Bucks for Non-profits

[Woe]

For those teams with a 501(c)3 designation; I attend networking workshops for non-profits and thought I'd share some tricks-of-the-trade.

Get cash for your internet usage
- Goodsearch.com A search engine powered by Yahoo.
River City Robots has used goodsearch for a year, which sends a few bucks our way. Although some may feel it inferior to google, it serves my needs. Sign up is free, but you must have a 501(c)3 designation.
- Club.live.com. This is sort of a search engine but combined with games. A person signs up and plays games for tickets. The tickets may then be donated to a qualifying non-profit. Once a year, each ticket is cashed out for .01 and a check written to a non-profit. This has the potential of earning some larger dollars, and we are brainstorming on ways to max. profits and turning this into a planned fundraiser. Until then, I plan on incorporating the site with my Lego League this year. Perhaps allowing 10 minutes of gaming time at the end of meetings.

Cash back for internet Purchases
We use two; igive.com and goodsearch.com. Both provide a percentage of purchases to non-profits. An online store may donate anywhere to .5% to 20%.
Igive.com is cumbersome, but it is the older of the two. You can easily track both purchases and your supporters. It provides a one-time $5.00 donation when individuals sign up and make a qualifying purchase. We only have about 5 people using Igive, but the money really adds up.

Goodsearch.com just added a way to "goodshop", and I find myself using that site to shop. Unlike Igive.com I don't have to log in. They have more online shops, but some of the %'s aren't quite as high. We are currently running a fundraiser through goodsearch; I've suggested our FRC team and FLL team purchase Home Depot gift cards for their spring home improvement projects.

I like that our supporters don't have to pay "extra".

Also, for those seeking grants; the library is your best friend. Next-to-best friend is guidestar.org. Guidestar allows you to research companies and find out where they donate money, and how much they donate.

Please add any additional resources/ideas you have to assist those of us not under school district support!

[Akash Rastogi]

Sweet, thanks for the info. Much appreciated

[EricH]

Box Tops for Education, if you are affiliated with a school. Cut the tops off certain products (General Mills) and send them in. BUT...if you go through their website to shop, you get percentages of the purchase!

Or, grocery stores have ways to link their "club cards" to organizations. So every time you shop at that store, x% of the purchase goes back to the organization.