3 Ways to Give to Charity By Shopping

Shopping on site that give back to charity is a great way to give back without worrying about your budget. I found three sites that offer high donations, as well as a variety of products and services. 

eBay for Charity

If you're looking for the perfect gift on eBay, be sure to check out the Charity Shop section. There you'll find special events that give back to specific charities. Plus, you can browse by categories of products, including fashion, electronics, tickets, and more. Every seller in the Charity Shop has chosen the donate 10-100 percent of the final sale price (or as low as one percent for eBay Motors) to a certified charity. At the bottom of the item listing, you'll find the percentage of the donation and the name of the charitable organization. 

Goodsearch and Goodshop

You use this search engine the same way you’d use any other; in fact, it’s powered by Yahoo. The only difference is that Goodsearch donates to charity every time you search. For each search, your charity earns the lesser of $0.01 or 50 percent of the revenue GoodSearch earns from Yahoo for things like sponsored search results. 

More than 117,930 non-profits are included in the Goodsearch network, and if the school or organization you would like to help isn’t in there, you can apply to add it.

Within the GoodSearch family of products is also Goodshop, an online shopping mall that includes well known merchants such as Macy's, Kohl's, and Nordstrom. Whenever you use the GoodShop mall and buy something, a donation anywhere from 0.05% to 17% of the purchase price goes to the charity or school you’ve chosen (That's half of the referral fee that Goodshop receives). The percentage of the donation is determined by the retailer.

iGive

Like Goodshop, iGive receives a portion of your purchase back from the retailer. You decide which charity you'd like to support and the fees will be sent monthly. Keep track of your donations in the handy online dashboard, and if your cause qualifies under section 170 of the IRS tax code as a nonprofit, your donation may be tax-deductible (check with your accountant). You are bound by the IRS limits on gifts without a receipt directly from the cause. There are more than 2400 retailers to choose from when shopping. Some have special one-time donations, like Chewy, which donates $4 for new customers. 

[Image credit: giving Tuesday via BigStockPhoto]