Thinking of setting up a charity section - any comments?

[Former_Member]

Hi everyone,

I'm sure that many of you will know the value of charities for funding research. I'm a PhD student in a lab in Edinburgh University. Recently, my lab have been trying to come up with ways of raising awareness of the disease that we study, and also raising money for the charities that support it. You can read more about the disease and it's charities in my blog here if you want: sophiethomsondesigns.blogspot.co.uk/

I was thinking about having a charity section in my shop, and donating ALL the profits from this section to the charity via their website. Obviously, this would be made very clear in the description, item title, tags, convos to the buyer, etc. I'd also have a link to the charity in the item description, in case people would prefer to just donate directly.

I'm wondering if people have any thoughts on this? Is this something that you've seen before? Has it worked, or are people generally not interested? I'm concerned that people would not trust that all the profit would make it to the charity. I'd absolutely donate ALL profit and I'd send buyers any confirmations of donation that I receive from the charity, but I understand that this sometimes isn't enough.

Let me know your thoughts!

[Zuparoo]

Hi,
I've never seen a complete charity section, but many times I've seen shop announcements that say a certain % of all sales/profits/something are donated to some charity, most often animal related. I think there's a shop owner on this team that donates to an anti-human trafficking charity. I've also seen where sales of a certain item or type of item (e.g. all dog leashes) specify donations to charity.

So, I think it's a good idea. Even if the charitable aspect doesn't necessarily lead to sales, sales of those items just bc they're what the buyer wants would still be raising funds. Good luck!

[Former_Member]

:) I am the one who donates all of my proceeds to a charity that is trying to build a safe home for girls who have been trafficked. I love the idea of setting up a section for your charity. I am also in another team called Etsy for Charity. I am sure that some of them have sections for donating. You may want to check that out. Like Cindy said, it may not result in more sales. But then again it is rewarding to know that what you do supports a cause that you care about.

[ArtAtomic]

Making a section is a great idea. I first opened my shop to benefit the non-profit I founded, and because I was getting request from people who wanted to buy the kits.

While I've had slow results, I'd encourage you to go ahead and try. Just make sure you give as much information as possible, and perhaps get in touch with the charities you intend to donate to.