Transcript:

spiritstore: Hello Leslie! Thank you for hosting!

LeslieCP: No problem, spiritstore

SDDogRescue: looking forward to this one!

LeslieCP: K, so some of you know me as the girl with the crazy hair in charge of the top shopkeeper program, some of you don't know me at all. For those who don't, I am the girl with the crazy hair in charge of the top shopkeeper program.

LeslieCP: I am also, however, an officer of a pit bull rescue which I did before my job here at CP.

Shannon (hazeleyes7): I was thinking more along "dog lady" then crazy hair ;)

LeslieCP: LOL - yes, crazy dog lady for sure

LeslieCP: So my rescue uses CP (and did before I worked here) and Ive worked with a lot of big nonprofits as well: PETA, NORML, etc.

LeslieCP: Overall, there's a few ways to use your shop if you're a nonprofit

LeslieCP: 1) Fundraising  2) Donor gifting  3) Marketing  4) All of the above!

SDDogRescue: raising awareness (is that marketing?)

LeslieCP: Yes, Sddog

LeslieCP: One thing to remember on #2: donors overall love to be recognized

Gandalf_Parker: 5) recognition

LeslieCP: yes

spiritstore: Yes they do!

LeslieCP: Raising awareness as to your organization as to an issue. But Im going to start with donors because it's the simplest.

LeslieCP: Donors give us money, we like them.

SDDogRescue : YAY!

LeslieCP: They like to be recognized and to feel good about their contributions. What I like to do is send occasional gifts from our shop to our bigger donors. Because of the flexibility of the model, you can send one-offs, i.e. for a dog rescue.  You can do the whole Sally Struthers thing. i.e. start a "sponsor a dog" program, and then send donors that sponsor a specific dog for $X a present with a pic of that particular dog on it. This is a nice underpinning to a fundraising program and a nice thing for your donors in general.  Plus, when you hand out your own stuff, your supporters will raise awareness by wearing/using the stuff.

Shannon (hazeleyes7): I know I feel great when I give 10% of my profits from all

Shannon (hazeleyes7): So what you are describing is working directly?

LeslieCP: Yes and no; it depends, LOL.  In my case, I have my own donor list if you're working with a nonprofit, you can suggest this kind of gifting and work with them to get personalized gifts, and/or get a bulk/batch order of donor or volunteer gifts.

LeslieCP: Remember that we have bulk discounts so 35% off and you can batch-reward donors same goes for volunteers. My volunteers LOVE our stuff and they all work for free (so do I, harumph). So when folks are going above and beyond, sometimes Ill go ahead and send them a shirt as a thank-you.

Aaron: I had difficulty doing something for a Cub Scout troop I'm involved with. Image got flagged, even though the design was specific to our troop.

LeslieCP: It may have been a Boy Scout infringement or some such - that's a Content Usage question.

BrittaCP: cup@cafepress.com

LeslieCP: It's a pretty cheap way to make someone feel really special and singled out. The other thing some people like to do is clone a shop and make up an esoteric shop ID, keeping things at base price to allow their volunteers to shop for free.

LeslieCP: I personally don't do that, because our shop is a fundraiser first and a marketing vehicle second, but it depends on what your shop purpose is.

LeslieCP: BTW, for the purpose of this chat we means me and my rescue.

LeslieCP: Im going to speak as a nonprofit person running a CP shop today so no questions about black t-shirts or whatever! lol

Shannon (hazeleyes7): So how do you get their contact information in order to send donors information?

LeslieCP: You need to get that from the nonprofit, or you can compare your sales reports to a donor list you might have.

SDDogRescue: We hand our CP goodies at our yearly volunteer appreciation dinner AND at our yearly fundraiser dinner

LeslieCP: That's a great idea SDDog.

LeslieCP: Now: in general, let's talk about best practices for a nonprofit shop

LeslieCP: 1) let people know what the purpose of the shop is

LeslieCP: If it's for charity, say so prominently. Heres my rescue's shop: http://www.cafepress.com/badrapstore

LeslieCP: My rescue has an annual conference. We make a special design for that conference and sell limited edition shirts at the event itself. We also sell our swag at any other animal care conferences we attend. I.E. we order a bunch of stuff in bulk. We bring it, sell it.  Then we usually gift the volunteers with any leftovers.

SFFriar: How many Shirts do you have to sell, at a discount to break even with the amount you purchased?

LeslieCP: It depends on the shirt and your pricing. I just make sure to price things well. Last year at our conference I think I was doing 1 shirt for $20 and 2 for $35 and since we'd gotten a 35% discount people were really going for this. MANY people bought two.  I think I may have even done 5 for 65 or something, and people were doing it.

LeslieCP: Anyway, back to the shop: identify the shops mission

LeslieCP: yes

LeslieCP: No shop should get in the way of donations. But I will say that the profile of someone who wants your stuff and the profile of someone who wants to give you money is really different.

