Make difference, one click at time

Summary

A few weeks ago I was introduced to a great idea called BenefitBar.com. I got a phone call from Keith Grosz of St. Louis about this tool he had built to help organizations generate money to donate to charities. Their mission: put more funds out into the world to help people.

"We created this to make a difference by raising dollars and bringing awareness to charities and nonprofits and education," Grosz said of www.benefitbar.com. "It became much more than raising dollars, it became a way to communicate in a nonintrusive and entertaining way — pushing out information to make someone's day better and stay connected with people you care about."

The minute I saw it I knew that this would be a great tool to help my FlyBabies find what they needed, and it would help our good friends at Yahoo.

The bar uses the Yahoo Search feature. This is what generates the revenue stream for the charities. Since Yahoo saves us a lot of money, I felt that this would be a great way to give back to them for what they do for us with your group e-mail system.

The beauty of this bar is that it is free. You can get one, too. They will develop a bar for your group to raise money for something that is important to you. You could use it for your church group, hospital foundation, fan club, sports team, school group, Scouts and anything else that could come to mind. All they ask is that a portion of the proceeds go to charity. If your group is a charity, then that is even better!

They made me a sample bar and took it and developed it as a tool for my members. In fact, I made it all by myself with some help from Rick at BenefitBar and our Web dude, Lee. It is like having our Web site at your fingertips at the top of your page. I loved this from the first time I saw it, and we have only scratched the surface when it comes to how much fun we can have with it. I can use it for announcements, reminders and for just having fun.

We have built these buttons for the FlyLady.net BenefitBar (www.flylady.net/pages/flylady_benefit_bar.asp).

• FlyLady.net

• A ticker tape of some reminders. You have to see this to believe it.

• A Go Me! button. Oh my! It is so fun!

• A FLY shop link

• A FLY show link to blog talk radio shows

• A Get Started button

• E-mail FlyLady

• Today's Mission

• Super Fling to post your pounds

• and our favorite: HeyTom.net link

Oh, and I almost forgot a Yahoo Search feature in the middle and a refer button at the end. This bar does not put any adware-spyware-pop-ups on your computer.

Have fun with my new toy/tool. I had a ball making it. Can you tell how excited I am about this? Go check it out for yourself and your group. They can help you raise money for your favorite charity. I have decided to pick a new charity each month.

For more help getting rid of your CHAOS, check out www.FlyLady.net or "Sink Reflections" published by Bantam and "Body Clutter" published by Fireside. Copyright 2007 Marla Cilley. Used by permission in this publication.