I’m not a fan of “fundraising sales” like cookie dough, pizza kits, wrapping paper, raffle tickets, or popcorn. I think they do have a place in the realm of fundraising. But while I love asking for money, I don’t like doing this type of sale.
So it’s probably no surprise that I’ve never been a fan of the shopping portals that are supposed to give donations to nonprofits. To make them successful, nonprofits need to constantly promote them, reminding their donors to change their buying habits. It really bugs me that each nonprofit turns into a volunteer sales force for that company and promotes the company brand far more than their own. I can see tremendous benefit for the company–lots of sales with little effort–but not a great return for the nonprofit–lots of effort but little donations.
Is AmazonSmile a game changer?
Now Amazon is offering AmazonSmile. Just go to http://smile.amazon.com/ and choose a charity. From then on, any eligible purchase will result in 0.5% going to the charity.
They preloaded some charities, the usual suspects like charity:water and the American Red Cross. But you can also search. I chose a startup near Boston called Amirah. Amazon made it easy to find and choose. So now, presumably, every eligible purchase I make on Amazon will result in helping more woman rescued from human trafficking heal and put their lives back together.
Here is why I think AmazonSmile can be effective: millions already are shopping at Amazon. The other tools require you to go through their link to work. People are already going to Amazon’s site. They don’t have to change that behavior. They just need to choose your charity and then carry on as they were before.
Still chump change
This is still chump change. I thought I was a heavy Amazon user. But in reviewing my purchases for the year, if all of them were eligible, Amirah would’ve received a whopping $2.50. Nothing to write home about.
But that still $2.50 more than I’ve given to date. And if you have thousands of people doing this, you could start seeing real money.
What’s in it for Amazon?
So what’s in it for Amazon? Marketing. As with any retailer, we give the money but they get the marketing credit. When Walmart says it’s given a million dollars to the Children’s Miracle Network, they really mean their customers have given that much. They’re usually the pass through organization, not the philanthropist.
And their choice of program name is awesome: AmazonSmile and the AmazonSmile Foundation. It reminds us of the boxes we receive. And reinforces the good feeling we get in receiving them.
This type of program also helps train us to shop at their store. No longer will we get a cashier asking if we want to buy a balloon or shamrock. We’ll just get the good feeling of having this work for us.
It’s worth trying
Having said all that, I definitely think it’s worth trying. I get to do something I already do, shop on Amazon, and have a sliver of it go to a charity I care about, Amirah. Easy enough.
If you’re looking to sign up, just go to: http://smile.amazon.com/. If you don’t know who to support, would you consider supporting Amirah? Just search for it. It’s the only Amirah that comes up!
If you want to register your nonprofit, just go to: http://org.amazon.com/. More details of the program are available here.
What about you?
Do you see AmazonSmile as helping your nonprofit or favorite cause?
Updated 10/30/2013 at 12:01 pm: I’d incorrectly reported the percentage as “0.05%.” The article has been corrected to reflect the correct amount: 0.5%. The $2.50 was correct.
As a fundraising professional responsible for raising about $13.5 million per year, I’m not a big fan of opportunities like this. As you said, they take an awful lot of time and bandwidth to promote for very little return.
If my organization is going to spend a lot of staff time and money promoting something, there are a lot of things we can do that will bring in a LOT more revenue and do a lot more to brand our own organization in the process.
Good on Amazon for doing something to benefit non-profits, but I won’t be spending any resources on promoting it.
Thanks Linda!
I am amazed at how “safe” promoting something like this feels for people, rather than promoting the great work they do. I don’t get it. And I’d take your stance too! 🙂
Of course, I don’t really think any of these are about the nonprofits. Sorry if that sounds cynical, it’s not meant to. I think this is really about businesses growing loyalty with customers. I do think this will help Amazon strengthen that link with many.
I don’t have the same background as you, but the piece that is hard to quantify is the benefit of social marketing. This allows groups to leverage that at zero cost. I personally stumbled across Amazon Smile randomly, signed up to support Down Syndrome Association of Central Texas and then posted on my facebook that if you use amazon you should look into Amazon Smile. Already four of my friends have signed up. This costs the groups who are receiving the benefit zero dollars and zero time.
Glad you’re having success with it!
I concur with each of you. However if you put the money aside do you see any upside to the bigger nonprofit community? Is there good for our sector when people at least are thinking about doing good while shopping? The social sector needs to think in new creative ways to weave themselves into the fabric of people’s lives, I think when this type of opportunity is looked at through the lens of a broader approach to creating a large pool of support this is another opportunity to be top of mind and be part of a donor’s life. Even in act of buying something they can demonstrate what is of value.
