I’m assuming not all of you know GoodSearch yet. It’s a Yahoo-powered search engine, founded in November 2005. (According to Wikipedia, so don’t put your money on it 
)
GoodSearch has good intentions. Participating merchants, such as Target, Macy’s, PetSmart, Best Buy, Staples, Walmart, Toys “R” Us, Gap, Nike, Nordstrom, Apple, eBay, Barnes & Noble, Oriental Trading, iTunes, amazon.com, and many more donate a percentage of each sale to a charity or school designated by the user.
For heck’s sake, let’s say you like donating to your local YMCA. Well, you’d designate your Y as your charity of choice within GoodSearch, and every time you search using their engine, or their toolbar, a tiny little bit of money is raised for them. Here’s the chart they have on their site to explain GoodSearch donations:
Okay, so you’re probably thinking what I was thinking at this point… “Cool, this seems legit!”. Well, it probably is legit as a tool and on how it works.
I’ll tell you what I don’t trust, I don’t trust in some of the “charity” organizations out there that will probably see this as an opportunity to get a few extra bucks in their pocket.
Let me give you an example. Say you work at a Non-profit that is registered with GoodSearch. Your Non-profit has 150-200 employees. You make it mandatory that all of your employees use GoodSearch’s toolbar, and that every time they have to search online, they use that engine. Then, at the end of the year you get a nice “bonus” from GoodSearch.
I know this is a negative way of looking into things but trust me, some people will do that and they are probably already doing it. Big names have been found to have a lot of charity corruption, and don’t even get me started with the little unknown ones.
Don’t get me wrong people, I believe in charities and Non-profits, but I also believe that you have to know where you’re sending your money, not all of them operate the way you and I may think they do.
GoodSearch has a disclaimer under their search bar that reads: “Please use this site honestly. Fraudulent searches will result in your charity being delisted.” Do me a favor and stay away from GoodSearch corruption, and GoodSearch fraud. It’s a good concept that depends on good people being involved with it.
My two cents? I like the idea, but I think that there has to be some sort of accountability for where the money goes.
{ 34 comments… read them below or add one }
Had no idea that GoodSearch was out there. Thanks for sharing your opinions, even though I agree, all I can do is use them and hope the charity I’m supporting is clean.
The solution for what you are saying lies in the fact that the user can designate their own charity. So the power of due diligence lies with us. It’s no different than responding to a direct mail piece.
That’s the first level of accountability. Plus for organizations to be registered as 501(c)3′s there are some standards and reporting requirements, although that doesn’t eliminate all manner of dysfunction and waste (same as any organization).
The second level of accountability comes with public involvement in the charity. If you _volunteer_ for the organization, you get a good sense of how they operate and spend their money . . . and you are giving on another level too. And of course, it’s important for (1) the media to be involved with organizations (accountability . . . ) and (2) us to share our own experiences with others (accountability . . . ).
I recently wrote an article about this, basically agreeing with you that GoodSearch seems shadier than anyone else really thinks. It specifically states on the FAQ page that the only way revenue is generated is through clicking on paid search results, not regular ones. On top of that, it states that most high-traffic sites won’t even count toward the totals. On top of that, only 50 percent of the revenue generated goes toward the designated non-profits … and if you don’t designate, then none of it goes to charity!
I don’t see why it’s a problem that small, non-profit organizations use GoodSearch to get bonuses. Isn’t that what the site is for, to raise money?
Maybe SEO Survivor and Ben (July 23rd, 2008) see the GoodSearch glass half empty, but I choose to see it half full. It is very easy to designate a charity to which your search-generated monies will go, so there is really no reason to have “none of it [go] to charity!” In addition, what the FAQ page states is that a MINIMUM of 50 percent of the revenues from the searches is directed to the non-profits designated by the GoodSearch audience. Around a penny/search might not seem like much in comparison to the hefty checks some may make out to the charities they personally support, but pennies do add up, and the search-generated income is *in addition* to any checks sent by the Bens or other generous donors who give. So go to GoodSearch, designate the charity of your choice, and fill their glass a little more full.
