning routine.
Charity Navigator
Finally, if you want to give, but want to give smartly, then you need Charity Navigator. The popular charity watchdog site has gathered data on thousands of charities, from how much money goes to overhead to how much money goes straight to the cause you’re concerned about. Charity Navigator will help you research charities that you trust, and ensure your donation will go to the right place. It’s always worth doing your research on charities, and this makes it easy.