Everyclick has launched software which will automatically donate money to charity when online shoppers buy a product, without the buyer having to pay any more themselves.
Give as you Live utilises retailers’ affiliate programmes, which pay commission to referrers such as online comparison sites whenever a customer clicks a link to the retailer’s website and goes on to buy a product.
The software has agreements covering around 1,000 retailers and can claim commission of anywhere between 1 and 15 per cent or more.
Of the total commission raised each month, between 50 and 90 per cent is donated to charities, depending on how much was raised in total.
The proportion of this fund that each charity receives is determined by how much their users use Everyclick's search engine, rather than how much commission that charity raised.
Major retailers
Partner retailers include John Lewis, Tesco, Expedia, Lastminute.com and Sainsbury’s.
Everyclick has also partnered with Blackbaud to ensure full integration with The Raiser’s Edge, giving charities access to reporting functionality, donor information such as lifestyle and purchasing preferences and the ability to contact those donors who opt in to further communications.
Polly Gowers (pictured), CEO of Everyclick, said: “By putting the supporter’s needs first and foremost in our design process, we have created a product that can raise millions of pounds without the hassle of asking supporters to change their behaviours.
“I wanted to make raising millions of pounds easy and free. And I think we have.”
Users can only choose one charity to support so the onus is on charities to persuade their supporters to choose them.
Rival product in testing
Meanwhile, another project looking to utilise affiliate schemes to raise money is CharityBox, which has just entered the beta testing stage.
Developed by Pizza Powered, CharityBox first came about in September last year when it won Charity Hack, an event designed to create innovative ways of collecting donations online.
Its developers, who say they will take just a 9 per cent cut of the money raised for their own administration costs, have been talking with PayPal and MissionFish to utilise their databases of charities and individuals.
Charity & retail coordinator Dom Hodgson told Civil Society that CharityBox is simpler to use than Give as you Live.
"Our service is a little different to theirs as ours is silent and requires no addition clicks for the user.
"Everyclick's requires the user goes to a special page, then back to the site, and to then find your product."
