If you’re a registered charity in the UK, you need to be making the most of Amazon’s Smile program.
After its introduction to the UK market in November 2017 with 11 major charities, the program is open to charities of all sizes. If you are a hospice or localised charity, this is something you should be taking advantage of.
What is it, and how does it work?
Amazon donates 0.5% of net purchase prices to a charity of choice of the consumer. In the eyes of the consumer, they don’t have to pay a thing; this is donated from the profit margin of Amazon. In the USA, Amazon has donated over $69 million to charities and counting.
It may not seem much, but as a free additional channel of fundraising for your charity, it’s definitely not worth passing. It was revealed in April 2018 that Amazon now accounts for £4 in every £100 spent in the UK, so approached correctly, this could be extremely lucrative.
Customers are encouraged to purchase goods through the smile.amazon.co.uk subdomain, as normal. If orders are placed on the standard domain, donations will not be tracked or made.
What do I need to do?
If you are an official representative of a charity, you can enrol into the program today by visiting org.amazon.co.uk. But that’s the easy part. By doing this, a marketing campaign would be the best way to raise awareness of your charity being part of this new fundraising initiative.
Fundraising.co.uk have the following step-by-step advice for charities:
- Search for the charitable organisation by name or registered charity number and then select the organisation.
- Create an organisation administrator account and accept the AmazonSmile Participation Agreement on behalf of the organisation.
- Verify the email address.
- Submit the organisation’s bank account information.
- Upload a copy of a bank statement to verify the organisation’s bank account information.
What else?
So now you’re all set up, it’s the case of making people aware of the new channel and, more importantly, how they can use it. Amazon have stated that they are relying on word-of-mouth recommendations to grow awareness, in order to keep the funds there for donations. Run a two-fold marketing campaign to let people know:
- Your charity is now on Amazon Smile
- Educate people how to select your charity and how to use the service.
If you need more advice on how your charity can benefit from Amazon’s service, email the Scimitar marketing team by clicking here to receive a step-by-step guide.
