Thought: on donating to charity to get more blog readers and customers
The following post is written to all bloggers who talk about donating to charity based on the number of comments they get, the number of MyBlogLog members they get, or anything else that means more readers or money for them or their blogs.
I am seeing a continuing trend on a few blogs where many bloggers are talking more and more about how they want to donate to charity. These bloggers say that they will donate something for every comment they get on their site. While this may seem like a nice thing to do, think about this: if your own life, or the life of your father, mother, daughter, son, sister or brother, depended on the number of comments on your site, would you feel good about it? Would you not wonder why your life depends on the number of comments a rich person gets?
Do you donate because it is a good thing, or do you donate to get more blog traffic and comments?
It is a good thing to tell people to donate. It is an even better thing to donate yourself. However, in my view, it is not a good thing to use the poor and homeless people, who need help, to get yourself more comments. Manipulating people’s emotions to get more clicks and comments on your site so that you can donate to charity means that you are not willing to help others without getting something back along the way. For many blogs, more comments mean more traffic, which results in more money through ads. Thus, you are simply going to give charity only if you can get more customers.
What happens if you do not get even a single comment? Are you going to change your rules and donate anyhow? Why not donate right away in the first place when people are dying because of hunger and other things every single hour, instead of playing marketing gimmicks on innocent people’s lives so that you can get more traffic and more comments on your blog?
Do not let innocent lives hang on a thread simply because you crave for more comments
If you want to tell people to donate, go ahead. But if you want to donate yourself, do it without any hesitation, and do it without being selfish or without looking for a return investment. The people who are in need have done nothing bad to you, so try to help them and not base your donations on the number of customers or comments you get. That is not respectful to the people in need, as their lives are worth more than the number of comments you will ever receive.
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( March 23rd, 2007 at 10:46 pm )
I agree that people should give to charities because they want to and not in return for comments or customers. But, if me leaving a comment on a blog loosens up that persons purse strings a little bit then I am likely to do it, and I recently did.
I hope that the person does occasionally give to charities without any type of return. If that blog was consistently running a comment for charity post then I would be skeptical of that blog. In the end hopefully the money is donated and helps some people that need it.
( March 24th, 2007 at 4:41 am )
Hi Lee.
Thanks for coming to the site and thanks for commenting. I am glad that you find the posts interesting.
I like your idea that if a comment prompts someone to donate more, than you will comment more. That is a good idea. Also, I also think it is nice that a person gives to charities or helps other things and people without looking for a return investment. Someone only helping when getting something in return from their blog may be doing a good thing, but the very principle that those bloggers cite in order to donate seems to be contradicted by themselves through both their intentions and actions.
Thanks again Lee for the input!
( March 24th, 2007 at 4:52 am )
I tend to agree with Lee that there’s no harm done if my comment insures a donation. Is it a marketing ploy? Probably. But it’s not a new thing. And, frankly, I don’t care if someone teams marketing with charity. If their business/service/blog grows through it, they might be inclined to be more giving and will be in a position to give without regard to getting.
( March 24th, 2007 at 6:41 pm )
Thanks for sharing your opinion Carolyn.
I think you and Lee are right; even if it is a marketing ploy, if it is helping people in the short and the long term, it can be better than having nothing at all. For me, I would love to change the mentality in people so that they could view the issue of helping others separately than the issue of finding ways to make more money. But of course, we all know what happens when we want to change mentalities, don’t we? 
Thanks again Carolyn. Your comment also shows that not all businesses and blogs, that do what I mentioned above, are evil.
( March 24th, 2007 at 7:11 pm )
Bes, it’s tough to change mentalities. It’s so much easier to try to understand, to try to help, to try to be you. Yes, most of us are wonderful and not evil.
( March 25th, 2007 at 12:15 am )
I don’t think I’d ever do something like that… My giving to charities isn’t dependent on comments or web traffic… more dependent on my situation at the moment. If I know I can give a little, then I try to.
( March 25th, 2007 at 1:31 pm )
Carolyn, excellent point. Mentalities are hard/tough to change. We have to be ourselves, and maybe show through examples the alternate possibilities.
Thanks Carolyn.
Suki, welcome back! Long time no see.
Thanks for the comment. It is good that your views about charity do not depend on how much actual monetary return investment you get.
I am thinking the issue of charity takes on a different meaning when it moves from the personal level to a more business level. Like Carolyn mentioned above, it can be good even if it is a marketing ploy. At least the poor people are getting something through charity. For me, the mentality of basing charity on only what we can get in return is a source for other bad things to happen. However, like Carolyn pointed out, changing mentalities is hard. Showing ourselves is better!
