I’ve made it my mission of late to find good online cause marketing options for small companies and causes.
Thanks to the Cause Marketing Forum Conference two weeks ago, I’ve discovered two more. I’m a little embarrassed that I’m just learning of MissionFish and Benevity. But better late than never, right?
MissionFish, which was just acquired by eBay in May, has a tagline that says it all: “The way to fundraise on eBay.”
There are several ways to use MissionFish within eBay. Nonprofits can sell in-kind items online and collect the money. eBay users can also make a donation directly to the nonprofit via PayPal. Finally, eBay sellers can list any item for sale and have a portion or percentage donated to a nonprofit.
MissionFish’s services are a great thing to promote within your organization with staff, volunteers and donors. They can sell items on eBay and your nonprofit will benefit!
I’m curious if a company has ever used MissionFish to raise money for a cause. We know that a cause can sell things on MissionFish and earn a donation, but can a company do it for them? For many years, HomeGoods, a national chain of home design stores, donated home furnishings to our annual silent auction. We raised some good money auctioning off those fashionable pillows, lamps and rugs. HomeGoods only donated once a year, but what if it was willing to set up a small online store with MissionFish so they could sell surplus items for us throughout the year? This would give businesses like HomeGoods greater exposure beyond our one night silent auction.
I’ll ask MissionFish co-founder Clam Lorenz to answer this question in the comments.
The best thing about MissionFish, of course, is that it has the backing of eBay users. You have an instant audience of engaged buyers! That’s powerful. Regardless of whether the cause or company does the selling, MissionFish is a tool I would add to your cause marketing toolbox.
MissionFish is also cause marketing approved. MissionFish and eBay have won not one but two Cause Marketing Halo Awards. And with good reason. eBay users have raised more than $230 million with MissionFish.
But what if HomeGoods doesn’t want to sell their products for a cause on eBay? What if they want to suppot good causes right from their own online shopping site? [It's a hypothetical question as HomeGoods doesn't currently have an online store.] That’s when HomeGoods calls Benevity.
- Using Benevity, any retailer can turn their online shopping site into a charitable giving machine. A portion or percentage can be donated to good causes, or shoppers can add a donation at checkout, if they choose.
- Since it operates outside of the eBay platform, Benevity offers more flexibility and options for partners. They can offer real-time matching offers and charitable gift cards to motivate consumers to give, among other things. Benevity also allows shoppers to choose their cause from 750,000 charities in the United States and 85,000 in Canada.
Check out how iStockphoto is using Benevity as an online cause marketing platform. Purchases from shoppers trigger a donation from the photo site.
According to Benevity, the next step is for iStockphoto is to allow photographers to differentiate their imagery by whether it gives back, enabling a portion of the purchase price or royalties to be directed to charities chosen by buyers and sellers. This is ideal. The company donates when consumers buy credit packages, but individual users can leverage the platform to support causes about which they care.
I suspect the question you have about online giving is the same one I have for MissionFish and Benevity. This works well with large, established companies and causes – like the example of iStockphoto for Benevity, or Goodwill for MissionFish. But are both platforms truly easy, affordable and effective for the small businesses and nonprofits that are eager to use online shopping sites for good?
That’s one question I’m hoping Clam Lorenz at MissionFish and Jana Taylor at Benevity can answer for us. I also want to hear from you!
Joe,
Great post! (Ok we're biased, but thanks for featuring Benevity…)
To answer your question, Benevity's platform can indeed help companies of all sizes build embedded giving into their businesses: we can do what Mission Fish did for eBay (and more!) for anyone from Amazon.com to smaller players (we actually have lots of small and mid-cap business clients, including a growing number of social enterprise startups). Our pricing model allows the platform to be deployed at low or no cost to the participating business, an approach designed to increase the likelihood that we can fulfill our vision of making giving to the charity of one's choice as common and convenient as leaving a tip at a restaurant…wouldn't that be a happy day!
One way we could explain it is: Benevity's cause marketing utility is like Mission Fish on steroids (with all due respect for the great work they've done!). In addition to enabling buyers or sellers to allocate donation currency to causes of choice by embedding into the shopping cart or other point of sale process, Benevity can do quite a bit more. The retailer (or manufacturer or whomever) can also offer real-time matching offers, branded portfolios of causes (eg. [Your Brand] Green Fund or [Your Brand] Give Where You Live Fund) and charitable gift cards to incent people to choose in strategic directions desired by the company. It can power charitable check-out, cause-related coupons and loyalty programs, crisis response initiatives, etc. and (as you noted in your post) the platform supports 750,000 charities in the US and 85,000 in Canada. So it's all about combining choice/flexibility with strategy (i.e.: enable customers to donate to their charity of choice and provide incentives to donate to the company's strategic cause). The platform also powers an award-winning workplace giving application as well so that employees can get in on the act.
We're looking forward to powering more online cause marketing and related programs – and helping those companies win Halo Awards to boot! Thanks again for the call-out.
Jana
I used MissionFish on eBay to donate 100% of the proceeds from an auction of Pat's tickets last year. The tickets never sold but I was charged the listing fees. I contacted eBay to explain to them that this was an auction with 100% of proceeds going to charity and I felt that since it did not sell at the reserve price I shouldn’t have to pay the fees. They agreed but shouldn’t this be a rule?
JohnR's comment raises a good point. A non-sale which was going 100% to a charity became a bit of a punishment. If it sells then the cost is $0 – but if it doesn't sell then there is a cost! Where's the logic for such a disincentive? It's like the old saying of "no good deed goes unpunished". Taken a step further, perhaps next time he wants to "make a donation" he may skip eBay/MissionFish entirely. I encourage the rule being re-evaluated.
[...] I love Benevity, but piling on the tools is not the answer. A nail gun is better than a hammer but not if you’re pouring concrete. [...]
If a retailer uses one of these platform to advertise that a purchase of their products is linked to a donation to a nonprofit organization, doesn't the retailer need a commercial co-venture with each and every nonprofit that can benefit from the purchase?
And shouldn't the retailer be very careful in which states they send emails where a nonprofit is mentioned because that nonprofit must be registered in that state?
And if a retailer adopts a white-label platform and promoted purchase-linked donations, shouldn't the retail register in the states they do business as a commercial co-venture, which requires certain reporting standards?
Seems to me that using some API in a white-label service without the proper direct agreements with the nonprofit organizations, proper state registrations where required, and the proper reporting procedures puts the retailer at risk since they are the ones selling and promoting and not the behind-the-scene technology.
Good questions. I've pinged the folks at Benevity and Mission Fish to get the definitive answers!
Cause marketing Forum has some great programs, both webinar and at their annual conference, on cause marketing and the law. It's a great place to start for some answers on this important issue.
AltexL is most certainly correct in the implications of his post: one needs to structure all cause marketing programs (whether done manually or using any supporting technology) to comply with all applicable charitable solicitation laws (among others). Part of our response is that it helps to have a CEO who was a lawyer! Through the legal structure and agreements that support our platform, we are able to assist our clients in achieving such compliance, and without disclosing any of our "special sauce", it is not nearly as onerous as AltexL has described (though it could be for others using different structures). If there is interest in discussing the details, please feel free to contact us directly at Benevity.
Thanks for your interest!
Jana Taylor,
Benevity Social Ventures, Inc. http://www.benevity.org
I'm with a 501c3 non-profit organization called the North Woods Conservancy and we have a MissionFish account. I guess my question is, how do I get the word out to sellers on eBay that we exist so that they can support us? Is there a list of non-profits people who sell on eBay can look at? Or is it more on us as the Conservancy to get the word out to people who already know who we are?
Thanks for your help.