“But whoever has the world’s goods, and beholds his brother in need and closes his heart against him, how does the love of God abide in him?”

Here in Covesville, Virginia, USA (Population 100), I don’t see much poverty.  Actually, I don’t see any.  Albemarle County is one of the most affluent counties in the state.  So I was a little bit startled to see a man holding a cardboard sign at an intersection, at night, in Chicago, in December.  A driver rolled down his window and gave him, what, a dollar?  I didn’t have any cash on me - I wonder what I would have done if I had? (Probably ask for a receipt.) 

The other thing that startled me was when I went to the restrooms of the larger airports.  There was this guy holding a plain roll of paper towels, and each time someone washed their hands and reached for the paper towel dispenser (it was right there), he would quickly tear of a sheet and hand it to him.  That’s all he did, all day.  Beside him was a little tip jar, but I didn’t have any cash…

Of course he is to be respected for taking a job that someone like me would be too proud to do.  But I thought about his office, surrounded not by cubicles, but stalls, with the walls lined with urinals, and the smell of etc.  Here I am back in my office, sitting at my antique desk (cherry),  in my ebony University of Virginia rocking chair, my UVa mirror and UVa diploma nearby (did I mention where I went to college?).

What am I to make of all this?  What do I owe the guy freezing in Chicago? The hard working guy in the men’s room?  The homeless or very poor in Charlottesville (the “City” here)?  Laura and I have it pretty good here (we are DINKs - Double Income, No Kids), should I feel guilty about that?  Am I only giving Christmas presents to people who are likely to give me one too?

Well, I don’t know, but it sure seems like a good time to revisit the Vertical of Charity Search Engines, which we have covered on many occasions. I think that the very least that I can do is to change my homepage to one of these tomorrow until the end of the year.  I’ll make my decision after we review them, and then I hope that you will leave a comment sharing with all of us your choice.

So let’s get started.  Here are the criteria:

Factor #1: Is the site global, or specific to only one country or region?

Factor #2: How many Charities does it help? Can you choose your own?

Factor #3: How much does it give to those Charities? What % of revenue?

Factor #4: How explicitly do they reveal how to check their figures?

Factor #5: How good are their search results? (All the majors are equal.)

Editor’s note: I am still sick from Chicago, so I will do the testing tomorrow.  In the meanwhile, if I missed one, please leave a comment!

This entry was posted on Monday, December 10th, 2007 at 9:29 pm and is filed under Verticals. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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