Let Your Credit Card Choose Your Charitable Donations Based on Your Spending Habits?

For those who just cant decide to what charity you should donate, let your record of spending do it for you! And don't get down about what those purchases of Cristal champagne, Tiffany jewels or even seven Big Macs might say - to others - about your personal inclinations...

Zachary Sniderman at Mashable explores the possibilities:

"You’re a good person; you like giving to charity. But sometimes it’s hard to decide just what causes you want to support or to choose between comparable non-profits. If you’re concerned about animals, should you donate to the World Wildlife Fund? The National Wildlife Federation? Your local animal rescue?

This target confusion can actually cause people to not donate at all. So Swipegood.com is launching a new initiative, called SmartGiving, to streamline your charitable donations based on your actual spending habits. Swipegood allows you to sign up a credit card; the site will then round up all of your purchases to the nearest dollar and allow you to donate the difference to charity.

With more than 300 charitable organizations to choose from, Swipegood is a great way to passively and continuously donate to your favorite charity. But what if you don’t have a favorite charity, or can’t choose between the many options? SmartGiving has been developed to help these kinds of users.

The site will keep track of your credit card spending and donate accordingly. For example, if you buy groceries for $5.40, SmartGiving will round up the cost and donate 60 cents towards feeding the poor. Similarly, when you buy gas, those roundups will be donated to environmental causes. So far, there are five categories: home, food, healthcare, education and nature. While it’s unclear exactly how accurate SmartGiving will be, it’s a smart way of directing you to causes that either fit your interests or offset your impact on the planet.

“The idea came about because many of our users simply didn’t know which charity to donate to which lead to many people dropping out of the signup process although they wanted to give,” Swipegood co-founder Steli Efti said in an e-mail.

Users can turn off SmartGiving whenever they choose and direct their money to specific charities, or turn it back on to discover new causes based on their lifestyle.

What do you think of donating money based on your spending habits? Do you think your credit card is a good indicator of your interests? What do you make of more passive social good campaign?