Online Shopping Experience Gives To Charity
DENVER (CBS4)- If you love taking advantage of great online deals, but wish you could donate some of that money to charity, there's a website that helps you do both.
CBS4 Money Saver Suzanne McCarroll met a mom who developed a daily deal website that donates its profits to charity. Carrie Salter traded in her high-powered career to stay at home and raise money full time for charities.
"I was in middle school when I first got involved in philanthropy and I ran a canned food drive at my school," said Socialgoodies.com creator Carrie Salter.
She also volunteered in high school and college while earning degrees from both Stanford and Harvard. After graduating, she consulted non-profit organizations while holding down a full-time job.
"I missed the other side of my personality where I felt fulfilled by doing philanthropy and I really didn't have time to do that when I was working," said Salter.
She noticed how popular daily deal websites like Groupon and Living Social were becoming.
"So I thought to myself, 'Wow, wouldn't it be interesting to take a for profit business model and use it to fund the good work of charity?' and that's really how Social Goodies was born," said Salter.
The twist, Social Goodies donates its revenue to charitable organizations.
"Social Goodies really offers a true guilt free shopping experience. When you buy a deal on our site 20 percent of the purchase price goes to charity so you get great stuff but you're also contributing to charity at the exact same time," said Salter. "Right now our featured charities are Teach For America, Doctors Without Borders and the Nature Conservancy."
Carrie doesn't make any personal profit from purchases made on Social Goodies. Twenty percent goes to charity and the rest goes to merchants and costs of running the website.
She's already raised $20,000 for the Red Cross Tsunami Relief Fund.
LINK: socialgoodies.com
If you have a money saving tip that you would like Suzanne to check out, call the Money Saver tipline at (303) 863-TIPS (8477) or email her at moneysaver@cbsdenver.com.
