Social networking website users can now make money for charities by recommending products through URL-shortening service good.ly on Twitter, Facebook or via email.

Users put a link to a product or service within a Twitter message, known as a tweet, or a Facebook update through a shortened good.ly URL. Web retailers pay a referral fee for each person that purchases a product they have found after clicking on a good.ly link.

Good.ly will give charities 55% of the fee.

“We have the underlying technology anyway and it occurred to us that there is huge potential to monetise it for charities,” said Alicia Navarro, founder of good.ly. “We’re trying to piggy back on an exciting social media trend, earn a little money, and make it easier for people to support charities.”

At present three charities, The Dogs Trust, homelessness charity Crisis and US charity ChildVoice International, which works with children in Africa, are listed as potential beneficiaries of good.ly.

Good.ly aims to include more charities, and recommends that the service might be particularly useful to charities that have a large twitter following. Charities interested in using the service should contact good.ly via their website.

** This article was published form Philanthropyuk.org
Tweeters now give good.ly to charity
By Ben Eyre