LeslieCP: I wouldn't worry about sales interfering with donations, I just haven't seen it happen

SDDogRescue: very true!

Gandalf_Parker: Ive seen shops add as much as $20 to a shirt for a non-profit and call it a charitable donation with automatic gift

LeslieCP: right

LeslieCP: Ok, so the second thing about your fundraiser shop is: THINK BEYOND THE LOGO.

LeslieCP: I will say it again: THINK BEYOND THE LOGO, PEOPLE! I know you love your logo, but other people don't love it as much as they love what the logo represents.

SDDogRescue: But other designs will have wider appeal = more sales!

LeslieCP: Which is to say that no matter how sexy and wonderful your logo is, at the end of the day people are buying gifts and things to wear they want cool designs.

LeslieCP: The Bad Rap Shop took off when I started making generalized rad pit bull designs. It's still the same buyers, but now we're picking up more sales and people are making an actual fashion statement.

LeslieCP: And, since it's a pit bull rescue, the topic has wide appeal so we figured that we could pick up some extra sales from people who may not care whether or not we're a rescue but just want a rad pit bull shirt. I also saw a hole in that market - lots of snarling dogs on chains, not a lot of cute, natural-eared dogs with positive messaging.

LeslieCP: If your nonprofit has the same opportunity i.e. to leverage a generalized market interest, go for it!

SDDogRescue: pretty much just our volunteers buy our logo wear (for adoption events, etc)

LeslieCP: Exactly. Our volunteers actually don't really buy our logo. What we do is put our URL on all our shirts.

Aaron: what % is typical markup for a charity site?

LeslieCP: It depends, I mark up around 30%.

LeslieCP: Some people make donation shirts. They sell a shirt for like $100. I did this for hurricane Katrina.  It worked, but I think those things only seem to work when there is a legitimate crisis.

LeslieCP: i.e. Boscoe needs knee surgery, please support us, buy this $100 shirt with a picture of sad sad Boscoe on it

Shannon (hazeleyes7): how do you fit your URL on the shirt and keep it from interfering with the design?

LeslieCP: good design... lol.  Sometimes we put it on the back, other times we just get it below the design.

Aaron: A small URL would be cool... on a sleeve. Otherwise, I've hidden a URL in designs.

Shannon (hazeleyes7): Thanks - I have been trying to figure out a way to keep it from interfering with the rescue message.

RP2008: not sure if this was covered but I missed much of this chat... Is there something in place now or will there possibly be something in place in the future to allow shop owners to directly forwards cleared funds from stores to a charity?

LeslieCP: That is on my wish list.

Aaron: I had a design for an organization based here in Los Angeles and I put the URL in the base of the L.

LeslieCP: So in general, you want to use the same kinds of principles in a nonprofit shop as in a regular shop. Launch 5-10 good designs. Consider your audience.  Tag and keyword well, and then market away. Think about your key messaging, make different designs that appeal to different supporters.

LeslieCP: If you look at the Bad Rap Shop, you'll see REALLY different designs in urban chic than you will in bully love.  We have the hipster hearts and flowers crowd, and we have the macho guys who just want a cool shirt. Since this shop pays our vet bills, we appeal to everyone as long as we're not sacrificing our core message.

SDDogRescue: We also have a donate to rescue section - people can choose their level of donation and get a rescue bumper sticker (only available with donation) - from $10 to $100.

LeslieCP: That's a good idea.

LeslieCP: I have a really important link for you all.  Bookmark it - it's a hidden page that I wrote specifically for nonprofits.

spiritstore: Wonderful! Hit me!

LeslieCP: http://www.cafepress.com/cp/services/nonprofit_tips

Nova: w00t

Gandalf_Parker: Thanks for that. I will need for it a semi-serious rescue coming up.

LeslieCP: And here's one for groups and clubs: http://www.cafepress.com/cp/services/groups_tips

SDDogRescue : Great links, thanks!

LeslieCP: The difference between the two is: open community vs. closed community

LeslieCP: Ok, so also remember to keep your shop fresh. If you create a good retail experience, your supporters will come back. I know a crazy lady who loves us and she has more Bad Rap shirts than I do; so does her dog. She checks the shop every month to see what's new.

LeslieCP: Use your newsletter.

SDDogRescue: feature it in your regular nonprofit newsletters!

LeslieCP: Build a newsletter.

spiritstore: Thank you for the links! I'm also hoping for information about tax regulations on non-profits and online stores, any information there?

LeslieCP: spiritstore, that's up to your accountant.  I can't advise on how to report the earnings.

SDDogRescue: Hand it all over to your treasurer : )- that's what I do!

Spiritstore: Thank you, I figured that was the route I needed to go next.

