Easy Ways to Give Back
Do you ever feel like there’s no time or money to support charitable organizations? Here are a few quick and simple ways to regularly contribute to the greater good.
1. Tab for a cause
If you’re anything like me, your average browser window has about 17 tabs open at once. On a slow day. What if we could somehow raise money for charity every time we open a tab? We can.
“Tab for a Cause” leverages the attention-hungry ad industry to collect revenue during the brief moment between opening a tab and typing in an address or search query. It also shows you beautiful images that change daily. You get to chose a charity, from a range of options, to receive the money you raised. At the time of writing, Tab for a Cause has raised over a million euros.
You can also run web-searches through search.gladly.io to raise even more money.
2. Put your computer and smartphone to work while you sleep
Even if you have severe issues with maintaining a good work-life balance, your desktop or laptop probably sits around idle most of the time. You can put them to work in the fight against disease by running folding@home. The website claims that they have created the world’s largest supercomputer. You can choose which disease you fight.
Want to do the same with your smartphone? Dreamlab takes advantage of its underused processor when it’s sitting around charging to crunch chunks of big-data required for scientific research. They claim that their existing user-base provides the combined computing power of “more than two supercomputers” to help research cures for cancer and Covid.
3. Raise money for charity while shopping online
Many charities, such as the World Wildlife Fund provide gifts in return for donations. For instance, you can donate in the names of your kids and get a plush toy version of an animal you’re supporting.
I don’t want to actively encourage anyone to further patronize the big “A,” but if you have to buy from amazon, why not use Amazon Smile instead? A small portion of your purchases will be donated to a charity of your choice. And there are lots to choose from.
4. Cut some meat from your diet - even one day a week makes a difference
I promise I’m not going to try to guilt-trip you into going vegan.
At first, this might not sound like something useful. But if everyone in the world who currently eats meat every day made this one dietary adjustment, we would see a huge difference to the amount of land and other resources required to raise animals for food.
In case you last tried vegan food back in the ’90s there have been huge advances in the quality, variety and flavour of vegan cuisine. I dare you to try it one day a week. What do you have to lose (except maybe some weight)?
5. Power your home with renewable energy
I realise that this isn’t an option everywhere in the world, but in Germany, it was easy for us to switch electricity providers to a company that provides energy purely from renewable energy like solar, wind and geothermal. We’re pleasantly surprised that our monthly power bill isn’t any more expensive than it used to be.
If this isn’t an option, you could try investing in companies that are actively researching or building renewable energy solutions.
6. Monthly direct debits
This is probably the oldest and most obvious tip in the list. If everyone gave even a few currency-units a month to a good cause that they believe in, it would make a huge difference. Having a few bucks come out of your account right after your paycheck goes in won’t bother most people’s budget and it really adds up over the months and years.
One easy example of a direct-debit is a carbon-offset program. Particularly if you’re a frequent traveller, having an automatic compensation program in place means one less thing to think about and a weight off your conscience.
7. Try to be an example for other people
Whether you have kids or not, don’t you want the next generation to have a good place to grow up? Why not start by setting a good example? Our kids deserve to know that the current situation with climate-change is less than ideal and that they’re going to have to live with the consequences for longer than their elders will.
If everyone on earth did one small voluntary act each day to make the world a bit cleaner or safer, it would be a much nicer place to live.
Leading with environmentally-helpful practices can mean a lot. Planting trees, carefully recycling, and even picking up the odd piece of litter or empty bottle can make a huge difference over time. And who knows? You might inspire someone else as well.
