Raising Funds For Non Profit Organizations

Anyone who has ever been involved in any non-profit organization will be able to attest that fundraising is an ongoing effort, and most organizations never have enough funds to do everything that they want to do. With the global economy causing job losses all over the world, even more people are out of work and in need of help paying their bills, and filling their daily needs of food and shelter. That means that nonprofit organizations need to work even harder to help serve the public, and need even more funds to do so.

While there are always the old fashioned ways of raising funds for nonprofits--bake sales, car washes, and selling wrapping paper to your friends and family, in this age of internet shopping, it makes sense to use the online tools at hand to raise funds for nonprofits.

One such tool is affiliate marketing. Affiliate marketing is a very easy way to raise funds for your organization by partnering with a company or companies online. Since affiliate marketing is online, all an organization needs to do is find a company to partner with, create an active link, then pass out the link to potential donors. It takes much less effort on the part of the fundraising team, and less time on the part of the sales force to earn at least as much or potentially much more money than they would have through bake sales, and other small fundraising projects. Affiliate marketing may not be able to take the place of soliciting checks from large donors, but it can take the place of costly, and time consuming fundraising events.

Affiliate marketing is the term used when people or companies market for other companies by placing links on websites, emails, blogs or other methods thereby becoming marketers for the company. For instance, if I am an affiliate marketer for Amazon, I can get links to Amazon products like the ones in this article, and if someone purchases an item through my link, I get a small percentage of the sale.

Each company works differently, but affiliate marketers most often earn money by getting a small percentage of a sale of a product or service over a period of time. For instance, Amazon currently gives between 4% and 8% commission on sales of products that are purchased immediately after someone clicks on a link. Commissions can vary depending on the quantity or dollar amount of sales, and on the length of time from the original click. Companies also have a "cookie" which determines how long after the original click you will earn a commission. This can be 24 hours or 90 days, and each company is different.