GoodSearch

My favorite fundraisers are those that I group into a category that I call "passive fundraising". Passive fundraisers basically generate free money for your school or organization by having supporters do something that they already do. The first passive fundraiser I would like to talk about is GoodSearch (http://www.goodsearch.com/).

Description
GoodSearch is a search engine powered by Yahoo! which donates half of its profits to a wide range of causes registered with them. Once you have registered your organization with GoodSearch and your application is approved, your supporters designate your organization as their GoodSearch charity and then use the search engine provided by GoodSearch. Each time a support uses the search engine, at minimum of 1 cent is generated for your organization. During one fiscal year, GoodSearch actually had enough profits to donate 1.3 cents per search to all of its registered organizations. While that might not seem like much, over time it can really add up. If you have 100 supporters and each supporter performs 5 searches a day, that would raise $1,825 over the course of a year. And it's free money!

Registering Your Organization
The only criteria for registering with GoodSearch is that your organization is a registered nonprofit that operates in the US. If you fit that criteria, go to this link to fill out their charity registration form: http://www.goodsearch.com/AddCharity.aspx. It will take a few days for the GoodSearch staff to verify the information on your application and approve it.

Generating Funds
To generate significant funds using GoodSearch, you must communicate all of the details to the supporters of your organization. If you feel comfortable, you should suggest that your supporters ask their friends & family to use GoodSearch as well. This is one of those fundraisers where you really need to get the word out and get as many people involved as possible.

Listed below are the steps that your supporters need to follow in order to generate funds using GoodSearch:

1. Go to http://www.goodsearch.com/.
2. Type in the name of your organization in the 2nd box on the page (under the label "Who do you GoodSearch for?").
3. Click the "verify" button. Once the verification is complete, the box will be filled in with the name of your organization and a confirmation message "Search now and money will go to your designated cause" will appear below the box in red text.

By performing these steps, GoodSearch will save the designated cause (via a cookie) to your supporters' computers – so that every time they go back to http://www.goodsearch.com/ and use the search engine, your organization will already be preloaded. Another way to access the GoodSearch search engine is through the Internet Explorer (IE), Firefox, or Mac toolbar. To get directions on how to set this up, visit: http://www.goodsearch.com/Toolbars.aspx. I heard from many of the parents at my daughter's preschool who said that they exclusively use the IE toolbar to perform searches and that they were so happy that there was a way to use GoodSearch through this toolbar.

Getting the Word Out
As I said before, the only way this fundraiser will succeed for you is to get as many people as possible to use GoodSearch with your organization selected as their charity. There are a number of ways that you can go about doing this.

First, you should send out an email about Goodsearch to all of your supporters at the beginning of your fundraising year. I also suggest sending periodic reminder emails throughout the year, especially if you live in a more transient area where supporters move on a regular basis.

Another way to get the word out is to add the GoodSearch logo to your organization's web page, if you have one. GoodSearch's web site offers the HTML code for a number of different graphics, which you can find be going to the following link: http://www.goodsearch.com/GetInvolved.aspx#logo.

For even more ideas on how to advertise your involvement with GoodSearch, review the suggestions provided at: http://www.goodsearch.com/GetInvolved.aspx.

Notes
The GoodSearch fiscal year runs from October 1st to September 30th. All of the funds generated for your organization during this year are sent in a lump-sum check in December as long as at least $20 has been generated.

One note of caution – I’ve noticed that the cookie which GoodSearch uses to save your designated cause gets erased from time to time when I reboot my computer or run the Norton SW. If your supporters use the search engine via the GoodSearch web site, they will automatically notice this; however, if they use the search engine via the web browser toolbar, they’ll need to periodically go to the GoodSearch web site to make sure that your organization is still set up as their designated cause.

I hope your organization enjoys great success using GoodSearch!

Thanks, Kara