A Hunger for Payment at Charity Site

Last summer, the Hunger Site debuted as an innovative way for a charity to promote its

causes online while garnering corporate donations. The site encourages visitors to click on a “donate now” button, and for every click recorded, the site’s corporate sponsors agree to pay for a quarter of a cup of food each to feed the poor. Viewers see ads for the sponsors every time they click on the button.

But the Hunger Site — and five similar ones that help other causes — have now run into financial problems that raise questions about their future.

United Nations World Hunger Programme, the Hunger Site’s primary beneficiary, just ended its affiliation with GreaterGood.com, the company that runs the sites, citing delays in receiving donations from the company. The other two charity beneficiaries of the Hunger Site, Mercy Corps and America’s Second Harvest, have not received any money yet because payments are made quarterly and the two groups did not join the site until November 6.

The Nature Conservancy, the charity beneficiary of another click-to-donate site managed by GreaterGood, reports similar problems. The charity says it has received only $4,000 of an estimated $110,000 it is due from GreaterGood since the Rainforest Site went up in May.

Alexis Beshara, the Nature Conservancy’s director of corporate partnerships, says GreaterGood has promised to pay $63,728 by mid-December and the remainder once the company confirms the exact amount owed. She says GreaterGood told her the delay was due to trouble collecting from corporate sponsors, particularly Internet-based companies.

Lynn Ridenour, GreaterGood’s executive vice president of marketing and sales, says her organization is working to get company sponsors to pay their bills more quickly. GreaterGood says it has wired the U.N. program the full amount it owes and will be “up to date” on payments to the Nature Conservancy by mid-December.

Future in Doubt

The financial problems cast doubts about the future of such click-to-donate marketing deals.

When the Hunger Site started, it was touted as a simple and easy way for anti-hunger advocates to show their support and for companies to associate themselves with a cause and recruit new customers. But managing the site has become a much bigger job than first envisioned, and some corporate donors are finding it less effective now that the novelty has begun to wear off.

John Breen, the Bloomington, Ind., computer technician who began the Hunger Site, turned it over to GreaterGood in February after finding that the site took too much time and energy to oversee.

GreaterGood, which also runs a charity shopping mall, started five other sites after taking over the Hunger Site. The most recent addition, http://www.thelandminesite.com, went online this month and sends donations to the Landmine Survivors’ Network. In addition to rain forests, other sites support breast-cancer screenings, pediatric AIDS research, and vitamin supplements for children in poor countries.

The company says it expects to raise $3.5-million for the Hunger Site this year and a total of $1.5-million for the other five sites. It keeps a quarter of the income from the sites to cover its expenses. “There is incredible expense involved in hosting these Web sites,” says Ms. Ridenour.

The Hunger Site has been the most popular with companies. Usually, four companies sponsor the Hunger Site daily, and 6 to 7 million visitors a month click to donate food, according to GreaterGood.

The 2-cent-per-cup cost translates to between $1,250 and $1,400 per weekday for companies and $750 per weekend day, the company says.

One company that has been a repeated sponsor of the Hunger Site is Tiger Technologies, a two-person software firm best known for its Christmas software program that puts a border of colored lights around a computer user’s screen and plays holiday music.

The company’s president, Robert Mathews, says he relies heavily on Internet advertising to promote his software, which he offers free to users initially, asking them to pay for the software later if they like it.

When Mr. Mathews sponsored the Hunger Site last holiday season, he says he “wanted to support a charitable cause.” But he “got back four times what the sponsorship cost, which astonished me.” By contrast, he says, banner advertising on other sites “was like throwing money down the toilet.”

Later results on the Hunger Site, however, haven’t been as strong. “Unfortunately, a lot of the same people visit the Hunger Site to donate the rice. I only get about half the click-throughs, and fewer of those download,” he says. “So I break even.”