Round-Up Donations

I just sent emails to Amazon.com, Oprah, and Diners Club. I'm sure nothing will come of it, but I think I had a pretty good idea for a way to raise money for charities without a lot of "pain" to consumers. I call it round-up donations. Basically, I think it would be great to be able to opt into a program where purchases made online, or using a particular credit card, would be rounded up to the nearest dollar and the remaining change donated to a charity of my choice. For example, if I bought something for $25.60, my credit card would be charged for $26.00 and the extra 40 cents would be donated to charity. This one donation in itself would not be significant, but over the course of time, with millions of purchases and even just a small percentage of consumers opting into such a program, it could really raise a significant amount of money for charities.

It would also be a way to quickly raise money in times of urgent need. For example, if all credit card purchases (for those opting into the program) for the month following Hurricane Katrina were rounded up to the nearest dollar, imagine how much money would have been raised with relatively little impact to those donating.

I emailed Amazon since I figure they would be able to implement such a program in a user-friendly way; I emailed Oprah because I figured she might wield some influence in this area and darn it, I just like to keep her in the loop on all my great ideas (lol); and I emailed Diners Club because I figured it might be good PR for a credit card company to offer the service so they might consider it. Now, tell all of your friends and tell them to tell their friends. Eventually, someone important will hear what a brilliant idea this is and we'll have action! See, I really should run the world. Next: TiVo for Humanity. It seems like an important charity to me!