A lot of websites use ads to make it worth their while to continue, but I have noticed that more and more are starting to rely on donations from their readers. This confused me some-what, because I have always thought of a donation as giving money to a charity (eg. Cure Cancer, Flying Doctors, and Hospitals), and it seems that someone else agrees with me: The Oxford Dictionary. It states that a donation is:
Something that is given to a charity, especially a sum of money.
A charity, not a website that tries to convince people to take their personality test! This made me think that maybe my perspective of a charity is wrong, and that blogs whos entire existence is dedicated to people showing pictures of their children is a charity. So I looked up the definition of charity:
An organization set up to provide help and raise money for those in need.
So unless the owners of these sites are homeless, or have some crippeling condition, the word donation is misleading. By giving money to one of these sites you are not 'donating' anything at all. If you have some great desire to hand over your cash to a complete stranger, then give it to something worthwhile, like the Red Cross.
If anybody is any good at web design and scripting, and is willing to create a button to try and promote the ban (not legally, but socially) of phony donations, then I would be happy to support them.
Russ Egan http://s-bend.blogspot.com
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