To date, the 7-month-old Web site has tracked 11,763 acts of kindness, nearly 60 a day.

An active member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Smith said he was especially moved to create the feel-good movement when late church President Gordon B. Hinckley noted, "It is not enough to be good. You must be good for something. You must contribute good to the world. ... And the good that is in you must be spread to others."

The self-made, affluent businessman said the operation is not intended to turn a profit, but he wouldn't mind if tag sales paid enough to make it a self-sustaining operation.

Attesting to his altruistic claim is a rare sight: a popularly visited Web site without a single advertisement. There's not one neon-blinking, cursor-following, pop-up ad on the whole site.

"Sure, I want to get paid back on it, but that's not everything," Smith said. "I feel good about it."

Where it does make money, though, is in the fundraising department.

After Smith's son's baseball team found out it was facing a 20 percent financial shortfall after dwindling sign-up numbers, they sold the sheets door to door for $20 — of which $12 per sheet went back to the team or organization.

"People don't mind buying one, even in these (economic) conditions, because they can feel good about it," he said.

And apparently people do. A glance at the Web site shows comments of appreciation for acts a few dozen ripples deep, ranging from shoveling snow off of sidewalks to an anonymously given cashier's check for $5,000.

In about a month, the lengthy Web site name goodwillpaidforward.com will be changed to tagten.org "in reference to tagging 10 folks with kindness," Smith said.

"It's a tag-you're-it thing," he said.

E-mail: jhancock@desnews.com