Forum Moderators: martinibuster
Naturally it is the situation in Haiti that spurred me to think of this. So if they like the idea, can they whip it up in a few hours.
Regards...jmcc
the button would donate the revenue that normally would go to my account.
In the UK I think it's more beneficial/tax efficient to the charity for you to donate and then they can reclaim the tax currently an extra 28%.
Of course that's assuming one has paid income or capital gains tax!
So one more feature of this that I thought of later would be a little counter showing how much the cumulative donation was and maybe how much all adsense publishers had donated in total.
I was reading on cnn about various countries & how much they have contributed. Well adsense publisher are a community of sorts, so ....
...I think it's more beneficial/tax efficient to the charity for you to donate...
And it's probably more beneficial to the people in need to donate to the organization(s) that have the best records as to how the money is spent and what percentage of the donated funds actually go to the effort vs. the percentage that is spent on staff salaries, office furnishings, used to fund other projects, etc.
I donate to organizations I know and trust, not a list developed by someone else where political correctness is likely a factor in developing that list.
FarmBoy
I am not concerned about getting a tax receipt or any other benefit.
You may not be concerned however the charity surely will be if they can get another 28% with little effort:-)
Nice idea though and interestingly just before you posted I had included the DEC Haiti Earthquake Appeal on my two biggest sites.
Adsense is not Paypal. Paypal has a donate
About 100.000 have seen this button on my site, $0 at Paypal so far.
Adsense is not Paypal. Paypal has a donate
About 100.000 have seen this button on my site, $0 at Paypal so far.
I think the problem with a "donate" button as part of a multiple ad block is that it would draw attention to your other ads.
Do you mean that if webmasters have the option to donate a dollar, like when you check out from eBay to pay via PayPal and are presented with a donation opportunity? If it's a donate a dollar thing, that might be an interesting way to raise funds for a charitable causes.
If it's a donate a portion of revenue, then that might present issues because there's always the possibility of publishers advertising that a percentage of clicks go to charity, which would be an inducement to click on the ads. Even if Google specified that promoting revenue donation was against their policy, Google would still have to police those participating in it to be sure of compliance.
But maybe the "donate a dollar" method might work?
True. But what I think chinook is discussing is creating a small way to encourage charitable giving, with an emphasis on encouragement.
But why stop with the AdSense control panel? Google can stick a "Do a Good Deed Today" button on GA, WMT, and the AdWords control panel. An alternative is to consider sticking it on the freeby services like GMail, WMT, GA, and Picasa.
Each AdSense publisher can donate whatever portion of their revenue they want to the charity of choice. If one wants to encourage donations to a particular charity, there are plenty of ways to do that on your own on a site.
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As many people as there are who seem to be suspicious of Google in so many other ways, I'm surprised there are those who are willing to put your own credibility on the line by trusting that money collected through a donation button of some type will actually make it to the charity and in time to help.
FarmBoy
Google donating $1 million to Haiti. Maybe I'm wrong, but isn't this a drop in the bucket for a company this size? I'm sure the money will go a long way but you'd think a company this size would do more. There have been reports of individuals, namely Brad Pitt donating that much.
If Haiti was the only thing in the world in need of donations...but unless you know how much Google donated to other "causes" vs. Brad Pitt it's not possible to put things in proper perspective.
On the other hand, Google is donating with shareholder's money and Brad Pitt is donating his own money. Personally I wish the tax code was changed to discourage donations by corporations - pass that money on to employees and shareholders and let them decide the best use of the money.
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If Brad Pitt did donate money to Haiti relief efforts - I wonder how we would know that? Did he have a publicist send out a press release to tell us all about it? I've been donating to various causes since I was 16 and had my first job and I've never sent out a press release to tell the world about it.
FarmBoy
If Brad Pitt did donate money to Haiti relief efforts - I wonder how we would know that
I think it's good that it is made public because I think it encourages donations.
The company I work for has pledged $50,000 of matching donations and they are even bigger than Google. Everyone treats Google like it's a person that is free to give their money away. They're not, it's a company that answers to shareholders. If shareholders want to give money away, let them.