LCN: You can choose to use cliches and whatnot for glasses being half full or empty, but that doesn’t change the fact that by using GoodSearch.com, you are effectively making advertisers give more money to Yahoo, a for-profit company. Sure, more money goes to non-profits as well, but you seemed to miss two other key elements of my argument: “the only way revenue is generated is through clicking on paid search results, not regular ones. On top of that, it states that most high-traffic sites won’t even count toward the totals.”
So what’s the problem? The rules are spelled out. Use the Goodsearch feature. You may make a little money for your charity. You will not lose any. My major gripe with Goodsearch is that it doesn’t offer the resources of Google. And it occasionally gets overloaded and denies access.
This article is much ado about nothing. Goodsearch is perfectly legitimate if people take the time to research what non profit they choose to contribute to.
First, you have to have a 501 c 3 registration with the federal government to be registered with Goodsearch. This takes up to a year with lots of scrutiny. You also have to file 5 years of records to get out of your temporary status with the tax exempt status. Non profits with more than $25,000/year (and I think that is being lowered) have to file a very detailed tax return. All of this information is available on line.
Second: Most people use goodsearch to raise money for a particular organization. I direct a program called Step by Step in WV. We’ve been around for twenty years, run after school, summer and youth leadership programs. We are asking all our staff and our donors to use Goodsearch as a way of raising money to expand the transportation $ to get kids to summer food sites. All but 3 of the kids one of the programs we run are eligible for free lunch under federal guidelines which means their families are really hurting when breakfast and lunch are not provided out of the school year. We work to get them to a place where they can have reading, arts, recreation, science and service projects and we feed them two meals. (and take them swimming if we can…_)
Is using the money for this a “big fat bonus.”????
Goodsearch is a fundraising tool. Non profits don’t get “bonuses” they raise money for programs. If they are not effective, they fold.
This doesn’t mean that there are not some corrupt practices out there, but I doubt anyone who cares enough to go through goodsearch to do their searches (because it does take a little more time than simply keeping a favorites list) isn’t also capable of doing a little, largely web based research, to find out if their intended charity is legit.
This article is a cheap shot. Why not take the time to help people figure out how to make sure their charities are legitimate rather than discourage people from using a very simple means of contributing to their cause.
People should not contribute to a charity they have not checked out. Any charity listed in Goodsearch should be something people can track down–find a web page, call up, etc. But this is something you should do for any place you contribute to whether or not you heard about them from a newspaper, goodsearch or in person.
Let me close by highlighting a passage in the article I found particularly objectionable:
Let me give you an example. Say you work at a Non-profit that is registered with GoodSearch. Your Non-profit has 150-200 employees. You make it mandatory that all of your employees use GoodSearch’s toolbar, and that every time they have to search online, they use that engine. Then, at the end of the year you get a nice “bonus” from GoodSearch.
a), Again, this is fundraising, not a bonus. All $ that go to non profits have to be used for their mission and do not go back into private hands
b) Why sneer ar organizations trying to integrate their techonological development with a little fundraising.
I quote a friend of mine who once responded to another friend who kept on obsessing on little details like this:
“If you have this much energy, shouldn’t you use it for something that will save people’s lives?”
^^^^ WHAT HE SAID !!!! ^^^^
With all the limitations to goodsearch taken for granted, let’s examine the neo-contemporary definition of “charity”.
Non-profit has turned into “hide the baloney”. That is, the bury what would be profits.
Does the fire company get to buy discount equipment since the company making it is virtuous since it’s used in “saving human lives”? Nope. It’s darn expensive ..as are the fire engines ..ambulances ..the medi-vac helicopter ..the pilot …etc..etc.