Aaron: it'd be sweet if the buyer got a TAX ID of the non-profit for his tax statement.  and a value of the item to be deducted

LeslieCP: You can put this in your product description.  The other thing you can do is just put it prominently on your shop.

Gandalf_Parker: letting a page get old will lower your SEO ratings. updating descriptions, or having something like our latest newsletter on your site will give search engines new material and raise your ratings

LeslieCP: Yes.

LeslieCP: Back to newsletters. If you don't have one, you can utilize your shop newsletter. If you do have one, be sure to feature new products.

LeslieCP: I personally like to do product newsletters and mention a dog or two, but that's because we had a product newsletter before a regular one.  And since all these people want to know about new products Im going to tell them. In fact, Ill tell them once a month or so.

SDDogRescue: we do the opposite - a rescue newsletter and feature a special item (and an affiliate item).

LeslieCP: If you have trouble keeping your shop fresh, have a design contest. Right now I have a volunteer doing designs for me. She feels very special and we're getting great designs. Bribe, beg, and borrow, LOL.

LeslieCP: Nonprofits have to be scrappy.

LeslieCP: The other thing you can do is get creative with traditional fundraising, i.e. why sell candy bars? You can sell cool mugs or something. You can also do a cookbook, or a calendar. Those are mainstays of grassroots fundraising, people are used to it.

LeslieCP: You can also do some sort of event like a concert or whatever, and tie in merchandise with the event. Sell it, raffle it, whatever - people love free t-shirts.

LeslieCP: I mean, seriously - people LOVE FREE T-SHIRTS. You can buy the world with a free t-shirt.

Gandalf_Parker: If you want a batch of stickers, bumper stickers can be made into 100 little stickers to cut apart and use

LeslieCP: That's a good idea.

LeslieCP: I dunno about 100. Youd have to have bifocals to read it.

LeslieCP: But certainly you can segment out a bumper sticker. I like selling cheapies at events i.e. mini buttons for $1 and such. You can also make posters to be segmented and cut into smaller signs or posters.

LeslieCP: K... any questions? I may have exhausted all my great ideas kind of early

SDDogRescue: We add CP merchandise to our silent auction table (featuring that year's special event artwork).

LeslieCP: Oh, selling on eBay, Im going to experiment with that.

LeslieCP: There's an onramp program to teach people how to sell better and there's an API that Im hoping will make this fairly painless stay tuned.

LeslieCP: Is anyone here using their CP stuff as a fundraiser?

Gandalf_Parker: I have 2 non-profit shops.

Aaron: I'd like to do more

SDDogRescue: I run the Cocker store and the Springer store, both for fundraising. more effort into the Cocker store, though.

LeslieCP: SDDog, how is it working?

LeslieCP: Cockers are pretty good business - take it over!

SDDogRescue: Great for us!

LeslieCP: That's good.

garyoa1: I sell to groups for their fundraising.

LeslieCP: If you read the cheat sheet you might get some ideas.

SDDogRescue: last year we used t-shirts to help promote our big fundraiser dinner at adoption events - volunteers loved the special edition shirts. I mark them up only $1.00 for volunteers.

SDDogRescue: In the Springer Store we have two types of pricing - premium for non-URL items and high for the same with our URL tastefully placed on the back/shoulder area.

SDDogRescue: I also have a special feature on the Cocker homepage, but that area is only accessible to newsletter subscribers.

SDDogRescue: The special edition Ts were primarily to promote the event. The volunteers bought the $1.00 markup is directly from CP, so no upfront money for us, so in that respect, yes it made money (a little, but a positive number).

Aaron: I don't make that much money. Base price is pretty high.

Gandalf_Parker: protest kits can be created quickly with bumper stickers, pins, t-shirts, aprons, and using posters for distributing made slogans that can be turned into poster signs.

LeslieCP: That's a great idea, Gandalf.

Aaron: and for the protest kit, if there was a feature to size all the identically-sized buttons and round magnets in one step instead of doing the solo item, then the 10's then the 100's.

BrittaCP: Ok gang.... seems there are no more questions coming in.... we're going to wrap this one up a few minutes early so we can catch our carpools.

Karma Nova: Thanks for your help, I enjoyed sitting in.

Aaron: Would it be possible to have non-profit orders aggregated into a single shipment to save on shipping. Let's say my org is in Los Angeles and I've got 100 separate orders, each with their own size and pre-paid. ADD TO BATCH SHIPMENT would be great

LeslieCP: Aaron, that's a good idea. I'd like to overall make the service more accessible to nonprofits.

BrittaCP: Thanks everyone for joining... and thank you Leslie for sharing your wisdom

Shannon (hazeleyes7): Thank you Leslie!

SDDogRescue: thanks!

LeslieCP: Sure. Have a great evening everyone.