The advent of the Internet has had a great impact in all of our lives. We can save precious time by jumping online to pay bills, shop, send important documents and messages, contact loved ones, learn a great deal on any given subject and many many other important and not so important things. The possibilities and opportunities seem to go on forever when it comes to the internet.

Those same endless possibilities are the same for online giving. Now, because of the internet, people have the option to donate to their favorite 501(c)(3) when ever they are connected online. This is a huge thing for charities and the online giving trend has been growing more and more each year, and quite rapidly. This allows charities to connect to thousand and even millions of donors who otherwise might not have taken the time to fill out a check and drive to the post office. Now charitable individuals can just visit the website of their favoite charity or cause and donate directly to them with a few clicks of a button.

One organization that has recognized the power of the internet as well as the power of peer-to-peer networking, is uPlej.com...pronounced, you pledge. With uPlej, users pay only $4.79 per month with $4.00 from that $4.79 going directly to charity each month. Of the left-over .79 cents, .39 cents goes to uPlej for system development, maintenance, web hosting, etc... And then .40 cents is a processing fee assessed by credit card companies and is not retained by uPlej.

uPlej works on the premise that once you join, you spread the word to friends and family by asking them to join your network, not by asking for donations. The $4.00 that is donated to charity each month is broken up like this...taken from their website...

$4.00 goes to charity:

* $1.00 is donated to the charity you chose to support

* $1.00 is donated to the charity of the friend who asked you to join their network.

* $1.00 is donated to the charity of your friend's friend.

* $1.00 is donated to the charity of your friend's friend's friend.

With this simple formula this gives each of their users the potential to raise thousands of dollars a month for their favorite charity by just getting 4 people to join their network, and then having those 4 people get 4 to join and then those people get 4 and so on until 85 people are in the users network. With 85 people this would generate $1,020 per month that would go directly to charity. All of this for paying only $4.79 per month.

That's only one example from one organization that is utilizing the internet for online giving and to help others in the world.