I'll come clean: for most of the year, I'm a scrooge. Maybe you are too. You may have been tempted to respond as I did recently, when a friend forwarded the fifth well-meaning email in a day, about the suffering of Chinese bears kept in tiny cages all their lives. "You should see my flat," went back the reply. I haven't heard from her since. (Actually, I have: "The bears are strapped down and milked for their bile!" she persisted. "You should meet my landlord," I wrote back. Then - nothing.)
But in this, the year of Jesus' 2001st birthday, perhaps even I should make an exception. At the moment, the spread of foot and mouth disease means you are doing the country a favour just by staying indoors; but what about all the other good deeds you had in mind this Easter? Not to worry: these days, charity begins at your homepage.
At Amnesty International you can read about the latest human rights campaigns, lobby for tougher arms controls, and write postcards of festive support to "prisoners of conscience". You can also give money, or join the organisation online. The Rwenzori Project www.rwenzori.org ensures 100% of money raised goes towards helping improve the lives of people in Uganda, through funding schools, conservation and Aids care work.
If you have a favourite charity, it is bound to have a web presence: track it down at www.idealist.org/is/org_search.html.
As useful as these sites are for those who already give to charity, the web also presents radically new ways to contribute to good causes. At www.free2give.co.uk you can shop at a wide range of online services - from the AA to HMV - in categories from books to beauty, toys to travel; and the site will give a percentage of your purchase to the charity of your choice.
I decided to send my father his Easter egg and help the mentally ill at the same time (no connection, honest): with gift wrapping and P&P, an Easter Eggstravaganza from Thorntons came to £13.95 - 70p of which went to the National Schizophrenia Foundation. For the bigger purchases possible through Free2give, such as a new car, the contribution is even more significant.
After the success of free2give, other shopping portals are getting in on the act. BlueCarrots, an online shopping community owned in part by its members, last year decided to "put the dot.com into community" by joining forces with Hope HIV to help build a community for Aids orphans in Africa. You can download their action pack at www.bluecarrots.com/community/hopehiv/. The Carrot-o-meter is looking unhealthy as yet, but you can make donations here too.
If you think giving money to charity isn't always the right way to contribute, www.getethical.com offers shoppers a more holistic worldview: the site guarantees any purchases made will be "healthier, free of exploitative labour and good for the environment". What's more, 73% of Getethical's sales proceeds go to "social and environmental causes".
Still feeling like a scrooge? According to the Hunger Site, one person worldwide dies from hunger every 3.6 seconds; nearly two acres of rainforest disappear every second; and every day, 1,800 children are infected with HIV. The Hunger Site is now famous for its central premise: you give no money, just a click, and the site's sponsors club together to make a charitable contribution for you.
Your click can donate food to the hungry (1 cup); vitamin A to help children fighting blindness (1 capsule); even rainforest land (incredibly, 14.4 square feet per click). Take care of your daily good deed by making the Hunger Site your home page.
If even a few clicks seems like too much effort, you can do your "lot of work for charity" while doing nothing at all. At www.popularpower.com you can sign up to donate your spare processor power to their clients. Thereafter, whenever your computer is left idle, it will beaver away on a small part of a larger computing task and return the results to Popular Power. You could choose to make money for yourself - the site says it may soon pay up to $5 a day for use of your PC by corporate clients - or you can support a good cause, currently non-profit research into flu vaccines. I know which one I'm going to choose.
Boy scouts might not yet be helping old ladies silver surf across it, but the straight-and-narrow section of the information super-highway just got more lanes. Now you can sign, click, donate, shop, or even loaf your way to a better world. What are you waiting for, Christmas?
