Shopping for a good cause

AidMaker is a free software from aGoodCause.com which is hooked up to more than 5000 online stores where retailers will donate a portion of the sale to a charity of your choice, at no cost to you. The donated amount averages about 7% of the sale as agreed between aGoodCause.com and the retailer. 75% of the commission which the website earns (when a sale is made) goes back to charity and the remaining goes to operating costs.

The list of participating US retailers include Amazon.com, Apple Store, baby-Wise.com, Best Buy, Blockbuster, eBay, eBooks.com, Gap, Kodak, Expedia, Hotels.com, MagazineCity.com, Starbucks, Peapod, REI, Skype, Swarovski, Tumi and West Marine. So if you shop/sell at ebay/buy plane tickets at any of these stores, why not make use of the golden opportunity to help the needy. It doesn’t get any easier than this.

Currently this good cause is operating in Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Sweden, UK and the US.

All you have to do is to select your country from the option menu, download the AidMaker, which is essentially just a browser plugin, choose from a list of relief organizations and then just shop.