Feed the starving at no cost to you
Every three point five seconds someone in the world dies of hunger, and two thirds of the 25,000 daily deaths are children. Yet there’s a way to feed them which won’t cost you a penny, it’s called TheHungersite.
Take a click to www.thehungersite.com and amid a pile of banners you’ll see a yellow button in the middle of the site’s front page. The emblazoned message is ‘Help Feed the Hungry – Click here daily, it’s free!’ Do so and a cup of a staple foodstuff is bought for someone, somewhere who is hungry.
Who pays for it? Is it for real?
It may sound like a scam, but it’s not. The food is paid for by the site’s sponsors. In return their names are prominently displayed after you’ve clicked. The more sponsors on any given day, the more donated per click; though only one click per computer per day counts.
The logic behind this site is brilliant. It’s a win-win-win situation for the starving, the internet user, and the sponsors: in practical terms they receive cost effective feel good public relations, especially powerful in helping promote ethical brands.
Where does the food go to?
The hungersite is a US driven site, so while 70% of the donations go to alleviating hunger in the developing world, 30% do help those within the US. Yet clicks from anywhere in the world count (the UK is the second biggest clicker).
The food is distributed by Mercy Corps, a large US charity which provides aid in 32 countries including Ethiopia, Guatemala, Somalia and Pakistan; and America’s Second Harvest, which helps support the homeless, the elderly and disaster victims in the US.
How much food is given?
In the year 2000 the Hungersite paid for over 9,500 tons of food to be distributed, enough to feed nearly 400,000 people daily. Sadly management issues and a drop in advertising rates meant the amount donated dropped, however the recovery has started and last year 2,800 tons was delivered, enough for over 100,000 people.
How it really works
The hungersite is a very clever idea. In effect it’s an advertising site where much of the profit is distributed to charity. In fact CharityUSA.com, the organisation behind the site these days, isn’t a charity; it's a profit-making company.
It makes its money by selling merchandise on the back of the site itself; though crucially all the charity click money goes to feed the starving. And as you don’t need to buy anything and the charities themselves confirm they get the cash, who cares?
The mechanics
Technically the hungersite’s sponsors don’t pay when you click the ‘feed the starving’ button; it’s more complex. They pay when you directly click through to them via the sponsor's page; at a rough rate of 20p per click.
The amount of food donated from clicking the button is thus a nominal figure derived from the estimated ‘click-through’ rate to a sponsor’s page; a standard internet advertising procedure, my estimate is it’s around 0.5p per ‘feed the starving’ button click.
As a comparison for an ad on search engine Google, you’d pay 1p to £60 per click depending on how high up the ad list you want to be. Thus the ads on the Hungersite aren’t particularly expensive, plus they’re prominently placed and people like the association.
[B]Also the demographics show a disproportionate number of affluent older women do most of the clicks, a usually difficult to reach advertising audience.
Is it worth it?Taking time to click really helps, especially if you do it daily. The hungersite offers an e-mail daily prompt reminder service (signing up to it also gives an additional two cups of food).
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Originally Posted by rosebery
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