While some charities beg for cash on the kerb, a leading cancer non-profit is courting young philanthropists in cyberspace by becoming the first charity to register a top-level web domain (TLD).
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Moving away from the tired old formula of .com or .org, The Australian Cancer Research Foundation (ACRF), now in its 30th year, has launched nine websites ending in .cancerresearch to raise funds and promote the cause of finding a cure for cancer.
The World Cancer Day launch coincides with a selfie-inspired interactive fundraising campaign at theone.cancerresearch, which invites visitors to upload their profile picture and become part of "The One Who Will End Cancer".
"We want to acknowledge that all people actually contribute; it's not just scientists doing this work, nor doctors and nurses, but everyone contributing," ACRF chief executive Ian Brown said.
"We're all in this together finding out a cure to cancer."
The new sites, including home.cancerresearch, news.cancerresearch, donate.cancerresearch and childhood.cancerresearch, were developed in conjuction with scientists and research centres, including the Children's Medical Research Institute in Sydney.
The five most commonly diagnosed cancers – breast, prostate, lung, bowel and skin – will also have their own dedicated information sites.
While the price of a new TLD doesn't come cheaply – $185,000 – the investment is for keeps, and will "effectively and efficiently help us longer term, certainly in the digital space, to attract additional funding towards cancer research", Professor Brown said.
"What a TLD allows us to do is potentially develop a network of sites that become authoritative for trends around cancer treatment, diagnosis prevention, fundraising, and also places people can go to look up information."
In 2013, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), the global body charged with administering top-level domain names, opened up the internet to new, generic TLDs as popular domains like .com and .net began to "fill up".
"What new TLDs provide to the international community is a return to intuitive and easy to remember domain names," said Tony Kirsch, head of global consulting at ARI Registry Services, the Australian company that runs the technology behind the .cancerresearch domain.
Mr Kirsch said ACRF was the first non-profit in the world to register a TLD. The registry service also claims the world's first branded TLD, Monash University's .monash, which launched in January 2014.
The university is gradually migrating its website from monash.edu to the new domain, which it says will provide stronger security and brand presence, and will be easier both to navigate and manage.
Geographic-based TLDs such as .melbourne, .paris and .nyc are also popping up around the web.
ACRF specialises in funding grants for infrastructure and equipment underpinning cancer research. Since its inception it has given 56 grants worth $103.9 million to 34 different institutes in Australia.
Fairfax Media is a supporter of the ACRF's fundraising campaign.
