10 Cheap Ways to Make the World a Better Place

You don't have to have a ton of money to help your favorite causes.

Whether your budget is tight or you want to provide more personalized help than merely handing over a check, there are plenty of ways that you can make a difference in the world without parting with your money.

Here are 10 free and simple ways to give back:

1. Click: One of the easiest ways to make a difference is to simply click your mouse. There are a number of charities that raise money through click donations. You click a button on the charity's Web site and a number of advertisements will appear. These advertisers pay a small amount to the charity for placing your eyes in front of their advertisement. Sites such as the Animal Rescue Site donate 100% of the sponsor-generated money to the cause and they also have other affiliated sites where your click can help charities dealing with hunger, breast cancer, child health, literacy and the rain forest (see the tabs at the top of their sites).

2. Search: If you use a search engine while on the Web, the searches that you make could generate money for a nonprofit. Sites such as Good Search allow you to allocate a portion of the money made on the search to the charity or school of your choice.

3. Shop: If you regularly shop online, you can often do so through your favorite charity's Web site. Online stores often pay a referral fee when a site sends a customer that purchases something. While this does not affect the price that you pay, by going through your favorite charity's site when making a purchase, the charity will earn some money for their cause.

4. Donate your computer's free cycles: When you aren't using your computer, it can be used to help find a cure for cancer, make climate predictions or just to do basic research. There are a lot of projects that want to use the idle cycles of the CPU in your computer for its computational power. You simply download a client that will run the program when you aren't using your computer. A good place to find these projects is at BOINC.