W.W.&F. Discussion Forum
WW&F Railway Museum Discussion => Museum Discussion => Topic started by: Ed Lecuyer on July 13, 2009, 06:04:27 PM
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The WW&F is listed on several shopping portals for charity web sites. Visitors to these web sites can list the WW&F as their preferred charity. Then, visitors use the sites for common web tasks - searching (instead of using Google or another search engine) and shopping. Each search generates a small donation to the WW&F. Purchases generate even more revenue. Any member who uses the Internet on a regular basis is encouraged to use these sites to effortlessly raise donations to the WW&F.
The WW&F is currently registered at:
http://www.igive.com (https://www.igive.com/html/allcauses.cfm?causeid=52399)
Basically you create a free account at any of these sites. Specify the Wiscasset Waterville and Farmington Railway Museum as your charity of choice. Then click on the links on those sites to launch into your favorite online stores. Staples, AbeBooks, major travel agencies, and thousands of other sites are available. Not all shopping sites are listed on both of the portals, so check both of them out before giving up.
Since we've started doing this a few years ago, we've raised thousands of dollars for the WW&F - and that has been with just a few participants.
Its free, easy, and there is absolutely no catch. Some sites offer "search bars" to make it easier. I've never tried them and I don't generally recommend random browser plug ins. All you have to do is launch your favorite shopping site from one of these portals, and the WW&F gets a commission check based on your purchase. A couple of bucks here and there don't seem like a lot - but they really have added up over time.
[Moderator's Note]
Updated 2/24/2023 to reflect the closure of Amazon Smile.
Updated 6/18/2025 to reflect the closure of Goodshop.
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I decided to bump this thread. (http://forum.wwfry.org/Smileys/default/smiley.gif)
Here is the content of an email I received from Amazon today:
This is the quarterly AmazonSmile notification to inform you that the charity you’ve selected, Wiscasset Waterville & Farmington Railway Museum, recently received a donation of $46.62, at no cost to you.
AmazonSmile's impact: $920.29 to Wiscasset Waterville & Farmington Railway Museum*
Of course, that 'quarterly' $46.62 is from everyone who participates in Amazon Smile and designates the WW&F to receive the benefit, and the $920.29 is over the course of multiple years.
But if you buy from Amazon, and don't already participate the Smile program, then why not have a [small] portion of your purchase go to the WW&F? It does not cost you any more at all. After signing up, and after selecting the WW&F as your designated charity, all you need to do is go "smile.amazon.com" instead of the regular "www.amazon.com (http://www.amazon.com)" when you make a purchase.
More info here: https://smile.amazon.com/gp/chpf/dashboard?ref_=nav_cs_smile (https://smile.amazon.com/gp/chpf/dashboard?ref_=nav_cs_smile)
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Graham, thank you for posting. I was unaware of the program and have now signed up.
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I've been using Amazon Smile for a while now, and I personally find it annoying that Amazon does not automatically make the donation every time, once you sign up. You have to manually go to smile.amazon.com every time you shop, and it's pretty easy to inadvertently "walk out" of the Smile world, especially if you are using a third-party search engine to find products. Similar for the other portals, you have to be careful not to accidentally "walk out" before you complete your purchase.
I don't generally recommend random browser plug ins.
That's fair. One man's random is another's tried-and-true. I use a browser extension called Smile Always, which automatically redirects any Amazon link to its Smile equivalent. I have found it useful and unobtrusive for many years. It does not violate my privacy to the best of my knowledge. The source code is available on github if anyone is so inclined. I took a look and it is very straightforward.
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This is the quarterly AmazonSmile notification to inform you that the charity you’ve selected, Wiscasset Waterville & Farmington Railway Museum, recently received a donation of $46.62, at no cost to you.
AmazonSmile's impact: $920.29 to Wiscasset Waterville & Farmington Railway Museum*
Graham,
I just received the first email and upon first read, wondered if I had bought that much from Amazon, then I realized, as you noted, that that is the contribution from all of us who use Amazon Smile and have selected the WW&F Ry as our designated charity. When one considers that this is just one of the three venues that allow a small portion of purchased to go to our favorite charity it, as Ed noted, really adds up.
Just like each of us who manages to get to the railroad to help preform some task, it all adds up to what one sees today at Sheepscot and northward.
Merry Christmas to all!, please stay safe! Hoping to see each of you on the other side!
