Embedded Giving--DubLi Offers An Ingenious New Fundraising

Approach For Charities, Foundations, and Other Organizations

By Tetsuya Kitahata<kitahata@99.alumni.u-tokyo.ac.jp> - December 31, 2009

Dear For Charities, Foundations, and Other Organizations Fundraising Team,

Summary:

Due to the current major economic downturn, charities, foundations, and other organizations are facing major new challenges in their fundraising efforts. Partially as a result of this, the relatively new strategy of raising funds through "embedded giving" is rapidly gaining favor.

DubLi, the unique new global online shopping portal, offers through its revolutionary Partner Program an ingenious application of embedded giving that has many intrinsic advantages over most other approaches. Moreover, it's completely free of the common problems they entail.

Introduction

Due to the current status of our economy, charities, foundations, and other other non-profit organizations are being increasingly challenged in their fundraising efforts. A further impediment is President Barack Obama's recently announced $3.6 trillion budget that calls for reducing significantly the maximal tax deduction for Americans who make charitable contributions.

Historically, for example, Americans have been entitled to deduct from their taxable income the donations they make to government-approved charitable organizations. This deduction has been applied at the highest marginal rate paid by the taxpayer. Taxpayers in the highest tax bracket, for example, have been able to write off 35% of their charitable contributions.

In the new legislation, the charitable deduction would be capped at a 25% rate, significantly reducing the total tax write-off. According to some projections, this new taxation plan will result in an annual reduction in overall donations of up to $5 billion.

The Rise of Embedded Giving

One result of these new challenges is that a relatively new approach to fundraising has been gaining favor. It's commonly known as "embedded giving," which can be generally defined as a form of charitable donation that is built into a larger, unrelated financial transaction.

Perhaps the most common form of embedded giving occurs in the context of grocery shopping, where customers are invited to add a small amount to what they have purchased to help some local cause--for example, a food bank.

Similarly, some phone companies invite their customers to round up the amount of their phone bill, with the excess being ear-marked for a particular charity.

A couple of other common examples are: Donating to a specific charity the small rebate that some grocery stores give customers for using their own grocery bags; or a search engine donating a small percentage of its advertising revenue to charity. This latter example in particular seems to be gaining in popularity.

A major criticism of these forms of embedded giving is that most of them provide no consistent and clearcut way of tracking the funds that are donated to ensure that they actually reach the charities for which they are earmarked.

Concern about this issue has already resulted in the introduction of legislation by Senator Robert Menendez (D-NJ) to regulate embedded giving. Called the "Protecting the Spirit of Giving Act," it would require that:

・ Retailers notify any charity whose name or logo they intend to use in in selling or marketing products or in donating proceeds from a product;

・ The involved charities provide formal consent for this practice;

・ Retailers provide specific information to customers as to the percentage of an item's price that will be passed on to a particular charity and whether there's a maximum amount of such contributions.

DubLi's Partner Program--A Unique and Superior Form of Embedded Giving

DubLi, a rapidly rising star in the online global shopping firmament, has recently introduced a simple, yet highly effective, form of embedded giving through it's unique "Partner Program."

Along with the global access that DubLi will soon provide to hundreds of thousands of brand name products through many hundreds of top online stores, it also offers a unique and intriguing "reverse auction" platform where customers actually bid the prices DOWN on a wide array of the most sought-after merchandise.

In order to participate in these exciting auctions, they must first purchase DubLi credits with a standard retail value of 80 cents each.

DubLi's Partner Program has been specifically designed for charities, foundations and other non-profit fundraising organizations. It provides a very attractive way for any such organization to generate significant revenue by earning commissions on all of the purchases made by its own members/supporters through its individually branded DubLi Partner website.

Here's a general summary of how this form of embedded giving works: A non-profit charity, foundation, or other organization first purchases a DubLi Partner Program package through a DubLi Business Associate to host its specific branded website as a sub-portal of the generic DubLi portal

The non-profit organization then actively invites all of its members/supporters to utilize the DubLi auctions and also to do their online shopping through its particular branded website in order to help it raise funds. By accepting this invitations, its members/supporters are able to access all of the highly sought after products offered on the DubLi auctions, as well as all of the hundreds of thousands of products that are offered for sale online through DubLi's generic shopping portal.

The non-profit organization then earns commissions on all of the purchases that are made by its members/supporters, as well as on the purchases of all of the additional customers that they bring in.

It's members/supporters receive a major incentive for their online shopping by receiving significant rebates from DubLi in the form of DubLi credits on all of their purchases. They can then use these credits to participate in the DubLi auctions.

DubLi's Two Levels of Partner Programs

DubLi offers two levels of the Partner Program: 1) The Standard Program package ($249 for the first year and then $149 per annual renewal; and 2) The Premium Program package ($1595 for the first year and then $225 per annual renewal).

The Standard Partner Program package provides a single webpage and pays the non-profit organization commissions of 10% on all 80-cent DubLi credits that are purchased to use in the auctions, as well as 2-10% of all their purchases on the online shopping mall.

The Premium Program package provides 10 first class web page designs with unlimited web pages and pays 30% on all DubLi credits purchased, as well as 2-10% of all the gross sales on the online shopping mall.

The Major Advantages and Benefits of DubLi's Partner Program

Here are some of the clearcut benefits/advantages that DubLi's Partner Program offers over most other forms of embedded giving:

・ It provides an ultra-simple, low-overhead approach to fund-raising. This is especially true for those organizations with a large number of members/supporters.

・ It offers members/supporters a highly attractive way to get bargain rates on an extremely wide array of merchandise while simultaneously supporting a non-profit organization of their choice.

・ In addition, DubLi awards attractive rebates in the form of DubLi credits to these customers on all of the purchases they make on the online shopping mall. This major perk provides an additional incentive that markedly offsets the loss of incentive for standard giving due to decreased tax reductions.

・ It also provides absolute certainty to these members/supporters that the non-profit will receive a specific percentage of what they spend, thus eliminating all of the ambiguity that is common with other forms of embedded giving.

How To Learn More about the DubLi Partner Program

To obtain detailed information about this unique program, contact the person from whom you received this article or from its author.

Tetsuya Kitahata < kitahata@99.alumni.u-tokyo.ac.jp > : ID 4721736

Tel: +1 408-549-1471 (San Jose, California, USA)

Tel: +81-50-5806-5342 (Tokyo, Japan)

Ex-Individual Bronse Sponsor of the Apache Software Foundation)