May 20, 1999 | Read Time: 2 minutes
Charities increasingly are benefiting from companies’ efforts to sell goods and services on line.
A promotion for a stock-market game on the Internet, for example,
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is bringing in $50,000 to the Los Angeles Boys & Girls Club — as well as thousands of dollars to other charities. The promotion by E-Trade, an on-line investing company, asks celebrities to buy stocks using imaginary money and compete on line to see whose investments earn the most. The company awards the celebrities with a real check to their favorite charity.
E-Trade added the stock game to its Web site (http://www.etrade.com) to educate the public about how on-line trading works and to persuade visitors to set up on-line accounts and purchase stocks through the company.
Any visitor to the Web site can play. Each player receives an account number and $100,000 in virtual money that he or she uses to make on-line stock purchases and trades during one month. At the end of the month, the company gives cash prizes of $1,000, $500, and $100 to the three players whose imaginary accounts have earned the most, and the game starts over again.
To publicize the contests, E-Trade has recruited celebrities to compete in the stock game. Instead of awarding cash prizes, the company gives donations to a charity selected by each celebrity. In October, for example, the basketball star Shaquille O’Neal, who chose the Los Angeles Boys & Girls Club as his favorite charity, competed against sportscaster Bob Costas, whose charity was Cardinal Glennon Children’s Hospital, in St. Louis. At the end of the month, Mr. O’Neal’s fantasy portfolio had earned 18.7 per cent, or $18,648, while Mr. Costas’s picks grew by only 1.2 per cent.
E-Trade will pay $50,000 to Mr. O’Neal’s charity and $10,000 to the charity chosen by Mr. Costas.
Lisa Nash, E-Trade’s vice-president of customer management, said that the company plans to hold Celebrity Challenges four times per year.
For more information, contact Ms. Nash at E-Trade Securities, 2400 Geng Road, Palo Alto, Cal. 94303-3317; (650) 842-2581; e-mail: lnash@etrade.com.