Bill
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I do sometimes search [using DuckDuckGo or Google] for products that I'm not sure who might sell, and then end up at Amazon. And that path does not get you into the "Smile" system.
But, as long as you notice, prior to the final checkout page, that you are not using 'Smile', its easy to fix. Even though you may already have items in your Amazon 'cart', its not necessary to blow that all away and start over. Simply replace the "www" part of the URL in your browser with "smile" and proceed to checkout. As long as the final checkout page has the 'Smile' logo, a portion of the transaction ends up in the WW&F bucket.
My primary browser is Firefox, and I find that it is quite easy to get to "smile" (when I think about it in advance) by just typing "smi" and then clicking the "smile" selection that Firefox offers up. Of course, that only works because Firefox remembers from my previous use. So once you start doing it, your browser may make it a bit easier.
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I have Amazon Smile as one of my favorites so I just click on that when I go shopping. Like Graham, I sometimes google what I am looking for and if I end up on an Amazon link, I just copy the link, click on the Smile favorite then paste the link. It works every time.
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Quarterly Update from Amazon:
This is the quarterly notification to inform you that AmazonSmile has made a charitable donation to the charity you’ve selected, Wiscasset Waterville & Farmington Railway Museum, in the amount of $57.09 as a result of qualifying purchases made by you and other customers who have selected this charity.
Thanks to customers shopping at smile.amazon.com, or with AmazonSmile ON in the Amazon Shopping app, everyday purchases have generated over $266 million in donations to charities worldwide so far.
AmazonSmile's impact:
$977.38 to Wiscasset Waterville & Farmington Railway Museum*
$241,928,506.19 to all charities in the US
$266,896,659.48 to all charities worldwide
To track donations or change your charity, simply visit Your AmazonSmile Impact page.
Thanks to everyone who supports the WW&F in this manner!
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That $57.09* contribution from Amazon is nearly a 24% increase over the previous quarter! :)
*(Edited to correct my $1 typo)
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And if you are an Amazon Prime member you can still go over to smile.amazon and retain all your prime privileges.
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I just received a notice from Amazon that this quarter the WW&F Ry received $57.09 from those of us who use Amazon Smile and have selected the WW&F Ry as our designated charity. A whole dollar less than last quarter, but still money in our coffers for things we would buy anyway.
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The June 2021 donation from smile.amazon.com was just announced as $59.46.
Thanks to everyone who uses this FREE and EASY way to support the WW&F when shopping on Amazon.
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It was reported to us prior to May 22nd, which is when I entered the donation. It may be from April, unless they do it in quarters, I did not look that up. Either way, that amount went to the General Fund..
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Ed is referring to the quarterly email from Amazon to AmazonSmile participants, mine arrived in my Inbox today a bit after Noon:
This is the quarterly notification to inform you that AmazonSmile has made a charitable donation to the charity you’ve selected,
Wiscasset Waterville & Farmington Railway Museum, in the amount of $59.46 as a result of qualifying purchases made by you and other customers who have selected this charity
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May I gently suggest that this program is peanuts. While it is well intentioned, it generates only a couple of hundred dollars per year, if I read it right.
Just to put it into perspective...
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Peanuts it may be. But don't tell the Elephant that nothing is better than peanuts.
Seriously, I use it and although the contribution may be fractional, I doesn't cost me anything, I get the same prompt Amazon service, so what's the problem?
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Bob, here is a different way of looking at the AmazonSmile donation:
In 2019, there were 359 donors to the WW&F Annual Fund Drive (per the published newsletter), and doing the math shows that the AVERAGE donor contributed $292. So the AmazonSmile contribution this year is likely going to total just a few dollars under the average 2019 Annual Fund donation.
(https://i.postimg.cc/ChBPLH9L/ThumbsUp.jpg)
(I didn't do the math for years after 2019.)
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The amount donated every quarter seems to be going up. It may seem like peanuts, but the peanuts from this and the peanuts from paypal giving fund actually make up a good bit of free money we would otherwise be missing out on.
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There's an ancient parable about a landowner who entrusts his three servants three different amounts of money. The one who gets the least goes and hides it, whereas the other two invest the money wisely and receive a return. When the landowner finds out about the servant who did nothing with his money, the money is taken from servant, given to the wisest investor, and is left with none.
The WW&F has always been a thrifty organization; heck we still collect cans and bottles! We ensure that all donations received are used wisely and carefully.
