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Charitable Internet search engine Goodsearch now provides web users with a way to contribute to their favorite causes, nonprofits, and schools, merely by surfing the Internet. Goodsearch (www.goodsearch.com) is free to use and does not ask users to make financial donations to any charities or organizations. Instead, web users are asked to merely designate their favorite charitable organization or school from a list of thousands and then conduct any Internet searches using Goodsearch, as opposed to Google or other popular search engines. Goodsearch donates a percentage of its ad revenue to organizations, based on how many Internet searches are conducted on those organizations’ behalf.
Goodsearch, which is powered by Yahoo!, was launched in November of 2005. The search engine donates 50% of its ad revenue to charities, and the site estimates that 1 cent is generated toward a designated charity or school for each user’s search. Users may designate a new organization each time they use Goodsearch, and they may view the amount that Goodsearch has raised for each individual organization. According to the Goodsearch homepage, more than 29,000 charities have joined the project, with hundreds more joining each week.
One charitable organization within the Goodsearch database is the Organization for Chemical Sciences in Development (OCDI), which promotes chemical science research for the benefit of health, agricultural, and economic sectors of developing countries. Michael Tempesta, PhD, treasurer of OCDI, managing partner of Phenolics, LLC, and president of Natprod Consulting Services, recently encouraged research supporters in the herbal community to use Goodsearch and designate OCDI as the user’s designated cause. “It will return money to IOCD [International Organization for Chemical Sciences in Development, of which OCDI is the US affiliate], and we, in turn, use it to support a number of developing country initiatives,” he wrote (e-mail to M. Blumenthal, February 3, 2007). “Your small effort here will make a large difference to young scientists in Africa, Central/South America, and Asia-please help (and it doesn’t cost anything to you).”
Other charitable organizations within the Goodsearch database help to save animals, protect the environment, provide disaster relief, and promote research to cure diseases, among many other important causes.
-Courtney Cavaliere
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