Thanks again Suki. I really appreciate your comment on this.
( April 6th, 2007 at 10:03 pm )
I missed this post when it was originally posted. In fact, I seem to have missed a bunch of posts that just showd up on the RSS feed for me. Hm. Or maybe I skipped over it accidently before and forgot I ever saw it. In any case, here’s my thoughts on it:
Look at it this way, and see if it makes you feel differently afterwards.
I want to help someone, but I can barely pay my rent, much less give anything much to charity. If I see a blog or other site where I can do something as simple as leaving a comment, I am still contributing in a way to help someone in need.
This doesn’t necessarily mean that I’ll look around the person’s blog/site afterwards, or come back later on to leave comments on his other posts or browse his content. He’s not gaining a new reader/visitor, just someone who wanted to help bump up the donation amount.
Also, not all people who are donating are rich or have a lot of money to donate. Donating based on the number of comments is pushing them to donate more than they originally thought, which in turn gets them to think up ways to earn extra money to afford the extra donation amount.
Donating based on number of comments was something a lot of people did for Katrina. It became a meme, and was effective in getting others to join in and donate themselves as well.
Not everyone did $1 for each comment either, some people said they would donate X amount plus a dollar for each comment, or Y times the total amount of comments received. So going back to my first example, I’d feel like leaving a simple comment, I just contributed a lot more than I could have given (say if Y was 75 because it was an insanely rich person).
Also, involving your readers is fun! My favorite example of this is Popular Front’s SnowDays. I think they were donating 5000(I forget the exact number of zeros) dollars to the Salvation Army plus some amount more for each milestone of number of snowflakes created. Back to my first example again, someone feels good for being able to contribute when they otherwise might not, and they get something else out of it as well.
I’ve also seen things where the comments left to the donate post were letters to sick kids at the hospital the person was donating to, people sharing stories and get well notes and pictures, etc. that the person printed out to send in with the donation, like a giant signed card from people all over the internet.
I’m going to stop here because I need to go, but I hope my comment helped.
( April 7th, 2007 at 2:09 pm )
Thanks for the explanation Stacee. I think it makes a lot of sense.
Regarding missing the posts, I am not sure what happened. Maybe it was my side of the feeds messing up?
I think the way you see it makes a lot of sense, yes.
I agree that a person does good by participating on a site that is involved in charity through such ways. I also agree that a person will not “necessarily” stay around a blog and become a loyal reader.
You have an excellent point about not all people being rich. I was through my post trying to hint at the rich bloggers who could donate without the marketing scheme but who still go through the marketing tactics in order to generate traffic.
Wow, unfortunately, I didn’t know about Katrina since I wasn’t here [remember?]. That is a good way to spread an idea and to get more help.
Yes, involving readers is indeed fun! Maybe I should offer charity as one of the RAW prizes?
I remember the Front’s Snowdays and I think I found the link through your site and also made some designs there, lol.
Excellent point Stacee. After reading your post, I agree; such an idea, even though in my view used by rich bloggers who can afford to give right away without any marketing schemes, do a lot of good and are better than not doing anything.
Thanks for the detailed explanation. I really appreciate it. Looking forward to more comments by you :).
( April 7th, 2007 at 8:05 pm )
“Wow, unfortunately, I didn’t know about Katrina since I wasn’t here [remember?].”
Really? It was all over the news for a long time, the event as well as recovery and rebuilding, etc.
Someone mentioned earlier that it’s different when it’s a person donating and when it’s a company. Check out what this very large company with money (Microsoft) is doing: http://im.live.com/Messenger/IM/Home/
They’re donating based on their people using their IM service, for each IM conversation that happens. I’d say the concept is kind of the same as asking for comments on someone’s blog. What do you think of this?
( April 7th, 2007 at 9:01 pm )
Hi Stacee.
What I meant was that I was volunteering myself and I went down to the affected areas for a while and couldn’t access the internet [I was assuming that you knew, but maybe we had not chatted much back then?]. I wrote at least 2 posts on it that I can remember [one and two]. Also, after I came back, the situation was a bit under “control” according to the authorities, so I simply moved on a little bit and did not check how the online world was helping the issue.
Thanks for those links. I am going to check them more. I might post another update to this a post/comment later this week, I think.
( April 8th, 2007 at 11:00 pm )
Hm.. maybe I did read those, but didn’t recall them when I made the comment. That’s awesome of you to help out!
I look forward to another post about this if/when you do make it.