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: 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.