Raising money via MySpace widgets has become a growing trend: ChipIn has refocused around MySpace widgets, while Heifer also has one. Another newcomer, CareBadges is starting to emerge, and its links with RockYou should help it succeed.
CareBadges are Flash-based fund-raising widgets that let you collect money or raise awareness for any cause. The standout feature is tracking: they'll track how much you've raised, but also the "spread" of widgets around the web. So if you post a badge to your page and twenty visitors repost it to their pages, the funds raised by all those referred users will also be logged - it's like a big affiliate scheme.
A new feature they're promoting is the ability to add RockYou slideshows to your widget, too. In fact, Carebadges' co-founder Saar Gur was an angel investor in RockYou (not to mention co-founder of BrightRoll, angel investor in Frengo and more), and the site has managed to score a mention on the RockYou blog. That RockYou widget is the most viewed by far, scoring 2,257,505 impressions. However, it has only raised $69 during that time, suggesting that the conversion rate might be low. That said, we're all for promoting good causes on Mashable, and the combination of viral widgets and a positive message should be pretty powerful.
Hooman over at Widgify also covered CareBadges this week.