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INTERNET BENEVOLENCE BUILDS AS SCHOOL STARTS

August 23, 1999

A handful of Internet sites have popped up recently to help local schools benefit from the online shopping boom. The sites channel a portion of the proceeds of sales made on their web sites to schools their customers select. By making a concerted school-wide or district-wide effort to shop at specific places, individual school communities can help raise funds for general school expenses or specific programs.

US Wired for Education and SchoolPop.com each feature general shopping on their Internet sites, casting a wide net to enable more than just back-to-school shoppers to help local schools. ISP service provider EarthLink also funnels some of its proceeds to schools when it signs up new customers.

The best part of the plans, all three companies say, is people who shop to help raise funds pay comparable prices to those at other sites for the same product - the donations to the schools come from US Wired for Education, SchoolPop and EarthLink. In addition, the products drawing shoppers' attention are typically items they already needed, rather than candy and gift items often sold in typical school fundraising efforts, the companies noted.

US Wired for Education donates four percent of its online sales to designated schools, while Schoolpop will give up to 20 percent, depending on what the shopper buys. EarthLink did not specify how much it contributes. At all of the sites, if a specific school is not listed, the customer can enter the school's information to have it immediately added and start earning money.

Online fund raising schemes of this sort have been sprouting on the Internet more frequently this year, as researchers continue to report consumers are gaining confidence in the concept of shopping online. Where people have been reluctant to send personal information such as credit card numbers over the Internet in the past, most online merchants have implemented privacy policies to ease those worries. Information can also be transmitted securely on almost every shopping site these days.

By offering additional education resources, US Wired for Education tries to set its site apart from the growing list of charitable shopping pages on the Internet. The site offers lesson plans for teachers, filtering software to prevent unwanted or offensive e-mails, chat rooms, connections to local schools and other information. "We hope to provide a space where parents, teachers and education professionals can come to expand their horizons, gain access to valuable education resources and services, and support their local school." US Wired for Education Co-founder Brian Lee said.

Schoolpop, on the other hand, sticks to commerce, but does it on a large scale. Instead of selling products on its site, Schoolpop is an online mall with connections to more than 100 merchants. Bookseller Amazon.com, Dell Computers and eToys are some of the more popular stores Schoolpop shoppers can visit. As long as shoppers enter those stores through links on the Schoolpop site, rather than connecting directly, schools can get a portion of the money spent.

Schoolpop also allows schools to earn money from services available on the site, including long distance telephone service from Qwest Communications and free Internet searches provided by Snap.com. Internet searches yield one cent each for the school. While a penny is not considered worth much these days, Internet research firms say the more than 120 million Internet users search the web each month.

EarthLink is participating in the "A+America Free Technology For Schools Program," which focuses solely on raising funds for technology related programs in K-12 schools. For every new customer that signs up for Internet service from EarthLink, a portion of the revenue from the customer's monthly Internet access bill goes to the customer's selected school.

EarthLink predicts the average annual contribution to a school will be enough to provide a free color printer for every 40 new Internet customers. Other corporate sponsors funding the A+America program include Sprint Long Distance, Duracell, Stonyfield Farm Yogurt and PepBoys auto parts stores. Another 30 online retailers contribute to the program through Technology4Kids.com, an online mall similar to Schoolpop.8