Does the cancer research center have technicians and physicians that do this fine and noble work at a discount? The buildings ..hospitals ..the institutions ..the construction company that builds them ..the architects that design them
..do any of them do it “for the love of humanity”? Nope. All CASH baby CASH!!
I’ve worked in several alleged non profit orgs ..and the same recurring theme emerges EVERY TIME. The INSTITUTION is what gets served ..and the alleged object of their purpose is merely the financial grease that runs the machinery.
I had my YMCA call and ask for donations to provide programs for needy people. I asked in new people were being hired to administer to these needy people. Were new rooms being built? Where added costs going to be incurred? …..or……..was the donation going to be charged off to space/personnel that are already on payroll/budget …adding no cost to the facility.
I never got the answers.
That’s actually not a scam in any way. If a non-profit changed all of their searches to be through Goodsearch, it would actually all be going through Yahoo, who would make some legit money from retailers and advertisers, and it would kick back some of that money to the non-profit who drove the traffic.
I don’t understand the point of the article. Because some charities may be unscrupulous, we shouldn’t use Goodsearch at all?
My child’s school notified us of Goodsearch a few years ago, and I use it for the majority of my internet searches (sometimes I can’t get good results, so I search “google”, click the link, and do my search there).
As far as what counts to earn money, I believe the terms say that no credit is given for site-specific searches, so if you looked up “seosurvivor.com”, no credit would be given. So look up “seosurvivor”, and there is one cent for your chosen charity.
Unfortunately, it seems I am the only one from my child’s school who uses Goodsearch, but still, the school has received a couple hundred dollars over the years. You can track how much money has been earned, and it shows by searches and shopping percentages. You can check this in real time (for searches anyway), and you will see that each time you search, one cent is added to the totals.
What is the downside? Why would you advocate against this?
We use Goodsearch and the money does to our church. I know this since my wife is the office manager at our church. I would agree its not a lot of money but it is a directly linked to how many people list your charity when they use the site. Whats the big deal?
Thank you all so much for contributing to this conversation.
I know a lot of the people involved in this comment thread heave been asking about this post. Questions like: “Why would you advocate against this?”, and “They are legitimate, what’s the big deal?”.
I just want to point out that this blog post isn’t saying that GoodSearch is “bad”, or that it isn’t legitimate. When I wrote this in 2008, I saw the potential for corruption and fraud, through a well-intentioned platform, and that’s what I wrote about. It has been over two years now and I’m not quite sure what has changed with GoodSearch, maybe I’ll take a look and write a new post about it.
Anyway, keep the comments coming. I’m fascinated by what has been brought up here.
Thanks!
I don’t really get the point of the article. Some charities may be corrupt. So what? How does that apply to Goodsearch any more than any other way of donating to a charity? If you want to tell people to be careful who they donate to tell them that. If there is something specifically wrong with Goodsearch’s model, focus on that.
I signed up my MOPS group for Goodsearch last year. We just got a check for $34. I know people probably misuse their system and just make up fake organizations, but there are legit ones on there too. I wouldn’t just look up any ole organization to support but you can find ones that you know personally. It can’t be easy to do a “made-up” one. I tried to get people from my group to download the toolbar and use it but it seems I was pretty much the only one. It took me over a year and half to get that $34. Obviously not something to quit your day job for lol, but it helped out group immensely this year! I think if you’re going to go through ALL that trouble, you’re better off doing it through swagbucks – http://www.swagbucks.com/refer/pwfaith You get a lot more for your time spend searching!
the non-profit I work for made a whopping $43 last year using Goodsearch… I don’t think that qualifies as misuse or forcing all FIVE of our employees to use it.
It would be more helpful to suggest that the majority of non-profits are doing a great job, often with inadequate means, to do works that in a more compassionate society and world would have been taken care of. We would appreciate more proactive commentary rather than the chorus of doubt thrown our way. It is easy to suggest corruption but hard to really do something to change the world. Let’s pull together.
You know what? You seriously need to get a grip. If your problem is whether the charities use the money well, then your problem is with the charities and not with GoodSearch.
