Should you bother with Amazon Smile?

Should you be promoting Amazon Smile to your donors?

Why not? It's free money, isn't it?

I mean, all you have to do is sending an email to your donors encouraging them to designate you as their Amazon Smile favorite charity. Then you'll get .5% of their Amazon purchases amounts forever. (Or until Amazon cancels or changes the program.)

But let's take a deeper look at the cost and benefit of doing this:

• You know how low engagement to email is. A small percentage will even consider what you're proposing.
• Of that small group who pay attention to what you're asking, how many will say "Yes, this is my favorite charity. I want to do this." (Remember that other charities are also likely approaching them to do this.)
• Of that group, how many will actually go over to Amazon and do it? It's an easy decision financially (it costs them nothing), but they have to take the time and mind-space to do it.
• Of those donors who made it through all of the above gates, how much do they spend at Amazon? Quite a lot, no doubt. But at .5%, they have to buy $10,000 worth to give you $50.

Does $10,000 seem realistic given the vanishingly small percentage of people who will make it past all those barriers, and then start spending at Amazon?

Was the amount of work it took you worth $50 in revenue?

What else could you do to raise $50? (I bet you'd get there faster standing on the sidewalk with a tin cup.)

For most of us, we wouldn't embark on any project with a revenue projection that low. What else might be a better use of your time?

That's how you need to think about free money ventures like Amazon Smile.

They aren't free.

See a very helpful discussion of this at The Agitator: What Comes First?

from Future Fundraising Now https://ift.tt/2KeuI6W