January 6, 2001

9:21 AM

Donate a Mammogram!My aunt sent me this URL so be nice. =) If you go there and click on the button, a woman gets a free mammogram at no cost to you. Corporate sponsors pay for it. Only one free mammogram donation per person. Sure it's corny but it's for a good cause. Besides, it is every man's sacred duty to do what he can to insure all the world's breasts are in top form. =)
posted by ZachsMind (15 comments total)

in the interest of accuracy, each click donates a *portion* of a mammogram, but it's worth doing once daily.

here's is the fabulous script jjg wrote for me which opens six donation sites with one click (hungersite, save rainforests, kids aids, child survival, clear landmines, and mammogram.) drag it to your toolbar for cool donation handiness.

dosomegood
posted by rebeccablood at 2:51 PM on January 6, 2001

Damn, rebecca, that crashed my browser. I'm running IE 5 on a PC, so no weird equipment here.

Anyway, thehungersite is my homepage and I routinely spend my first five minutes every morning clicking the little click-y things. Five minutes well spent.
posted by acridrabbit at 6:38 PM on January 6, 2001

Now, let's set up one that combats colo-rectal/prostrate/testicular cancer for men. Let equality rule... after all, women's cancers get 10 times the funding that mens cancers do. I guess that testicles aren't as pretty as breasts to donors.
posted by Dean_Paxton at 6:53 PM on January 6, 2001

No need for "to donors," you could have stopped after "testicles aren't as pretty as breasts."
posted by kindall at 8:08 PM on January 6, 2001

Rebecca, that script crashes me out as well - IE 5 on a PC also, but the intent behind it is great!
posted by kristin at 11:21 PM on January 6, 2001

Hrm...I use that script daily on IE5/PC and it works just dandy, even on the slow-as-mole-asses PC I have at work.
posted by bradlands at 12:07 AM on January 7, 2001

IE 5.5, w2k pro, worked fine, might be a ram issue opening too many windows?
posted by cburton at 3:07 AM on January 7, 2001

hmmm, sorry about that, I don't know what to tell you.

I usually use it in NN 4.7/PC, but I just tried it with IE5.5 and it worked just fine.

rcb
posted by rebeccablood at 12:26 PM on January 7, 2001

IE 5.5b1/Mac, seemed to work just fine (amazingly). Now if only we could get the script to click the buttons too...
posted by aaron at 4:28 PM on January 7, 2001

How exactly do these "click here to donate money out of somebody else's pocket" sites work, anyway? They've always seemed a bit of a scam to me, simply because I can't see where the value comes from. What is the donation site selling, in the act of my clicking on that link, that is worth some (presumed) corporate sponsor's while? And who checks to make sure that the money is actually getting where it's supposed to go?

I have a strong suspicion that I'm not going to like the answers to these questions, which is why I have yet to participate in any of these ventures.

-Mars
posted by Mars Saxman at 9:28 PM on January 7, 2001

It's advertising. You go to the site, you see who's sponsoring the projects, you associate that brand with Good Things, you pick that brand over the competitor because of that association.

I don't think it's harmful in any way, really. Good things do come of it, and from what I remember (it's been a while since I actually checked out who the sponsors are) the sponsors are good solid brand names anyway, brands I'd likely buy from regardless of a Good Thing association. Considering how long it's been since I've actually bought anything though, I can't say how insidious the advertising method is. :-)
posted by cCranium at 6:09 AM on January 8, 2001

snopes:
Claim: You can help disadvantaged women in America obtain free mammograms by simply by clicking a button on a web site.

Status: True.

it's all based on the standard advertising revenue model. a teeny amount of money per pageview times thousands of people equals a donation every day. you can check the various sites ' "be a sponsor" page to find out more.

rcb
posted by rebeccablood at 10:51 AM on January 8, 2001

There's a Mac application that lets you hit various sites and donate stuff automatically. The server thinks it's a standard Web browser, but you never actually see the pages (or the ads). Your anti-corporate types will love it: the sponsoring corporations get a tiny bit of money sucked out of them each time it's run, but they receive none of the promotional benefit they think they're paying for. Bwahahaha!
posted by kindall at 11:25 AM on January 8, 2001

i think these "do good" projects are the last thing you want to punish corporations for.

bwahahaha yourself.
posted by palegirl at 1:42 PM on January 8, 2001

But don't you know, corporations are eeeeevil by nature, so anything they do is tainted. Even if it seems good, it always has an ulterior motive. The "good deed" is a token bribe to get you to forget they're pillaging the environment and corrupting our political process! The sky is falling! Oh, wait, it already fell.
posted by kindall at 3:51 PM on January 8, 2001