We know that making a difference through volunteering time or donating money is not necessarily an option for everyone, so here are some resources for how to affect change without spending a lot of money or energy.
- Greater Good: Click to give. For every click, money is donated to a good cause:
Hunger (“providing food for people in need in the U.S. and around the world”), Breast cancer (“funding free mammograms for women in need”), Animals (“providing food and care for shelter animals”), Veterans (“providing meals for veterans in need”), Diabetes (“funding vital research to help people affected by diabetes”), Literacy (“providing books for children in the U.S. and around the world”), and Rainforest (“protecting vital habitat for wildlife”).
Unfortunately, one of their partners for their “autism” category is a group that people with autism have denounced as speaking over them. The others categories are good though. - Freekibble: “Right or wrong, you win! Click on an answer, and every day you do, we’ll provide kibble to animal shelters to help feed their hungry dogs. Play every day – the more you play, the more kibble for the dogs!” Freekibble also allows you to donate cat kibble and cat litter by simply clicking a button.
- Freerice: “Freerice is a 100% non-profit website that is owned by and supports the United Nations World Food Programme. Freerice has two goals: Provide education to everyone for free. Help end world hunger by providing rice to hungry people for free.” Answer questions about The Global Goals, English, Geography, Humanities, Language Learning, Math, or Science and for every correct answer, ten grains of rice will be donated to the world food program to help end world hunger.
- Zooniverse: “The Zooniverse is the world’s largest and most popular platform for people-powered research. This research is made possible by volunteers — hundreds of thousands of people around the world who come together to assist professional researchers. Our goal is to enable research that would not be possible, or practical, otherwise. Zooniverse research results in new discoveries, datasets useful to the wider research community, and many publications.
- Kiva: Provides microloans to help people in many countries. “Kiva is an international nonprofit, founded in 2005 and based in San Francisco, with a mission to connect people through lending to alleviate poverty. We celebrate and support people looking to create a better future for themselves, their families and their communities. By lending as little as $25 on Kiva, anyone can help a borrower start or grow a business, go to school, access clean energy or realize their potential. For some, it’s a matter of survival, for others it’s the fuel for a life-long ambition.”
- Help From Home has a huge collection of links to small things that you can do to make a difference without leaving your house. (Archived site.)
For more ways to make a difference explore our articles and blog posts on advocacy.