E-mail signatures with a fund-raising twist

If e-mail signatures can be put to work to help support a political candidate, just imagine the impact they could make for charity. That’s essentially the rationale behind Replyforall, a site that uses custom e-mail signatures to raise not just awareness but cold, hard cash for a select group of charitable causes. San Francisco-based Replyforall gives users a way to raise money for their favourite causes by simply adding a tailored signature to the e-mails they normally send. The service is currently available for Gmail, Yahoo and Hotmail / WindowsLive / MSN—with others coming soon—and it’s completely free for users. Cause-minded people need only sign up on the site and choose the cause they want to support. The signature they create will show that cause along with Replyforall’s participating financial sponsor, and it can also be personalized to include additional elements such as a rotating fact associated with their cause, a school club or the user’s contact information. Either way, the result is that when users send e-mails, their Replyforall signature is automatically inserted into their messages (it is possible to omit it for select messages, however). Sponsors pay to reach users and their recipients, and Replyforall shares sponsors’ payments proportionately among the causes users have selected. Users can track the impact of their own support via a personal impact page. Replyforall, meanwhile, donates funds to the causes every quarter and regularly reports back with the impact of those donations. Sponsors on the site include Virgin Mobile, TOMS Shoes, The Body Shop and confectioner sweetriot, while causes include the ASPCA, Wildlife Trust, the Clean Energy Coalition and Engineers without Borders. Replyforall is actively seeking more sponsors. One to team up with for a better world—and better image? 😉 (Related: Viral music sales through widgets.) Spotted by: Cecilia Biemann