I will keep everyone posted. When I find something good, I will let everyone know.

So, it seems some people are getting discouraged with Vote4Cause. This mostly has to do with the value of time spent on this site and how that translates into donations. Vote4Cause will never be a good substitute for making money from a job. Many click-to-donate sites allow one click per day for that reason. That is why I have been trying to deemphasize the idea that voting for long periods of time should be generating substantial donations. I believe that staying at the site and voting is a way to interact with others, while also supporting organizations that you like. This isn’t necessarily financial support, but by providing publicity or welcoming new visitors or now with adding links and other content to the organization page to help explain the great work being done. I have seen many of you enjoying your time on this site and I hope you will all continue to get some value out of Vote4Cause.

I realize that this new method of donating based on votes goes away from this idea by equating each individual vote with a monetary value. As a result, I thought maybe it should be that every organization that hits certain thresholds in a round get a donation. For example, every 10,000 votes that an organization gets is a $10 donation to that organization.  This will make the site less competitive and will encourage people to explore and support different causes in a single round. The winner of each round by votes will get the exposure of having the most support in that round.

In other news, some of you have noticed that the Google Ads aren’t functioning anymore. The account has been disabled because of the click activity I have been talking about.  Now that ad revenue isn’t tied to donations, they will hopefully reinstate the account.

It looks like Alley Cat Rescue is going to win this round. Congratulations! As I will not be around for when the new round is implemented, I want to announce some changes in advance.

1) I am lengthening the voting pause to 2 minutes (for those checking this out during the Alley Cat Rescue round, don’t freak out, I am implementing this a little early).

2)  Each vote that the winner gets will be worth 1/2 cent.

This combo may take some time to fine-tune in the future, but this will be in place for the next round. I am aiming for a solution that is scalable. As I have announced previously, all rounds up through the Alley Cat Rescue win are on hold until I receive payment from the ad network. I will make an announcement about these payouts as soon as I get word. Again, this is because it became apparent that people were purposefully clicking on ads to drive up the purse rather than visiting ads out of genuine curiousity.

Thank you everyone for your patience and support!

I have toiled away to bring some new features to Vote4Cause. One is old and one is new.

Chat is back. There is a flagging feature now in effect. If someone says something you feel is inappropriate, click the flag link for that message and it will notify a moderator to look over it. Hopefully this will rectify the few bad messages that were floating around before. I hope this feature won’t have to be used too much.

The new feature is links. I am hoping that people will submit relevant internet links for the non-profits here. By sharing interesting links, visitors that are new to an organization can easily explore what the various causes are doing. Anything that is relevant is appropriate. For example, YouTube videos, photos, news articles, upcoming events, etc.

Finally, Sea Shepherds won last round. I have yet to post information about the winnings for a couple of reasons. Most importantly, it is apparent that there was click fraud that artificially drove up the purse. I guess this was inevitable. However, Vote4Cause will not be able to function with the current incentives in place. It would be against the policy for Google advertising and is unfair to the advertisers. As I have not received anything from Google yet, I am waiting to see how much they ultimately send before I send out money to the causes that have won and have not received their purse yet.

After this round, I will be switching to a donation method that is not tied to the advertising money generated. It will likely be something like 1 cent for each vote that the winning organization gets. I am open to other suggestions too. While it is unfortunate that I have to do this, I think this will have some advantages (like knowing exactly what each vote is worth and immediately knowing what the purse is at the end of a round AND allowing this site to continue).

It is unfortunate that this change needs to happen, but it was something that I didn’t foresee and I think can be overcome. I want to continue running this site and would love to hear what everyone thinks.

With 31,403 votes, the winner for the round ending Jan 20, 2008 is Farm Sanctuary. A donation of $205.12 will be made to Farm Sanctuary on behalf of Vote4Cause and all of the very enthusiastic and passionate supporters that voted it into 1st place. Thank you to everyone that voted. Congratulations!

Here is some information about Farm Sanctuary:
Farm Sanctuary was founded in 1986 to combat the abuses of factory farming and to encourage a new awareness and understanding about “farm animals.” At Farm Sanctuary, these animals are our friends, not our food. We started out by visiting farms, stockyards and slaughterhouses to document conditions, and we found animals literally left for dead. Hilda, a sheep found on a pile of dead animals behind Lancaster Stockyards, was the first animal to be rescued by Farm Sanctuary. She lived with us for more than a decade, and died of old age. Through the years, we have rescued thousands of animals, and educated millions of people about their plight. People are shocked to learn about the intolerable conditions that are commonplace on today’s industrialized farms. Our rescue and education work continues, as we advocate for laws and policies to prevent suffering and promote compassion. We are reaching out to legislators and businesses, and working to bring about institutional reforms.

Vote4Cause Farm Sanctuary