SEO For Charity

My brother is a college Volley Ball coach. Last season the team held an online auction to raise money to defray team expenses. He hired an auction service to hold the auction and then sent out the team to get donations from local business to be auctioned off.

It worked well and the team raised quite a bit of money for their worthy cause. But they could have made more profit if they didn’t have to pay for the auction service. They did get a lot of support from the community, but there was no long term recognition of the business making the donations.

According to Ken Berger CEO of Charity Navigator (charity watchdog) "We find the best fundraising efforts for most charities, cost no more than 10 cents to raise a dollar."

As an SEO, Search Optimizer and a charity minded businessman, three things occurred to me.

1) Why does Charity have to pay for Fund Raising?
2) What if Business and Charity could work together on fundraising to promote each other?
3) How much more money would be raised for charity if it were leveraged and promoted across the world wide web?

If I ran the world, how much would I charge a Charity to raise money? Ten cents on the dollar seems a little high. I mean it doesn’t seem like much if you are selling one box of cookies. But say you want to really raise money for charity. Let’s say you want to raise ten million dollars for the children’s hospital. That would mean I would pay out one million to raise ten. Only I really want Ten Million to go to the Hospital not nine million. I think all the money raised should actually go to the charity. The Service to raise the money should be free, no charge.

When my children were young, they were involved in a youth league baseball team. The coach was a local tire store owner. He gave of his time and made every kid on the team feel like a winner. To tell the truth I don’t remember if they ever won a game. My kids are full grown but my whole family still buys all our tires from that guy.He is a part of our community and we want him around.

Then there is the case of our local Ford Dealership. They have been in business for over one hundred years. Pretty phenomenal considering that there have been a few times that there were no new cars being made during that time. One of their secrets is that they give a lot to the community. Good service is a lot of it but they also give of their time to support the youth of the area. They have made themselves a valuable part of our corner of the world.

And that is really the point behind what I am trying to say. If you look at the World Wide Web like a community, and you make your business an invaluable part of it, The members of that community will want to support you. You still have to be good at what you do, give good service, but the good will toward your business will add to your visibility and success. Athletes and entertainers that quietly give to help others earn admiration that outlives even them.

There is one more really important part of this cooperation between Charity and Business. Being a part of charity establishes trust. In the world of online business, nothing and I mean no other single element is so important. If your business looses the trust of the online community, you might as well close the doors and turn out the lights.

Every Online business should understand that everything it can do to build trust and confidence is absolutely critical. One of the great ways to establish that kind of trust is to partner with Charity. Giving to Charity and being recognized for doing so lends confidence to the consumer. It lends faith that the company will be there in the future. It shows conviction to causes outside of itself. Consumers that see the business commitment to a cause share that passion. It becomes more personal.

For Charity, having business donate is nothing new. It has always been essential. But to give recognition for it in a new way that helps promote those that give is to the benefit of both. When Business profits from the exposure it is prompted to repeat the cycle of giving. Success makes it possible.

What does this have to do with SEO?

In Search Engine Optimization one of the more important factors in good search ranking is how your site is connected to other websites. Your website should point to other websites that would be helpful to your human visitors. These are Out Bound Links. You also want other websites to point (link) to yours with In Bound Links. Links are what make up the World Wide Web, one website connecting to another. Search Engines use links to determine a websites relevance to that community.

How It Works

We developed and Host a Free Auction Service built specifically and exclusively to serve nonprofit organizations for fund raising purposes. There are no fees or charges for the service. There is no advertising on the auction site to detract attention from the fund raising effort of the charity.

All money raised from the auction goes directly to the charity. Each Charity will have a dedicated auction so that all money raised from their auction will go directly to their account.

No charges or fees for business making donations to the auction. Any business listing an item for donation to charity will be able to do so for free. That business will be notified by email when the item has been sold, who the winning bidder is to make arrangements for delivery. Once the item is sold, there will be a dedicated page of thanks to that business for the generous donation that will include a description of the item donated and a link to the business website. Better than a plaque to hang on the wall, this is a connection in recognition of philanthropy visible to the community of the World Wide Web.

To donate a product or service any business that wants to participate, fills out a registration form on that charity auction that includes the company website. Once registered the business can list any item or service they want to donate. The title of item or service is important because once the auction is over it becomes the text pointing to the business website thanking the business for the contribution.

Again, no charges or fees will be imposed on any business making donations, or for adding pictures or text to explain or support the item. The business can offer as many individual items or services for donation, per charity as they choose. Each Charity they donate to would result in a separate thank you from an individual charity section and each auction event they support.

In theory, if all of the over five hundred thousand nonprofit organizations held an auction, and a business was willing to donate a product or service that represented their best most sought after key search term, they would eventually end up with as many links pointing back to their website, thanking them for their donation.

The charity wins because it gains a much needed fund raising tool to use as often as they want. Business wins because they get recognition for donating that creates good will in the online community. Consumers win because all the money they spend at the auction goes directly to a worthy cause. And Search Optimization wins another tool to help promote business.