It is obvious to me you have never ever once worked for a nonprofit and had to scrape for every dollar somewhere. Even a couple hundred bucks makes a huge difference.
I work for a domestic violence program. I just added them to GoodSearch. I am hoping we get a couple hundred bucks a year. And here you are, badmouthing it. When all you really have against it is the possibility that some nonprofits don’t spend their money the way YOU would want them to.
Shame on you.
Hey guys,
I really appreciate the feedback. Here are some comments:
@Philip Tymon: I did just what you suggested. If you read what I wrote above: “…I believe in charities and Non-profits, but I also believe that you have to know where you’re sending your money…”. The only fault on the GoodSearch side, in my opinion, is that “…It’s a good concept that depends on good people being involved with it.”
Some people aren’t good. That’s the real focus here. Like I said, not a positive one, but one I felt like voicing out.
@Sarah: Cool, thanks for sharing that.
@Laura Baker: Well, that’s your opinion. And imagine a large Non-Profit. If what they do is good and honest, more power to them. But not all are, just refer to the link I shared on the post.
@anonymous: I appreciate that! That’s a great topic, I just don’t know much about the statistics to write about them. Please share a link where I can pull more data and I’d consider updating this post.
@Kristen: You’re right Kristen, on the blog post I wrote above, I wrote about how my problem is not with GoodSearch, but with corrupt charities.
I actually have worked for a great non-profit, and also have been exposed to some dirty stuff that made me sick to my stomach, so there are always two sides to a story.
I appreciate you sharing where you work, and I thank you for your service!
@seosurvivor
If you are writing about the potential for corruption in nonprofits, then why target GoodSearch at all? Why create a post that slimes this perfectly legitimate source of funding? Oh, right … because you are trolling.
Agree with M. Tierney. And I don’t get where having employees use Goodsearch is fraud. I would expect that would be encouraged. They need to drum up more users and money for the work they have ahead. That’s what charities do.
You don’t need to click on ads to generate donations. Searching for information generates about a penny per search. It all adds up.
Of course, people clicking ads for no reason other than to generate a donation or sitting there doing bogus searches is fraud. Just as the charity who misuses donations is guilty of fraud. Those predicaments will always exist in our imperfect world. The powers that be need to be diligent in their designs to limit misuse of the Goodsearch system but I see no reason to throw the baby out with the bath water, as they say. I’m surprised advertisers can’t opt in or opt out of Goodsearch through Yahoo if they feel they’re paying for fraudulent clicks out the wazoo.
I do a lot of searching. If it provides $20 month to my charity, I wish I’d known about it a lot sooner. I can watch the real-time ticker so know I’m making a difference.
Goodshop is another great tool to generate funds through actual purchases. The merchants in the system share their profits with charitable organizations by their own accord (not thru fraud clicks that essentially rob from their businesses).
Heres a link to GOODSHOP:
http://www.goodsearch.com/goodshop.aspx
I agree the Red Cross CEO salary is not where I want my money to go. (I believe that’s how they entice the best to come work for them rather than for a public company). I also read that the head of a PBS station was pulling in about $750,000 a year. Three quarters of a million dollars a year! To run a tv station! I no longer support that organization.
I wanted to add that one thing I’m finding disturbing about Goodsearch is that the charity setting gets cleared. So you think you’re donating when all you’re really doing is making money for the Goodsearch search engine people. I’m finding the notion of one’s charity setting falling through the cracks to be a bit on the dark side and perhaps even by design.
There is a toolbar for IE and Firefox. Maybe that works better and has a counter or some other indicator to let you know your charity setting has been removed so searches aren’t actually donating … if you actually remember to keep tabs on it.
fas, my charity setting never gets cleared, unless I have deleted the cookie from my files.
I’ve been using GoodSearch for a couple years, and my charity has never just randomly disappeared.
