THUMBS UP: Giving Online

As the idea of donating to charityonline grows, there's been a correspondinggrowth in online agencieslike GuideStar (www.guidestar.org)that provide fiscal information oncharities so you can get a better ideaof where your donation dollar isgoing. Now a coalition that includesthe AOL Time Warner Foundation,Cisco Systems Foundation, and Yahoohave joined to form Network forGood (www.networkforgood.org).Network for Good lets donors searchthe GuideStar database of 850,000charities and give directly to the charityof their choice online. If you usea credit card for your donation,Network for Good covers any creditcard costs, so the charity receives theentire amount. If you'd ratherdonate your time, Volunteer Match(www.volunteermatch.org) has adatabase of thousands of volunteeropportunities nationwide.