Well said, Jay. I bet it will help groups with broad bases like charity:water and American Red Cross. I can see it being a popular way for people to help during crises too.
And yes, I love the creative weaving of giving into our every day life. I am glad people keep innovating!
Sadly, the organizations that spend the most time on this time of thing are the smallest organizations who can least afford to do so.
As I understand it, an organization mus “raise” $5, which means $1000 in Amazon sales (excludes ebooks), before they actually get the cash. If that doesn’t happen within one year, the money goes to another nonprofit.
This will be super easy for the name-brand charities like Red Cross. For smaller charities like the local fledgling soup kitchen, they will spend countless hours promoting the heck of this and walk away with nothing.
Furthermore, I do not think this is good for the broader nonprofit community. Why not? Because Susie Q. places a $200 Amazon order an selects a charity. She feels she has contributed something meaningful. So, even thought this is a charity she cares about, she does write a personal check to the charity. (Most consumers will not do the math to realize that gave $1)
I wrote about this on my blog, http://www.letsraisesomemoney.com, and I said that the Smile Amazon will not leave many charities smiling. It will leave many charities running around promoting Amazon. It’s a genius marketing strategy, but won’t do much for the nonprofit community.
“I’m not a fan of “fundraising sales” … I don’t like doing this type of sale.”
The average profit that a group receives from these sales is 40 – 50%. That’s a significant return for their efforts. Amazon is giving a mere .5%, and you say that their program is “worth trying”.
May I ask what it is, you don’t like about fundraising sales? For the record, I own a fundraising company.
Thanks, Dave.
I mention it above but I think I can boil it down to two things:
(1) Fundraising isn’t shameful
(2) Sales confuses the brand
NOT SHAMEFUL
When nonprofits are looking for something to sell, it’s usually because they don’t think people would really invest in them all alone. They need a crutch like raffle tickets or wrapping paper. I get that. Even blogged about it a few years back. https://fundraisingcoach.com/2008/12/23/thoughts-on-fundraising-sales/
But fundraising isn’t shameful. It’s a noble endeavor.
CONFUSES THE BRAND
More importantly, sales confuses the donor. Most nonprofits are their sectors “best kept secret.” They take valuable time and creativity they need to get better at telling their own story and learning to market themselves and instead market popcorn.
Just saying.
Honestly, selling pizza kits and snow cones does have a part in the fundraising mix. But that’s not what people will learn from me. I wrote about a pitch I once got here:
https://fundraisingcoach.com/2008/08/07/why-most-sales-pitches-to-nonprofits-dont-work/
It’s great to be a charitable business. And to partner with nonprofits with your products. And many do it very well.
It’s just not my thing.
I hope you hear that my tone of voice is respect. 🙂
Thank you for your reply Marc,
I understand this isn’t something you’re interested in. To be frank, it’s not a perfect fit for many groups. For the folks we work with, however, (mostly underfunded school music programs) product sales is a huge help.
I read both of the blogs you referenced in your reply, and you make some good points. If you don’t mind, I’d like to address a few of them here.
1st. I completely agree that selling things that people wouldn’t otherwise want or need, is a lousy idea. In fact, I would go farther and say that the abundance of slick companies offering these types of items (overpriced giftwrap, magazine subscriptions, candy) has really hurt this industry as a whole.
2nd. I also agree that many groups are running too many fundraisers. Actually, this is a major issue. Chicken or the egg – “We didn’t make enough money with the last fundraiser, so we need to hold another one. But our families are burned out on fundraising because we hold too many fundraisers, so they won’t participate…”. Alas, it turns out, that sales makes people uncomfortable in the same way that asking for donations does (“Ask Without Fear” you say? It applies to sales too.). 🙂
The groups that tend to do the best, limit their fundraisers to just one or two all year, and make it clear to their members that this is their only opportunity to raise the money they need.
3rd. Likewise, there’s nothing shameful in selling a quality product to support your group – particularly, if the quality is good and the profit is strong. Interesting that you referenced Sees Candy in your post, as they were the inspiration for our company. I don’t want to go into details here, but after our daughter’s school wrapped up one of their fundraisers, we thought “There has to be a better way.”
4th. One point that you make is not always true however, and that is that product sales dilute the brand. Again, if you’re referring to groups that run sale after sale – sure. However, the Girl Scouts for example, are strongly identified with their annual cookie sale. For their group, this is a major part of their outreach program. They site that it teaches goal setting, presentation skills, teamwork, etc…
If you’re interested, here’s a link to their site; http://www.girlscouts.org/research/pdf/cookie_outcomes.pdf
I respect your position on fundraising sales. I also like your approach that asking for donations doesn’t take anything away from the donor. Likewise with a quality fundraising sales program.