Trust me, this has a major impact on our donors. They see that we leave no stone unturned when raising money, and that we use what we have with great care.
So while $250/yr may not seem like much, it is evidence of how we operate as an organization; and encourages others to give much, much more.
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Below is the Amazon Smile quarterly report received in my email today:
This is the quarterly notification to inform you that AmazonSmile has made a charitable donation to the charity you’ve selected, Wiscasset Waterville & Farmington Railway Museum, in the amount of $64.26 as a result of qualifying purchases made by you and other customers who have selected this charity.
That is close to a $5 increase from the previous quarter of $59.56. :)
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I'm not sure why I haven't seen an email from AmazonSmile with a quarterly update, but AmazonSmile contributions to the WW&F seem to be increasing nicely. 8)
On the previous page of this thread, here:
https://forum.wwfry.org/index.php/topic,896.msg49987.html#msg49987 (https://forum.wwfry.org/index.php/topic,896.msg49987.html#msg49987)
. . .Ed's post from March 10, 2021 showed a grand total to the WW&F of $977.38, and the grand total as of March 2022 is $1374.11 (see screenshot attachment, from this page:
https://smile.amazon.com/charity/my-impact?_encoding=UTF8&ref_=smi_se_rspo_lyi_dshb (https://smile.amazon.com/charity/my-impact?_encoding=UTF8&ref_=smi_se_rspo_lyi_dshb)
. . . so AmazonSmile contributions from the past 12 months to the WW&F are $393.73. :)
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The quarterly AmazonSmile email arrived today ...
This is the quarterly notification to inform you that AmazonSmile has made a charitable donation to the charity you’ve selected, Wiscasset Waterville & Farmington Railway Museum, in the amount of $179.83 as a result of qualifying purchases made by you and other customers who have selected this charity.
Thanks to customers shopping at smile.amazon.com or using the Amazon app with AmazonSmile ON, everyday purchases make an impact. So far, AmazonSmile has donated:
$1,374.11 to Wiscasset Waterville & Farmington Railway Museum*
$179.83 in one quarter is a significant jump :o from the roughly $60 to $66 per quarter that the WW&F was receiving in recent previous quarters. 8)
(Note that this $179.83 contribution was included in the grand total reported in my post above on March 18th.)
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Not quite as much as the previous quarter, but still a healthy amount of $152.27:
This is the quarterly notification to inform you that AmazonSmile has made a charitable donation to the charity you’ve selected, Wiscasset Waterville & Farmington Railway Museum, in the amount of $152.27 as a result of qualifying purchases made by you and other customers between January 1st-March 31st.
Thanks to customers shopping at smile.amazon.com or using the Amazon app with AmazonSmile turned ON, everyday purchases make an impact. So far, AmazonSmile has donated:
-- $1,526.38 to Wiscasset Waterville & Farmington Railway Museum*
-- Over $355 million to US charities
-- Over $403 million to charities worldwide
Visit your AmazonSmile impact page to track donations generated or change your charity.
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This quarter the AmazonSmile contribution is $129.09.
This is the quarterly notification to inform you that AmazonSmile has made a charitable donation to the charity you’ve selected, Wiscasset Waterville & Farmington Railway Museum, in the amount of $129.09 as a result of qualifying purchases made by you and other customers between April 1st - June 30th.
Thanks to customers shopping at smile.amazon.com or using the Amazon app with AmazonSmile turned ON, everyday purchases make an impact. So far, AmazonSmile has donated:
-- $1,655.47 to Wiscasset Waterville & Farmington Railway Museum*
-- Over $377 million to US charities
-- Over $422 million to charities worldwide
Visit your AmazonSmile impact page to track donations generated or change your charity.
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Just got my Amazon smile Email for the 3rd Qtr. The WW&F received $105.76 for a total of $1,761.23 so far. If you use Amazon, make sure you get registered for Amazon smile. There is no fee and you get the same service as your regular Amazon account. Every penny helps.
To sign up for it go to: smile.amazon.com (http://smile.amazon.com)
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Amazon has announced they are ending the Smile giving program, effective February 20th, 2023. This is rather unfortunate as we were starting to see some real money through their donations. Purchases made through Feb 20th at http://smile.amazon.com (http://smile.amazon.com/ch/01-0448408) will still be credited to us, and Amazon will be making a one-time donation to close out the program.
