A new charitable email service lets users make donations to their favorite causes

(GiveBackMail)

GiveBackMail, a new email service launched on May 23, aims to provide a philanthropic dimension to the simple act of sending an email by donating money to the user's favorite charity.

The site, which claims to be the first of its kind, allows new users to retain their current email address and has many features in common with other email providers such as Google's Gmail or Microsoft's Hotmail including multiple email account management, an 'unsend' option, an ability to organize feeds from other sites and a 100MB attachment limit.

Each user can nominate a charity that they wish to donate to; after the credibility and authenticity of the suggested charity has been verified it will be added to GiveBackMail's data base.

Currently the email service works with the Foundation for Cancer Research and Wellness, DonorsChoose.org - an American charity for schools, Kiva.org - an international microfinance company, Conservation Northwest - an American wildlife charity, Animal Welfare Association and Mothers2Mothers - an AIDs support charity working in Africa.

The site generates revenue through advertisements and pledges to donate 25 percent of profits to the charities selected by its users. After creating an account, a user is provided with a "donation dashboard" that provides information on the status of their contributions.

More information on GiveBackMail can be found via the official site ( http://www.givebackmail.com) and via Twitter account @GiveBackMail.

E-services and e-commerce are developing a growing relationship with charities; large established e-services have established, to one degree or another, means for consumers to donate to charities, for example, Amazon's Simple Pay Donations for non-profits and eBay's UKcustomer-based eBay for charity.

There are also a large number of smaller charitable e-commerce sites including iGive.com, which allows users to choose which charity benefits from their donation, and the US-based Causeon.com  - essentially Groupon with a charitable twist. For those that simply want to make a donation, www.changingthepresent.org provides a list of charities around the world across a wide range of causes which individuals can donate to in lieu of giving gifts to friends and relatives for occasions like graduation and weddings.