I’d like to think that they are 2 different approaches that, when handled correctly can have a good and healthy impact on a group’s in financial needs.
I hope you don’t mind my long-winded reply. I actually enjoy your blog, and I plan to purchase your book to learn more.
Kindest Regards,
Thanks for the spirited comments!
And for your support of nonprofits. :)8
I use a Google Chrome extension called Smile Always. It redirects me to smile.amazon.com every time so I don’t forget to use it
Nice! Thanks for the tip!
Firefox has an add-on as well for their menu bar. I recently installed it because I kept using my shortcut and Amazon would remind me to use Smile, in the way of a pop up box allowing me to switch.
Nice. Have you noticed that Amazon will often prompt you to use Smile now too?
So do I Anna I have the google chrome extension as well. I guess I must of read the decimal point wrong, I thought it was 5% big difference. Luckily with my shopping habits alone the organization I choose already reached their $5.00 to be able to receive the money. Living in NYC I shop on amazon on a daily basis. But if others are not as computer savvy having to reprogram their amazon shopping habits to go to smile amazon every time they shop their charity of choice will probably miss out.
Marc your article was very interesting and thank you for sharing the links. I myself volunteer with several non profits in my area and I choose my son’s rowing program as my charity here in the city. Thinking of which we just had a parents meeting 2 nights ago and no one even brought up smile amazon. I found out because I follow their facebook page. They have a great program for middle and high school kids, where they teach “competitive rowing paired with rigorous academic support for underserved youth could change the trajectory of their teen years and beyond. They have since taught thousands of young people the sport of rowing, and through it the values of tenacity, focus, teamwork, and confidence.” I quoted that through their website which I attached below. I will definitely speak to the parent coordinator and ask her to reach out via email to the other parents bout using it though. In the end every penny helps and financially they provide many services to the children at no cost including food, transportation, academic and college prep at no cost. Last year my son was going to a private school upstate and I paid over a 1000 dollars between enrollment, uniforms, and travel, without the added support of academics. Sorry if this sounds like a plug for their organization. 🙂 With that being said I will definitely investigate it more and contact amazon as well for more details.
I am involved in a small non profit in northern New Mexico where shopping on line is an absolute necessity because the alternative is travel at more than 1 hour to get to stores that many suburban and urban areas take for granted like Costco, Target, Sam’s Club, etc. Most of the population here already is shopping at Amazon in large numbers..just ask the UPS guy! We are definitely adding this to our Fundraising efforts: it can hurt and every little bit helps.
Wonderful! It sounds like you know your donor base well!
Here’s the rub for me. I selected my charity (not a common large one) and then started shopping as usual on Amazon (via Smile). Out of curiosity, I search for all products that would be ‘eligible for the Amazon Smile program’ and came up with a measly 604; NONE of which I would buy from Amazon as many of the products were grocery store items. It’s just not worth it in my opinion and it gives a false pretense that ‘we are doing something for our charity’ by shopping on Amazon Smile.
I think its false advertising IMHO and a bit shameful.
Disregard. Re-typed my search and instead of typing ‘eligible for Amazon Smile” I typed “Amazon Smile” and had 63,000+ products come up. I take it all back!! Hope to start helping my charity with my frequent Amazon shopping!!
Thanks for the quick update! :)8
I’m not an expert on fundraising for charities or anything, so this is just the opinion of an average Joe.
I think the Amazon Smile program is great. I shop at Amazon anyway. I don’t shop there because of Smile, I shop there because they have dependable reviews and an excellent wishlist system. I shop there because I trust them more than ebay. I shop there because my Bing rewards account gives me a $5 gift card every month.
Now, when I do order, a little extra goes to a charity. I’d like to think that my buying habits haven’t changed, but it’s hard to tell. I admit that I check Amazon first for anything we need online. I’d say that the best part is that it’s easy for the consumer. You just set a charity once and then shop as usual, no need to remember to type a special link. To help me remember, I don’t even call the website “Amazon”, I call it “Smile”. It’s the same to me as yourbloghere.wordpress – everyone would call that “Your Blog Here”. The wordpress part is irrelevant. In the same way, I always type “smile” and my web browser autocompletes the rest.
Oh, I forgot to add that the simplicity of use is one reason why charities don’t need to constantly push/promote/market the Smile fundraiser. This way, they just have to tell their supporters to sign-up for Smile.Amazon once, and the rest is automatic. Hopefully this will help reduce the cycle of constantly pushing for ‘donations’ through an affiliate link.
