We've noticed a recent trend that occurs in the final days of the year. It's precipitated by the "Crap-Did-I-Give-Enough-to-Charity-This-Year?" frenzy. Those mindful of the impending tax season suddenly realize it's their last chance to make contributions for the year — and a good majority fire up web browsers to beat the deadline.

Yahoo! for Good recognized this dash to donate last year and inaugurated Cyber Giving Week, creating a donation microsite with tools, calculators, and news about tax breaks. With our partner Network for Good, we helped facilitate nearly $5 million in last-minute charitable contributions.

For Cyber Giving Week 2006, we teamed up with Network for Good again — this time with a social media twist. Inspired by bloggers who've generated loyal communities around everything from parenting to cooking, photography to technology, we created a tool called a "charity badge."

This widget allows publishers to not only wear their philanthropic causes on their proverbial blogger sleeves, it invites readers to make donations to those organizations. To create the badge, publishers simply upload a photo and/or video (using Jumpcut's free editing tools), insert text, and select a charity from among the more than 1 million supported by Network for Good. Yahoo! provided a little extra incentive for philanthropic procrastinators: a matching grant of $50,000 for the top-producing badge by the end of 2006.

We weren't exactly sure what would happen with these badges. Would they take off, like MyBlogLog widgets? Would they become another piece of sidebar clutter, or would they actually drive action by others? The experiment was a nice success, proving that social media can also be a powerful fundraising vehicle. Hundreds of people created badges for such personalized causes as Transverse Myelitis Association, Anacostia Watershed Society, and Mata Amritanandamayi Center. The badges became subtle extensions of the publishers' bios, revealing allegiances that might otherwise remain quiet and unnoticed, but which can say so much about a person.

Beth Kanter of Beth's Blog raised $49,537 from 745 donors, earning our matching grant for the Sharing Foundation, a nonprofit that provides support for orphaned and seriously disadvantaged children in Cambodia. Like all of the charity badge creators, Beth's tie to The Sharing Foundation is intensely personal — she adopted two Khmer children.

Beth's badge is now up to $53,137 (at press time) — and that's the point. These badges live on long after tax-deduction season comes to an end. To set up your badge, go here. It'll take you less than five minutes and make you look, feel, and smell good.

And to all you Yahoo! 360° and MySpace users out there: We're still working on compatibility, but you can set up an email signature link in the meantime.

Here's further blog discussion:

• Katya's Non-Profit Marketing Blog
• Guy Kawasaki's blog
• Read/WriteWeb
• BlogHer
• Spare Change
• Nonprofit Blog Exchange

Nicki Dugan
Editor, Yodel Anecdotal