If you blog on Open Salon, you are probably aware that you can earn revenue by signing up for an AdSense account and allowing Google to display relevant ads alongside your blog. (The same sort of arrangement also exists on other revenue-sharing sites, except that it’s not always AdSense/Google.) If you have a popular blog, then it makes sense to sign up, and you probably already have. (If not, well, what are you waiting for? It’s found money.)
If, like me, you have a less popular blog, you probably looked that the numbers, realized that it would be years (if ever) before the first payment showed up, and decided that it probably wasn’t worth the bother of managing yet another account.
I’d like to ask you to reconsider.
Even if the money you would earn is so small that it would make no difference to you, there are people, charities, and other organizations out there who are in dire straights and could really use the money. Give it to them.
Pick a charity, and either send your AdSense revenue to them when you receive it, or ask them if you can directly link your blog to their AdSense account (if they have one–if not, talk them about getting one).
This is important. I volunteer at a local charitable organization, and the last few years have been terrible for us. Our fund-raising activities, which are generally a way to get money from the generous “haves” in our community and use it in ways that help the needy “have-nots” in desperate places around the globe, have floundered as the number of “haves” in our community shrinks and the number of “have-nots” around the world has increased enormously. We’re reaching the end of our resources, but there’s nothing unique about our situation–almost everyone I’ve talked to in charitable or service organizations is in the same situation. We’re actually better off than some–the local Kiwanis club and Mason lodge have closed, probably gone forever, etc–but we’re in serious trouble.
Every little bit helps. Don’t leave those pennies from heaven just laying there in the dirt.
One last request: if you know of a reputable charity that has an AdSense account, please add a comment to this posting giving the appropriate contact information so that other readers can find it.