For those who shop online (and who doesn't these days) don't forget we are still active with igive and goodshop:
http://www.igive.com (https://www.igive.com/html/allcauses.cfm?causeid=52399)
http://www.goodshop.com (http://www.goodshop.com/nonprofit/wiscasset-waterville-and-farmington-railway-museum.aspx)
I have used both services and can vouch that they are legitimate.
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There's also Network For Good, not sure if they are a shopping program or not but last year we saw some really good money from them.
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Network For Good is a popular fundraising software platform. I assume that somehow we are in their system for corporate distributions/matching grants. They do not appear to be a shopping portal like Smile.Amazon, iGive, and Goodshop.
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Here in UK we also have Easy Fundraising, which provides contributions from retailers such as Apple, Asda, eBay, Land’s End, John Lewis, Just Eat, M&S, Rohan, Sainsbury’s, Screwfix, TalkTalk, Tesco, Thorntons, Waitrose, Wex Photo, and over 4,500 other companies. Does this also operate in the US?
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Easy Fundraising (https://www.easyfundraising.org.uk/) applies only to the UK. It appears to be similar to iGive and Goodshop in the US.
There is a growing amount of backlash against Amazon on the decision to kill Smile, especially from smaller charities like ours. Perhaps they will reverse the decision, but I tend to doubt it. I looked into their replacement programs for charitable contributions (grants) and there is no way that I could find to actually apply for something as a Community Organization.
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Their stated reasoning was really backwards: "We aren't having very much impact, so instead we'd rather have no impact at all." :o
Of course we can all surmise the real reason is that it was cutting too much into the bottom line. This cnbc article snip corroborates that:
"The move to shutter AmazonSmile comes as CEO Andy Jassy has embarked on a sweeping review of the company’s expenses amid a worsening economic outlook and slowing growth in its retail division."
Source: https://www.cnbc.com/2023/01/18/amazon-discontinues-amazonsmile-charity-donation-program-amid-cost-cuts.html (https://www.cnbc.com/2023/01/18/amazon-discontinues-amazonsmile-charity-donation-program-amid-cost-cuts.html)
Now I have my own personal qualms with Amazon, so I buy from them only as a last resort. Still, it's a shame for the museum to lose what's essentially free money.
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Now I have my own personal qualms with Amazon, so I buy from them only as a last resort.
I'm not a huge Amazon fan either, but I felt less "bad" about shopping from them knowing that a small part of my purchase went to support the WW&F. Reading the backlash from other non-profits, I was not alone in that reasoning.
Meanwhile, I made a large Amazon "impulse" purchase this morning... it may be my last hurrah.
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;) One way to get Amazon's attention would be to simply cancel your Prime 'membership'. :o ;D
You can still get "free shipping" at Amazon without Prime*, you just have to learn to be a bit more patient. :-X
*(to get Free Shipping, just order $25 or more at a time.)
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Well, its nearly two weeks since the end of the Amazon Smile program on February 20th. :(
I haven't bought anything at Amazon since the 19th. ;D The end of Smile is rather ironic as Amazon is still paying commissions to those hundreds (maybe thousands?) of fake review sites that are just a front for Amazon. Like this one, for example:
https://www.thespruce.com/best-chainsaws-to-buy-4136092?utm_source=googlepaid&utm_medium=con&utm_content=Cj0KCQiA0oagBhDHARIsAI-BbgeIm52ULjzEU79f7_IKHqrMykSevT9IFTUSASK-QUIDHcyRrfLMuDsaAu_VEALw_wcB&utm_campaign=commerce-dd-ChainsawsToBuy_TheSpruce_Desktop_CommSEM_4136092&utm_term=chainsaw%20to%20buy&gclid=Cj0KCQiA0oagBhDHARIsAI-BbgeIm52ULjzEU79f7_IKHqrMykSevT9IFTUSASK-QUIDHcyRrfLMuDsaAu_VEALw_wcB
Funny how all of the products that they ... ahem ... "review" are all sold with Amazon links right on the page. ::)
So as a public service, I am promoting uBlacklist (available for Chrome and Firefox and Vivaldi browsers, possibly others as well) that is very useful in allowing you to block those fake sites from showing up in your search results. 8)
Here are a couple of links:
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/ublacklist/pncfbmialoiaghdehhbnbhkkgmjanfhe?hl=en
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/ublacklist/
I have been using uBlacklist for a year or so and have been pleased how it works.