Three painless ways to raise money for your charities…

If you're on Facebook you've probably seen people asking friends to purchase something to benefit a local school, scout troop, church or other worthy cause.

 

This is in addition to the usual offline efforts....leaving the box of candy in the break room and hoping people leave money for the candy they take!

 

There is a better way.  Several of them actually.

 

Probably the easiest is having the group sign up for the Amazon.com affiliate program. (as of this moment this will not work in Arkansas, Colorado, Connecticut, Illinois, North Carolina and Rhode Island.)

 

Once the group has the affiliate link it should be distributed to all members with the encouragement to use that link whenever making a purchase.

 

The amazon affiliate link looks something like this:

 

 

You'll see the word "unified" above.  That identifies the link as coming from the church my cousin belongs to in Hawaii.  Any time a church member or one of their friends clicks on that link and makes a purchase, the church will get a commission of 4-10% depending on the particular item they bought.

 

To my knowledge any group or person, who is not from one of the above listed states can join the affiliate program.  I'm not sure of the deal in other countries.

 

Another program I've only just learned about is from www.eScrip.com

 

Your group registers at the site...it's over 10 years old...and is given a link.

 

People interested in supporting your group would register their credit cards on the site and every time that card is used at a participating merchant your group would earn money.

 

Even though I'd never heard of this program there were at least two dozen participating restaurants in my area.  Online purchases qualify too when you're going through their online mall.

 

Aforementioned cousin Nancy's high school has been the beneficiary of $25,000+ from alumni and friends shopping at Safeway.

 

Many local grocery stores offer similar rewards programs.  If you have a Kroger near you check out their program at:

 

If there are many such opportunities in your area you may want to do what Nancy did.

 

She took my Amazon idea, added her eScrip stuff, paid $10 for the www.SupportUnified.com domain name and is now simply distributing that to all church members.  

 

It's easy to remember and lists all the ways you can help that church with the spending you already do.  It's likely someone in your group could put up a simple site like that one.

 

If you know of any similar nationwide or worldwide programs, please let me know and I'll pass them on.

 

Remember, these programs don't ask people to do anything different than they already do.  They are going to be making purchases anyway and if your group benefits everyone wins painlessly.

 

Forward this post to whomever is in charge and get this thing going for your group. No need for any special plaque or award ceremony for me.  Just keep me posted on how it does for you.  That will be reward enough!  :>)

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