Want to make a difference without doing anything different?
Well then oh boy do I have a thing for you!
If you havenāt heard of Tab For A Cause, itās a nifty browser extension that makes your New Tab page into a way to generate money for charity.Ā
Itās literally that easy. I will be honest, I hadnāt thought to post here about it until this monthās featured cause, which is planting a tree for each new TFAC user, but I am Actually passionate about using this extension and have tried to get friends to join before.
How does TFAC generate money?
As the saying goes, if youāre not paying for a product, you Are the product. Thatās kind of how TFAC works, but not in the sense that youāre selling your soul to them.Ā
Every time you open a new tab, with the TFAC extension, your New Tab page displays a few ads. Theyāre relatively unobtrusive. There are no video ads, no popups, just unobtrusive little ads in the corner. You can completely ignore them. The point is, when those ads load on your page, the companies running the ads pay money to TFAC and that money goes to charity.
That means you can go about your everyday life, just minding your own business, and help earn money for charity. This is the perfect way to contribute if youāre like me and have difficulty with other types of charitable contribution. For instance, I donāt have enough money to sustain myself, never mind donate. Iām also disabled so going to protests is not in the cards. However, I open new tabs all the time.
How does it work?
To start, you can get the extension by clicking my referral link here. If that link doesnāt work, you can get the extension for Firefox here and the one for Chrome here.
After adding the extension to your browser, you can make an account. This account tracks your progress on any computer and any browser youāre logged in to.
The way TFAC tracks your progress is that each time you open a tab, it gives you a heart, which represents the money you earned in ad revenue for the tab you opened. You can then choose which cause you want to donate those hearts to, which means you get to decide where the money youāve earned goes.Ā
I currently have over 700 hearts just sitting in my account because I like to wait for showcased causes that mean something to me and nothing recent has caught my eye. But, for instance, a few months back, when I first started using TFAC, the showcase was for blm protest arrest bailouts and attorney fees and I was donating every heart I had to it. The showcases usually last for the month and then switch out for something new.
TFAC can also look however you want it to, more or less. It displays any showcase in the center of the page, the ads to the bottom right, your settings, heart count, and the overall money donated through TFAC in the top right, and bookmarks and note taking widgets in the top left. However, while these things remain the same, you can choose any background you want for your tabs. I currently have mine set to a side street in Seattle because it feels like home while Iām far away in PA. Hereās what a new tab looks like:
You can change what widgets you have displayed in your settings, which look like this:
The settings also let you control what search engine you want to use when using the TFAC searchbar as well as time format.
If you want to change your background, you can do so in the background part of the settings, which looks like this:
It allows you to use photos from a link source, which is great, because you can then find a beautiful photo thatās free for people to use from a stock site like Unsplash, which is sourced from photographers who want to share their work. Try searching your favorite location or an aesthetic you like on there and youāre sure to find nice pictures for TFAC or other things.
If youāre passionate about one of the causes TFAC is always partnering with, you can donate even when the showcase isnāt up your alley. Hereās a zoomed out screenshot of the causes they have available all the time:
And, last but not least, you can also see your stats. Here are mine, for example:
Now that Iāve shown you all how straightforward Tab For A Cause is, I hope some of you will consider adding it to your browser to help make a difference without having to donate your own income or even leave your desk. For someone who wants to make a difference, but doesnāt have a lot of resources to do so, this is the perfect compromise











