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: When accessing forums ranging from huffingtonpost.com to linkedin.com these days, there is good chance that you will run into a blogger called Parker plugging a “talkathon.” Apparently this 20-something with good intentions has just discovered the i’m Initiative, whereby Microsoft makes a charitable donation everytime one uses it to send an IM or e-mail. The idea being, “the more you talk, the more we give.” So Parker thought, if he got a bunch of people talking for 30 days, he would get Microsoft to give out a giant sum.

Turns out that Parker is a completely fictional character. That he was created just to popularise the i’m Initiative signals how charitable drives are frenetically innovating in the web 2.0 universe.

Cheaper, faster, friendlier

Matthew Cherian, India CEO of HelpAge, says “conventional fundraising, like direct mailing or organising a Lata Mangeshkar concert, comes at a certain cost.” Click-to-donate buttons hosted on non-profit websites not only cut down these costs, but also bypass the paperwork and time lag involved in processing paper cheques. Such buttons also help the donors save on time and get an immediate connect anywhere, anytime.

Oxfam India’s advocacy and media manager Aditi Kapoor finds the Internet a useful tool for her organisation as well. She says: “We will be using this tool much more in India now because the Internet has become so popular here and people often want to contribute to charities but do not know who to contact.” Besides, all the people a non-profit reaches through its website can be tapped for future fundraising via their e-mail addresses.

On the demographic front, given younger folks’ penchant for living life the web way, charities wanting to tap them have every incentive to get busy online. And as Cherian found to be the case in his investigations, young people are not just sensitive to social causes, they are quite giving when suitably inspired. In fact even small online donations can add up to a success story. Hence Obama’s triumphant fundraising, whereby web donations worth just $25 grew into a financial roar. Hail the power of microgiving!

The i’m Initiative has donated almost $16 million since March 2007. An eco-edition of the Flock browser and the GoodSearch website respectively donate 10 and 50% of all search proceeds to charity. Piling up options for people wanting to do the right thing online are more innovative players like freerice.com. This site tests visitors’ vocabulary and makes a donation for every correct guess, and has given away over 38 billion grains of rice since its launch last October.

Cyber charities can have questionable cousins, like the Facebook group titled “For every 100 people who join, I will donate $1 to Breast cancer charity.” Charitable oganisations can also have good reasons for sticking to conventional fundraising. The Deputy Head (PFR) of SOS Children’s Villages of India Harpreet Singh says, “while the web can create awareness among global citizens who would otherwise have a hard time connecting with us, the medium does not necessarily reach out to the masses.”

And here comes the video

When Amitabh Bachchan stopped by at a London Oxfam store, it could have been just another chapter in a long history of celebrity endorsements with a limited shelflife. Except a video of his visit made it to YouTube and stays there to invite comment, redirecting visitors to the parent website on an ongoing basis. YouTube has now devoted an entire channel to charities, and some commentators have labelled online video as the biggest new trend in charity communications.

Naysayers argue that a) current technology requires those watching videos to travel to another web page to make a donation, which might depress responses substantially and b) the sombre messages put out by non-profits are hardly likely to grab eyeballs when pitted against say girls going wild on Miami beaches. But look at a Narasapur orphanage video of a day in the life of bright-eyed imps, and you will see how simple digicam captures can have a poignancy powerful enough to cut across the clutter of movies, porn, anime and so on. Actually, as if by magic, even the smallest of charities can create videos that enthrall mass audiences.