I’ve been mulling over this for a while - a way to give to charity. But also a way to inspire others to contribute too (every cent counts).

A friend of mine and me bought billion.org a while ago. The name says all about our lofty goal :) But while brainstorming on how to raise money (amongst other issues), one thing that keeps coming up - do people really care?

Eg lets say I made a website - lets call it ‘CharitySearch.com’ The results were directly from Google, and all AdSense (minus the hosting fees) revenue went to charity. Personally, I would find that a no-brainer. Just change my top right search to CharitySearch.com, and done! That has to make some money. But would people do it?

We also talked about using an Adsense ID for charity. We could make one day of the month ‘Charity Day’ where everyone would change their AdSense ID to this specific ID (got approval from Google). But how many people would actually do that?

Another idea was to find some corporate sponsors, and basically act as a conduit. Every dollar you donate goes to the charity you want. But the benefit would be that under the ‘billion.org’ idea we would be doing something for the greater good. 1000 people donating $10 - no one pays attention. But billion.org raising $10,000 towards its lofty goal of $1,000,000,000 - maybe something to write home about?

But the nagging question I have always had - would people do it? CharitySearch.com would take less than a minute (changing your default search engine). AdSense ID would be more complicated, depending on your CMS. On a site like Blog Flux it would take us under a minute. The third option is harder, but it gives your donation double meaning - you donate to the charity you want to and you compel others to do the same.

Anyone care to comment on motivations there? (especially since #1 costs you zero cents).