donating part of your orders to a charity

[False Start Distro]

Hi everyone!
My distro, False Start, is going to be opening in February. I was thinking of having a percentage of all orders be donated to the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. Does anyone do this sort of thing? What is a good percentage and has it affected your sales negatively or positively? If you've thought about doing this, but decided against it, why not?

And out of curiosity, what charities/causes did you use your distro to support?

[NicoleIntrovert]

I did 20% of my sales in October to First Candle which is a SIDS (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome) foundation. My nephew passed away from SIDS in 2007 and Oct is SIDS awareness month. I will probably do this every October. I was able to give around $25 this year to the cause. At this time i could not continue to do that because 20% is a good chunk of "profit"... meaning the money that goes back into the distro to keep it operating without digging into my pocket.

[False Start Distro]

I'm so sorry to hear about your nephew. I've decided to do this charity thing because my boyfriend was just diagnosed with leukemia, so I'm having a hard time reconciling wanting to keep my distro afloat and donating as much as I can! I was thinking about 10-15% but it feels so stingy!

NicoleIntrovert said:

I did 20% of my sales in October to First Candle which is a SIDS (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome) foundation. My nephew passed away from SIDS in 2007 and Oct is SIDS awareness month. I will probably do this every October. I was able to give around $25 this year to the cause. At this time i could not continue to do that because 20% is a good chunk of "profit"... meaning the money that goes back into the distro to keep it operating without digging into my pocket.

[Erin H]

I like Nicole's idea of doing a percentage of her sales once a month. I just opened my distro, and I'm still in the red - you must be too. I would wait a while before you start donating a part of your profits - mostly because you'd still be trying to make up for what you lost. And even then, once a month is good.

You could always add some kind of donation option for people on your site. "Would you like to donate $1 to [insert charity]? Click here to add to your order!" - something like that.

[Brittney]

I know this is incredibly late. Forgive me.
I donate 10% of every perzine order to TWLOHA (To Write Love On Her Arms), and for the other zines and other items I donate 10% to Love146.
And I always donate 10% of the profits to my church.
It doesn't affect my sales at all.. I actually don't tell people that I donate any money to any charities/non-profits.