The Offer
- Signup for a $33 monthly charity donation to Child Fund International, and get the following Swagbucks earnings:
- Earn 4,000 SB after your first month’s donation
- Earn 4,000 SB after your second month’s donation
- Earn 4,000 SB after your third month’s donation
- Earn 1,000 SB after your fourth month’s donation
- Earn 1,000 SB after your fifth month’s donation
- Earn 1,000 SB after your sixth month’s donation
- Earn 2,500 after your seventh month’s donation
Total amounts of earnings is $175, but the real moneymaker here is the first 3 months where you donate $33 and get 4,000 Swagbucks, worth at least $40. You can cancel your monthly donation at any time you choose.
The Fine Print
- To be eligible for this offer, you must sign up for a new child sponsorship. Only new donors are eligible.
- Offer is only valid while supplies last.
- SB award totals are subject to be modified or offer may be cancelled at any time.
- You will earn the SB award that was active at the time of your initial sign up/donation.
- Only valid donations will earn SB, your donation must be successfully processed by Child Fund to be considered valid.
- Must use the same email associated with your SB account when donating to get credit.
- Please allow up to 21 business days for your first donation SB to post and award.
- SB award will be reversed for invalid donations or refund requests.
- Must be an active donor for at least one month ($33 donation).
- Monthly SB award for donations in month’s 2 – 7: allow up to 45 days for SB for award to post after each monthly donation is processed.
- Cancellation: After your first donation has successfully processed, you may cancel your sponsorship at any time by contacting Child Fund directly. You will not earn SB for any months which you do not donate, including any refund requests for previous donations.
- This offer may only be redeemed one time per user.
Our Verdict
Pretty good offer as you can net $21 if you cancel after three months, aside some extra credit card points (best card for charity here) and possibly a tax deduction. Some people don’t like doing offers which are profiting from charity. As always, do what you’re comfortable with.
A few things to keep before doing this offer:
- Charity donation recipients usually spam you a lot with mailers for a long time afterward. In similar situations, I’ve had success emailing them to take me off the mailing list.
- Some people end up having problems either with the portal tracking or with Swagbucks deactivating their account for reasons which aren’t clear, so keep the risks in mind.
- Remember to cancel after the third month if you don’t want to continue the donation. Mark it down on your calendar or set yourself a reminder.
If you’re new to Swagbucks, please read our review. You can also get a bonus of up to $5 by using a referral link.
Hat tip to reader Sean
how do you cancel?
Anyone knows how to cancel it online?
hmm thought this was a recurring charge/subscription model etc… but no donation has been charged to my CC this month even after almost 40 days since the last donation in aug. not sure whats going on – does anyone have the same issue? or are you supposed to go & manually donate on their site every month? if so, how exactly? I don’t remember actually making a login (unless one was created automatically when I signed up)
8/14 Credit Card Charged
9/12 4,000 SB posted
9/15 CC charge #2
10/12 4,000 SB posted for donation#2
10/16 charge #3 pending on CC, will cancel a few days after it posts
8/14 signed up
8/15 credit card charged, will watch for 1st batch SB to post
Did you get the SB, don’t see anything in my account yet.
Nah, I don’t expect it to post until around 9/13. If I don’t see it by then I’ll submit a ticket.
On 9/12 they posted
I did the contribution on Monday when this is posted. They finally charged me today. NO SB yet.
My employer matches my charitable contributions dollar-for-dollar. Something to check, especially if you work for a large company.
Have your cake and eat it too.
I’ve done a couple of these charity deals, but I won’t anymore. Pretty sure the money is coming straight from the charity, and while it might work out for them in the long run, I don’t feel good profiting this way. Taking money from banks? Sure, but not this. Also, the charities will spam the hell out of you, which is both annoying and wastes more of their money for the letters.
Generally, the “charities” that have these kinds of astronomical fundraising burn rates aren’t doing much for their supposed cause. I do a ton of homework before I cough up.
You’re right, I would not donate to them, but neither would I line my own pocket with money that others (foolishly) donated.
I don’t have a problem with this sort of thing, myself, but that’s perfectly sound moral reasoning.
To each their own.
BTW, you are still my Top 1 to read daily, but personally I am a bit disappointed to see this specific post on your website. I believe non-profit organizations paid money to Swagbucks to run such deals with the good intention to encourage ppl to donate while giving back something. As most readers on this website tend to make or exploit the best use of it, which may mean the loss to non-profit organizations. I am more than okay to take advantage of deals with the money from for-profit companies, but definitely not with the money from non-profit organizations.
Personally I don’t think charities should be using swagbucks at all, I have an issue with charities that have extremely high fundraising costs. I don’t think swagbucks userbase is very different from Doctor of Credit’s in that both subsets are there to save/make money.
Is that a platform non profits should be advertising on? They obviously have the data to suggest it’s a good idea but I don’t see why it’s OK for swagbucks to have it on their site and not here.
I can definitely see where you’re coming from, but I believe in personal responsibility. I’m personally OK with posting this deal as I know readers will do what they believe is right/wrong.
There are some things that I simply just won’t cover, but this type of thing isn’t one of them. Always good to have a discussion about it though!
Well Said!
I was going to avoid this but since we’re having this discussion anyway… imho: their “good intention” is to get your money. As that is what a charity is supposed to do I have no issues with it but let’s call a spade a spade because they don’t run these deals out of the goodness of their hearts, they run them to make money for their charity. I have no issues with the charity deals because I believe the charities wouldn’t do them if they didn’t make money. Will some try it and not come out in the black? Sure but that’s the nature of fundraising, not everything works.
Honestly, I think this one specifically will be quite successful- and not because of the auto-charges or even the spam you like crazy part. Their marketing is VERY persuasive. When you adopt a child they do everything possible to create a personal connection- photos, stories, a chance to correspond. That in itself will keep a lot of donors around because it feels so wrong to stop sending $33/month when you feel you are literally changing someone’s life.
I appreciate these posts from the DoC team presenting the offers that are out there and allowing us to choose for ourselves whether or not to participate. I hope to continue seeing these and the other big moneymaker SB deals highlighted here.
The true question is: Should this website post such deals? It’s not about the different ethical/moral boundaries of readers, it’s yours…
I think ethical questions are more when people are skirting rules. In this case, their research shows, even if they are paying Swagbucks full price and losing out, their research shows that some people will stay on or some people will end up donating at a future date.
Why should we assume that no DoC readers will end up keeping this charity in mind when they decide to make a charity donation? It’s certainly possible. I’ve had similar scenarios (not charity specifically) where I signed up for something positive it would be temporary and ended up keeping it.
I do see, by the way, why a specific person might decide not to do the deal (and noted that in the post), but I don’t see it as a moral dilemma. Swagbucks is literally meant for people like DoC readers.