Amazon’s Prime Day is bigger than ever this year. With a full 48 hours of incredible prices slashes, the enormous customer base of Amazon is already excited about the coming weekend. Moreover, Amazon announced that this year’s Prime Day event will have great celebrity influence. In addition to the Taylor Swift Prime Day concert, Amazon will be collaborating with several other celebrities, selling their favorite products and also featuring endorsed offerings. A few notable names include Kristen Bell, Kobe Bryant, Marshmello and more. Well, when it comes to Amazon’s events, the marketing is always stellar.
But there’s something more that has added attention to the events of the coming weekend. The efforts of corporate philanthropy of Amazon Smile have recently created a wave in the nonprofit world. But how effective are these in fundraising for nonprofits?
It is true that with the amount of marketing that leads to Amazon events and the months of preparation that goes behind them, the amount of audience reaching the platform is humongous and so is the business. However, there have been mixed opinions about this turning out to be a good fundraising idea for nonprofits. Here we have the information your nonprofit must hold before considering Amazon as a part of your fundraising strategy.
Let us take a look.
The amount of Donations
The Amazon Smile platform is a platform offered by the company for those who wish to help nonprofits with their purchases. This goes the same in special events such as the Amazon Prime Day. You may list your nonprofit here to create a fundraising opportunity for yourself.
With the staggering amount of business that Amazon does in Prime Days, it is right to assume that Amazon Smile will share a large part of it as well, which in turn would help nonprofits raise a lot of funds. However, it is imperative to know the amount that Amazon actually donates for every purchase.
For every product that is bought and delivered, a mere 0.5% is donated to the charity of your choice, which in our opinion is very less for a fundraising campaign. In terms of the donations received there are considerably much better options for fundraisers to conduct such campaigns.
Moreover, not just the donations are small but there isn’t a chance to connect with your donors too. As the information is stored by a third-party CRM software, you don’t get any information about the donors, hence, there isn’t a chance of building relationships. It must be understood that it isn’t just about donations but also long term donors that are a result of such relationships.
Effects of fundraising on such a platform
Not just Amazon but also Facebook is now stepping toes into the fundraising industry. Fundraising on such platforms can genuinely give your campaign the little push it needs to complete the target. As such platforms cater enormous amounts of audiences, the revenue generated can thus push your campaign across the threshold.
Yet, it’s not just about the current campaign, is it? As mentioned earlier, when donors make a donation on your platform, you have the ability to record their information in your CRM software. Again, it’s not just about your relationship with your donors but a platform to conduct prospect research on them and reach out to them with future activities and events. Apparently, this platform is unavailable when it comes to fundraising on Amazon and Facebook.
What do you get!
It is quite right to put the free marketing that your nonprofit gets with fundraising on Amazon Smile. We are firm in believing that their platform is for the sole motivation of helping nonprofits like yours, however, it is difficult to come to this conclusion when the platform takes the most of what you receive in donations.
Moreover, it is not just your nonprofit that benefits from the marketing; Amazon too gets an additional marketing attention through the nonprofits registered on their platform. These nonprofits would encourage people to buy products from Amazon so that they receive donations for each of their purchases. Thus, Amazon receives a marketing extension and a reputation boost as well.
What can you do?
It would be a mistake if you think that Amazon or any of the huge businesses that offer an online fundraising platform are your only options. While the numbers for attention may seem huge at first, the drawbacks might overshadow many of the benefits.
If you want to know more about creating an effective marketing strategy for a nonprofit, try consulting us. You can also download our e-book that would certainly help you understand the various aspects of a marketing strategy for your nonprofit. We hope you find the best way to boost your fundraising in a sustainable way that brings the best to your organisation.