@Eric, I like to clear my cookies manually frequently. They also can get cleared automatically with utilities or otherwise when cleaning up. I can’t imagine not clearing your browser/cookies for a couple years. They can slow things down. Don’t like all that tracking of my business either.
I’ve set my charity as my home page so I can restore easily. You just need to include the charity’s id #, example below:
http://www.goodsearch.com/?charityid=123456
My Charity
uses goodsearch and goodshop and are totally blessed by the money we receive every year. It is up to every person to do their due diligence concering the Non-profits they support. Since all have to register with their local Corp comission it is not difficult. As always the most efficient way to support an organization is to donate directly to them. Goodsearch provides an additional way that you can support organizations with no out of pocket risk it truely is a win/win
I find it sad that you don’t believe in the end most people are good. I’m giving to the aged in my old hometown. A big $146.00 they’ve earned. Sure people need to be honest and your warning about corrupt companies is legit only you make Good Search sound like the corrupt organization. It was a few people who thought a penny here and there could help so suitable organizations. I do wish you would believe in people being basically good at heart.
Geeaea, my sister and sister in law both work at St Jude Children’s Research Hospital but before either did my family had a first hand experience with just what that hospital does with it’s money! There’s no hiding anything! The children and research a the number one priority. By making a blanket statement as you did you try to put all non-profits in the same basket. Now I wouldn’t give money to my husband’s not for profit hospital as they charge people for their services. But St Jude, who’s not on the list but hopefully will be, doesn’t charge families for their care, sleeping accommodations, any and everything a family in crisis might need. I even donate my sky miles to St Jude because some families can’t afford to fly to Memphis to seek care. Does that make it wrong that I’m using an obviously profitable company, credit card, to help the charitable? St. Jude has to pay their staff and it’s nothing super special compared to other hospitals, once you’re a patient you can return at ANY AGE for ANY KIND OF CARE! This is a hospital that took childhood cancer survival rate from the 20% category to 97% for leukemia alone. More kids by far leave the hospital healthy than don’t and families are forever touched, no matter the medical outcome, by the work of everyone at St Jude. So we should just stop raising money for them by going to Chili’s once a year on St Jude day, or shopping at stores that give 10% of your sale to St. Jude? Were would breast cancer be with the marathons, selling ribbons, etc.
It is totally up to the person selecting the charity to make sure it’s legit, don’t blame the Good Search idea for bad people. And I stand by my first thought, people are heart are good.
While goodsearch.com themselves may be innocent of any intentional misconduct, what surprises me the most is how willing people are to surrender their personal search and shopping data to unknown third parties for a mere penny per search. Guess what? You’re being cheated – that information is worth more to the market researchers paying Goodsearch for the data acquired. Much more. And what of the quality of the search results? Yahoo search is hardly as good as Google, or even Bing. Plenty of statistics online regarding that market. I wouldn’t be willing to do this unless there was more transparency – just how much is Yahoo being paid for this data being collected from us?
I’d rather keep my online activities private, personally. I wish more people understood the ramifications of the information being shared about them online. Stuff like this is indicative of the level of ignorance the average layperson has regarding online privacy.
For one thing, searching on GoodSearch (and meanwhile making a donation) does not require divulging any personal information other than your search term. Registration is optional.
For another, I think this whole predicament is quite easily remedied: only select charities you trust.
If the system is abused by some parties, I don’t think that’s anything to give a hoot about, either– in that situation, Yahoo makes some portion of the money, the abuser receives funds, and advertisers get attention. Not a great situation, but there’s nothing particularly harmful about it.
You obviously have never had anything to do with in the non- profit sector!!
If you had you would have known how stupid that first statement was,
Anyone that has anything to do with charity would jump at the chance to do something this easy to help others.
It is to bad that when you google good search this is one of the first things that come up.
Irresponsible !
You obviously have never had anything to do with in the non- profit sector!!
It is to bad that when you google good search this is one of the first things that comes up.
Irresponsible !