Support Lotus Outreach without lifting a finger

Happy philanthropic shopping!

You love Lotus Outreach, but you just don’t have the time or money to donate. You’ve obviously never heard of the Nonprofit Shopping Mall.

Leading the charge in what they call ShopAnthropy, NPSM has created one single step that will translate into money for Lotus Outreach each time you shop online at a participating retailer. Install the EZ Shopper app. That’s it. No logging in, no passwords, no credit card information - and not a penny out of your pocket.

The way ShopAnthropy works is this: More than 700 affiliated retailers (such as Amazon.com, Target, Orbitz, Gap, Groupon and iTunes) pay a fee to NPSM for each purchase made through the NPSM site; 60 percent will be donated to the charity you designate the first time you shop. Downloading the EZ Shopper app eliminates the NPSM website – shop directly from your online retailer and the app tracks all purchases and delivers the donation to Lotus Outreach.

This is one-stop charitable giving! We spoke with NPSM Founder Corine Couwenberg and its Social Media Director Marion Renk-Rosenthal to find out more about the venture.

Who's brainchild is NPSM, and how did it get started?

MARION: Corine had the brilliant idea to turn everyday shopping into everyday giving. As a mom and a professional, she shopped online a lot to save time. She had come across some non-profit shop sites and online fundraising tools, but you always had to remember to go to the organization’s website or log in somewhere. Corine thought that there should be a more convenient way.

CORINE: What I noticed, not just at SOSC (Special Olympics Southern California , where she was formerly Development Director for the Orange County Region), but in speaking with other development people from a variety of organizations, was that while a great emphasis was put on donor cultivation, special events and branding, not much was being done to monetize the organization’s existing supporters. That’s how the concept of turning everyday shopping into everyday giving was born. It was to fill a need — don’t go to the well asking for more money, just let existing supporters shop online for their everyday goods and services and earmark a percentage of their shopping dollars as a give back.

When was NPSM launched, and how has it done since?

MARION: Corine started the development in 2006 and NPSM has been growing in stages ever since. The more organizations hear about it, the more want to sign up and the more supporters become ShopAnthropists. Today, NPSM and ShopAnthropy are growing exponentially.

CORINE: While we started development in 2006, the site and the concept of ShopAnthropy didn’t really find its niche until 2009 when we developed the EZ Shopper App.

What are you looking for in the nonprofits you feature?

MARION: Corine’s dream is to turn every online shopping transaction into a gifting action. We hope to work with as many different causes as possible; this said, because of our retailers’ accounting setups and our own accounting capabilities, ShopAnthropy only works for organizations that concentrate the administration of their fundraising efforts on a regional or nationwide level. Organizations that compute their fundraising accounts city by city, town by town, cannot participate because our system does not break it down that far.

We also love non-profits who help us share the news via their newsletters, website and social media campaigns. We need to work together to get the word out. But not to worry, if your organization is short on staff or PR volunteers, we support all of our organizations through our own news releases, blog and social media activities.

CORINE: In addition to wanting to partner with groups that are nimble, tech savvy and passionate about their work, it’s important for us to feel an affinity for the groups we work with.

How did you get involved with NPSM and what does it mean to you?

MARION: I have known Corine for about ten years. We had friends in common who introduced us because we were both quite involved in local non-profit work and volunteering. We organized some joint community events and our collaboration took off from there.

I have been a journalist, writer and producer for over 20 years – covering everything from floods to drug wars to red carpet arrivals for mostly German news organizations - and I had started to work with a lot of online media in recent years. Knowing that reporting on the starlet-of-the-moment’s addictions and legal issues did not interest me at all, Corine asked me last summer whether I would come aboard to handle the writing tasks for NPSM. I love my new responsibilities because I can use my creativity and skills for something really positive. I can feel good again after a long work day!

ShopAnthropy is a no-brainer. We shop online anyway and we can turn that shopping into a gift for a cause we care about. No cost, no hassles. What’s easier than that?!

CORINE:As the founder ofnonprofitshoppingmall.com, I wear a lot of hats. The day-to-day stuff is not unlike running any business venture and I put in a lot of 10 – 12 hour days keeping the site current, running numbers and doing paperwork.

Overall though, I’m a big picture person and have high hopes for the future of consumer philanthropy. At the end of the day I would love to see a world which fully embraces a culture of consumer philanthropy and I believe that by downloading our EZ Shopper App, in this case for Lotus Outreach, we’re taking control of our costumers’ online shopping behavior and taking steps to imbed the notion of consumer philanthropy by becoming ShopAnthropists.

This endeavor has truly been a labor of love for me. I feel blessed to be able to work with organizations that I love and feel connected to. I feel fortunate to have met some amazing people that have become good friends through this experience and generally happy that others believe in and support this project by becoming partners.

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