Jurmond: Great points! Easy, simplicity, and being automatic are definitely what set this apart from other similar opportunities.
Thanks for your well stated comments.
I agree it’s very simple and easy to use. I shop on amazon.com a LOT, so if when I do, I can also kick a few pennies over to a cause I care about, it’s great. I haven’t changed my purchasing habits, and there are so many causes to choose from. You can also switch charities easily, if you have a few you’d like to contribute to throughout the year
The cause I’m currently supporting through amazon smile is a large animal sanctuary that has many followers on social media. For them it’s as easy as posting a link on their website, and occasionally mentioning it in a post on facebook. They may not get a huge amount in return, but it’s relatively low effort, and easy for supporters to use if they’re already shopping on amazon.
Nice.
I like smile.Amazon for its simplicity. With the current information that a Prime Member spends $1500 and a regular member spends $625 it equates to about 75 cents or about 31 cents per member per year. Yes, it doesn’t provide much if you’re looking at the smaller charitable organizations such as Ben’s Friends which provides on line support groups for rare diseases. Ben’s Friends has over 47,000 members, world wide. The monies earned via donations through Smile.Amazon could equate to the ability of the Ben’s Friends organization running a support group or not. But there’s members of Ben’s Friends who can’t get out to shop, thus are using Amazon. It costs me nothing, there’s enough from members that they meet their $5.00. For me, it’s a reminder when we go to do our yearly direct donations. I,like another mentioned, just type in smile and the tablet fills the rest in:). Amazon also gives me a pop up if I forgot.
I’m researching funding opportunities for a small non-profit in FL. We’re signed up with Amazon Smile and hope it does well for us. It seems that it will add a little something to the tool box for a small amount of work hours. My question is how do we get people to use this service besides for our own personnel and our personal or professional contacts? In other words, how can we stand out from the crowd so when people are searching for a non-profit to support they will at least give us a look-see?
That’s just the thing, Robert. Doing the things to make you stand out will be what your nonprofit should be doing anyway. But this will make it so that all that effort gets pushed to Amazon.
Making your nonprofit stand out to the right people is the name of the game anyway.
There are lots of ideas on this site (look in the articles or search storytelling or any of the posts). Or check out http://bit.ly/NPStoryConf – the Nonprofit Storytelling Conference. And http://TheNonprofitAcademy.com/
amirah ref is good to choose a charity but i’d ref aspca and the other familiar options that are listed, please 🙂
Thanks, Cathy. But I’m not understanding your note. What do you mean with “ref”?
Hi Marc! I was doing some research to make sure I wasn’t missing something in comparing Amazon Smile with using Goodshop for Amazon. It seems to me that getting to Amazon through Goodshop is better for my charity because 1.5% goes to the charity instead of 0.5% with Smile. I looked at fine print and didn’t catch anything. I did find that Amazon will not tell me what it contributed to my charity through Goodshop like other vendors do – with Goodshop sometime after my purchase I get a notification of the amount going to my charity. Not that it is a huge amount to my charity either way, but I’d rather get them the most money from what I am already spending. What do you think?
Amazon Smile has never, ever made a payment to our 501c3
We have never received a dime, or any accounting from Amazon Smile. We’ve queried with absolutely no response. From our vantage, and many others, Amazon Smile is a scam, fraud. Amazon’s lack of response regarding this only enforces our belief that something is fishy here. What’s up with the accountability of Amazon Smile? Why is it a simple Google search shows we’re not alone?
Hal, I’m so sorry. How frustrating.
I tried reaching out to Amazon and AmazonSmile on Twitter but they didn’t respond.
I have heard of others getting checks. But I doubt it’s equivalent to the advertising benefit Amazon gets from having links on nonprofit sites.
I shop on Amazon a lot and am happy for the opportunity to donate to my local animal rescue. The $500 that I have spent thus far has generated around $8 for my charity. I realize that I am only one individual but I purchase a lot via amazon smile and to me this is more of a moneymaking con by Amazon. I love the idea of buying and donating and it irks me to think that amazon is making the bulk of the profit instead of my charity. Amazon does billions in sales annually so where’s the giving back?!? Luckily I also donate to them on my own.
Amazon Smile donated $5 for every $10,000 spent. To receive $100, Smile participants must spend $200,000.
Not the odds I like taking. I’d rather just ask a donor for money.
amazon smiles hurts local businesses and economies by encouraging more spending at amazon, and the amounts donated to nonprofits from the program are tiny ($5 for every $1000 spent), why hurt the locals?