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It’s won a Cool Site of the Year Award and a People's Voice winner at the Webby Awards. Now it might just have won your attention too. And with good reason. Since its inception in 1999, The Hunger Site has offered an easy way to help the poor: Simply visit its website, click a button for free, and presto! You have made a difference by supplying food to the hungry.

“The creators wanted a website that allowed people to have a fast, free, and easy way to contribute to an important cause,” Tim Kunin, CEO of GreaterGood, the company that operates the site, said. “The inspiration behind it was the idea that if thousands or millions of people took a minute of their day to do one simple action that they were already doing, the click of a mouse, then that click could be used to create a greater good for all.”

The Internet’s first “Click to Give” website, the Hunger Site now offers another seven sites on which Internet surfers can click for a cause: The Breast Cancer Site, The Animal Rescue Site, The Veterans Site, The Autism Site, The Diabetes Site, The Literacy Site and The Rainforest Site. The suite of “Click Here to Give” websites promotes itself as an easy way to help people and the planet; all nine buttons can be clicked on daily in less than one minute.

Each time you click that yellow button, Greater Good donates approximately one cup of food to those in need. Funds come from the website’s paid advertising, including advertising banners and the round of boxed ads that appears after a visitor clicks. Thus far, more than $29 million has been donated through the click actions of around 220,000 daily visitors.

“So many people treat this (hunger) as an insolvable problem,” Kunin explained. “There’s numerous reports readily available online showing that sustainable solutions for world hunger can be achieved in our lifetime. We support the proposition laid out in the Millennium Development Goals that extreme poverty and hunger can be eradicated. We support charitable partners who are working to implement programs to make this a reality in our generation.”

Since its beginning, the charitable site has provided more than 856 million cups of food to the needy in 74 countries across Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe, the Middle East, Latin America and North America.

Although best known for its click button service, The Hunger Site offers a number of other options for the do-gooder. The website operates a store selling fair trade goods, jewelry, clothing, items for the home and office, and more. Each purchase also helps prevent world hunger by donating a specified amount of food. The artisans who create the site’s goods are all chosen for their dedication to providing fair wage jobs, and many are from women-owned cooperatives. Kunin recalls personally sourcing Tuareg jewelry from Mali, alpaca gloves hand-woven in Bolivia, handmade ornaments from Haiti, hand-loomed scarves from Nepal, women-made jewelry from Afghanistan and hand-woven baskets from the Amazon.

“I click daily, but also buy our fair trade items, because just providing food is not enough,” Kunin said. “We need to provide markets for the products made by the rural poor. Many of the issues that I care most about – including war, malnutrition, education, the spread of disease, empowerment of women, and even the treatment of animals and the destruction of wild places – are caused or impacted by people or communities which don't have enough resources.”

Visitors can also take the time to sign a petition, perhaps advocating for a stop to honor killings or better education for girls. For the forgetful, users may sign up for a daily email reminder to click.

“For the 16.7 million children under the age of 18 who go to bed hungry in America, and no county in the United States is untouched by this problem, it means poor health, poor performance in school, and a poor start in life that might never be overcome. For millions of children around the world, it may very well mean death before age five due to the vulnerability to disease created by malnutrition. It takes amazingly little to change a life around by giving a minute or so of your day to combat hunger,” Kunin asserted.

Like any online service, The Hunger Site struggles to gets its users engaged and coming back for more. Toward this end, the site has been revamped with a whole new look.

“I believe that the world is better place when everyone has a chance to dream, and I work at The Hunger Site to try to make that possible,” the CEO said. “I have personally seen that small actions can have big impacts. Once people understand that a click makes a real difference, they become passionate about spreading the word and letting others know.”

So visit The Hunger Site and start clicking on whatever moves you.

Tagged in: charity, causes, nonprofit, philanthropy, the hunger site,

Lifestyle / Causes