Free Donation For What?
Written: Jan 20 '01 (Updated Jan 20 '01)
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The Bottom Line
There are much better, more informative sites along the same lines. Try TheHungerSite.com instead!
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| Full Review |
I'm a big supporter of TheHungerSite.com, so was pleased to find the concept in play elsewhere, but FreeDonation.com does not inspire my confidence or goodwill.
The Concept:
When you go to FreeDonation.com you are presented with a number of issues: "Stop AIDS, Support The Arts, Defeat Cancer, For The Children, Promote Education, Protect Environment, House The Homeless, and End Hunger". The visitor clicks on the "donation button" and is taken to a thank you page where two sponsor ads are displayed. The advertisers pay "about a fraction of a cent (US)" for the display of their ad to FreeDonation.com who then donate that money to the organizations they've chosen to support within the given issue.
The Good Side:
With a few simple clicks you can generate funding for non-profit organizations without having to spend the cash yourself.
FreeDonation.com even allows multiple clicks in the same day (unlike thehungersite.com) so should you so desire you could simply spend an hour 'donating' to the causes you favor.
The Bad Side:
The text on FreeDonation.com is somewhere between misleading and outright lies.
For example:
The first issue you can donate to is entitled "Stop AIDS". Yet neither of the organizations that receives funds are working to Stop AIDS. One is devoted to housing homeless HIV/AIDS sufferers and the other is "designed to provide a continuum of services to persons infected with HIV, to enhance the dignity and quality of daily living and to promote improvement in the quality of life for those in the HIV spectrum and their family members" (I don't even know what this means and there is no contact listed for me to get more information.
Even worse is the "For The Children" section. Here the site actually lists the "Doses Of Vaccine" that have been donated each month even though not a single one of the seven recipients mentions that they offer vaccination services.
The bulk of these organizations are local ones and some may even offend some donators For example, one of the education recipients is the Solomon Schechter High School of New York a "Conservative Jewish day school" in New York. Now I have nothing against Judaism, but I don't feel a need to toss my money to this private, religious school in New York when the public schools here in California are in such bad shape.
Saving Grace?
On the up side, I DID learn all of this right on their very site. I didn't have to go digging. But if I'm going to take the time to look into these organizations I'd much rather take the time to write a check to them.
The concept here is that it's supposed to be quick and painless to support the causes you believe in. The reality is that it's quick and painless to support the causes they believe in.
Recommended:
No
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Aahz
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Member: Aahz
Location: ...Behind The Curtain
Reviews written: 60
Trusted by: 31 members
About Me:
Aahz has returned to Epinions after a short 7 year hiatus. Why? We'll see together...
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