Employers have long been plagued by the various activities of their employees in the workplace: people will use the company's internet connection to book holidays, find out about cinema times or obtain answers for long-running arguments (the chicken or the egg, anyone?). In fact, there are even sites out there which provide a "quick the boss is coming" button to bring you back to a search engine homepage to disguise your real activities. But what if every time you surfed the internet at work, you generated cash for a chosen charity?
That's exactly what The London Stock Exchange, AXA Life, and Cadbury Schweppes decided when they signed up with the charity search engine Everyclick.com.
Launched in 2005, Everyclick.com is a London-based search engine which donates 50 percent of its gross revenue to a chosen charity every month. It is a fully functional and quite successful search engine that offers the full search service of listed results, images, feeds and specialist add-on features and products.
The idea behind the search engine is that every time you surf the web and click on a link, you will generate revenue for a charity of your choice. For example, The London Stock Exchange have chosen Brainwave, an organisation which provides therapy for children with developmental delay, as their partner charity. So when LSE's employees use Everyclick.com for their searches, 50% of the revenue generated will be donated to Brainwave.
Polly Gowers, MD at Everyclick, commented:
"Companies recognise the benefits of a Corporate Social Responsibility programme to staff morale, brand reputation and business growth. Everyclick offers them a simple but highly effective way of generating funds for charity. We know that most search is conducted during business hours and we're just offering a way for companies to benefit charities as well as themselves."
It should be noted, however, that Everyclick.com can only provides revenue for listed charities, under agreements that comply with the 1992 Charities Act - so there is no danger of funds going to private charities which could lead to conflict of interest disputes.
So as part of their new 'give your mouse a heart' campaign, will Everyclick.com stretch that feeling of good will to your boss the next time he or she catches you on the net searching for concert tickets?
