Last year, Microsoft launched a programme through which money would be donated to certain charities for every search conducted through their search engine. The project was a great success, in that over $250,000 were donated to over 20,000 charitable organizations.
Microsoft is now introducing an even better scheme for their Search and Give project, which will be easy to use even for novices, and will allow users a greater choice in terms of the charity they would like to donate to. Interested persons just have to sign up on the Search and Give site:
www.searchandgive.com/
For every search a user conducts after signing up for the programme, one cent will be donated to the charity of their choice. The list of charitable institutions included now covers over 100,000 schools and 900,000 non-profit organizations worldwide. More charitable persons can also elect to convert the tickets they may have earned while playing games on Microsoft’s Live Search Club into donations.
Thus every time a person searches for something on Microsoft Search, he/she would be indirectly performing a good deed. It has been estimated that a person often conducts about 500 searches online per month, which could amount to $5.00 given to charity per Microsoft Search user.
Users can keep track of their donations and also of the total donations and other donors to that organization. This Search and Give incentive will help people to donate to causes that they care about. Users can also send emails to their friends and family to let them know about the scheme and further increase the donations generated.
While this seems to be a noble venture on the part of Microsoft, it cannot be denied that the ultimate aim behind this gesture would be to have more and more consumers using their search engine instead of Google, thereby improving their own position in the search market.
In order to improve their position, Microsoft had also launched a cash for search incentive just a couple of weeks ago, wherein users would receive a certain percentage refund on any item they purchase through Microsoft. While one program rewards the user directly with money, the other rewards the user with a good feeling for having done some charity. However, both the programmes ultimately benefit Microsoft as they both lure more customers to their Search engine.
