During this terrible economy, it may be difficult for some to donate dollars or to volunteer time when many have lost their jobs entirely. Yet we all have our favorite causes that we’d like to support. Whether it’s the environment or animals, human rights or cancer, giving effortlessly to your favorite cause is just a click away. With GoodSearch, you don’t even have to leave home or open your wallet – all you have to do is search the Internet. When you search from GoodSearch, your search means dollars for your favorite charity. Here’s how it works:

Visit the GoodSearch site and choose from the almost 90,000 nonprofits or schools you’d like to support. You can even sign up your own favorite charity as well – our very own editor in chief Susan Dyer Reynolds, signed up her favorite, Bad Rap (Bay Area Doglovers Responsible About Pitbulls), which now benefits every time Susan searches. After you choose an existing charity to support or add your own, continue with your Yahoo-powered search. It’s that simple. Got lots of favorite causes? You can designate a different charity recipient with every search.

Here’s an example of how searching can benefit your charity or school: If 100 people supporting one organization make an average of just two searches a day, your chosen organization can earn over $700 annually. Most of us are searching much more than twice a day, so it’s easy to see how quickly you can raise money for your favorite cause.

You may be wondering where the funds come from that benefit your nonprofit of choice. The GoodSearch site gets money from advertisers, like all search engines, but what’s different about GoodSearch is they give 50 percent of their advertising revenue to the charities registered on the site by users like you. Supporting your favorite charity doesn’t cost you or your charity anything. It’s free. Why wouldn’t you do it?

That’s the question founders and brothers Ken and J.J. Ramberg wanted people to ask; they wanted to find a way to support charities that would be just that simple.

So why would two businessmen want to give away half of their profits? The brothers lost their mother to cancer and have dedicated GoodSearch to the woman that taught them “that by working together with dogged dedication, we can really make this world a better place.” They’ve done her well, to be sure.

Because GoodSearch contributes such a significant amount to our charities, they don’t spend much for advertising, so they ask us to spread their good news. Sign up today and get clicking, then tell your friends how easy it is: www.goodsearch.com.

E-mail: lynette@northsidesf.com