Charity Miles

I have recently discovered Charity Miles. It is a simple and brilliant idea. You download the app to your mobile, and then every time you go for a walk, run or cycle, you select a charity. A sponsor (typically someone like Johnson & Johnson, who have a clear interest in being connected with healthy lifestyles) donates an amount of money to the charity of your choice, based on the miles you cover. 

The sponsor then emails you, and the app prompts you to tweet your support or put it on Facebook, which I suppose is what the sponsor is buying. The amount per mile is small, but it adds up.

Just by my usual routine of a run with the dog in the morning, a walk during the day, and a brief walk last thing at night, I will be racking up a little over $20 a month. Given that we often also go for longer walks at the weekends and in the holidays (especially when not entirely surrounded by floodwater...) I reckon that will be about $250 over the year, and any charity would welcome that.

The app offers a long list of charities which you can support. I am quite fussy about giving to charity, for various reasons, but found several I would be happy to donate to. The one I am choosing to support is Charity Water. Water is such a basic necessity, and I like their operating model of working with communities to devise and deliver sustainable water solutions. I had not come across this particular charity before, so that is another benefit of Charity Miles.

So if you take more exercise than I do: get the app and raise money for charity by doing nothing extra, other than remembering to start it each time you go for a run.

And if you take less exercise than I do, then get the app, and make a resolution to do a little more!