One Excellent Fund Raising Option

Like any Christian ministry, the Christian Arts Initiative will require substantial funds in order to meet the objectives spelled out in the document which can be downloaded via this link.

As I see it, it makes sense to explore multiple options, rather than relying solely on donations (although such donations are always appreciated).

iGive.com offers a fund raising option which I plan to use here (and also at ArtisticChristians.com) in the future.

Essentially, iGive.com is an affiliate marketing system. In affiliate marketing, a portion of each purchase made via a link on one's blog or web page is sent as payment to the owner of the blog or web site. (Click here for more detailed information.)

However, there's a very important difference. Whereas standard affiliate links are usually associated with individual companies (such as Amazon.com), an iGive.com account enables one to offer a huge array of buying options to one's supporters, all by means of a single link. That maximizes the likelihood that supporters will find the products they desire, without cluttering up one's blog or web site with numerous affiliate links, and without the hassle of having to set up an affiliate relationship with each separate company.

I know of several companies which offer a program of that type to nonprofit organizations, but as far as I know, iGive.com seems to be the only one which is available for the purpose of raising funds for organizations which aren't 501(c)3 tax-exempt nonprofit organizations. (I also like the fact that iGive.com is located nearby, in the Chicago area. In fact, I just met one of their executives on Saturday, 4-4-09, and he seemed to be a very nice guy who could be trusted to run a professional operation.)

Notice that one can currently choose from more than 700 different name-brand stores, such as Office Depot, Lands' End, Home Depot, Nordstrom and many more. For a current list of all of the vendors associated with iGive.com, visit this web page.

iGive.com must be pretty popular as a fund raising option. According to their web site, there are now more than 46,046 organizations listed at that site as of this date.

Also, there's a related fund raising option, offered by the same company, which enables one to receive small amounts of funds every time people search the Web using the search engine at http://isearch.igive.com/. For more information, visit this page and this page.

Do you want a pain-free way of supporting the Christian Arts Initiative, without having to donate money in addition to money which you'd be spending anyway? Then please bookmark this blog post, and return here periodically. As soon as I've set things up so that you can support the Christian Arts Initiative by means of iGive.com purchases and iSearch.iGive.com searches, this blog post will be modified in order to facilitate such transactions.

UPDATE (May 30, 2009): I just got an e-mail from another company offering what appears to be a good fundraising option which I intend to explore. FlowerPowerFundraising.com (1-866-223-8831 or 1-888-838-3189; Fax: 1-800-551-6712) allows one to set up fundraising programs for churches, schools and other groups, involving the sale of bulbs and perennials. (That's a natural for me, since many of my best photos, which I intend to sell in the form of prints and other products, feature flowers and gardens.) They appear to be associated with Gardener's Supply and Dutch Gardens. Dutch Gardens is a reputable company, and has long offered a fundraising program, but that program didn't include an e-commerce option, and it required that the fundraising organization handle the final order fulfillment. (In other words, the products were shipped to the organization, which then physically distributed the products to those who'd ordered them.) The new e-commerce option makes this a lot more appealing. It isn't as extensive as iGive.com in terms of product selection, but I see no reason to limit my fundraising efforts to just one option. So provided that there are no impediments (such as the need to obtain 501(c)3 status before setting up an account), it's likely that I'll be setting up an account and an e-commerce site with that company in the near future, along with links to that e-commerce site on this blog (and, eventually, at ArtisticChristians.com).

12/8/2010 UPDATE: http://www.bfac.com/ is another web address which seems to be promising insofar as fundraising for Artistic Christian Endeavors is concerned.