Charities see potential, risk with social networks

She was ready to delete it, until she learned The Nature Conservancy was getting a portion of the ad revenue generated by the game.

"I've saved like 133 square feet of rainforest," the 31-year-old Holt resident said.

Bowen illustrates both the potential upside and downside for charitable causes hoping to cash in on the popularity of social-networking sites such as Facebook and News Corp.'s MySpace.

With millions of users worldwide, the sites would seem fertile ground for fundraising experiments -- especially ones where users aren't asked to make direct contributions.

But it's far from certain that social networking will prove as effective as more traditional fundraising methods such as direct mail, telephone solicitation and even e-mails to past donors.