Fill The Cup is an innovative service that provides
incremental, painless fund-raising capabilities. Participating organizations
include charities, schools and school teams, arts organizations, churches
and synagogues, and other worthy organizations. Fill The Cup, LLC developed
the proprietary technology and administrative processes for this service,
and operates the service on behalf of our clients. Shopping pages are
created for each client organization, branded with the logo and name of the
client. The client’s members and supporters can use these pages to get to
leading online merchants, where they can shop at no additional cost. The
merchants have all agreed to pay commissions to Fill The Cup’s clients. Fill
The Cup monitors and collects the commissions from the various merchants,
crediting the appropriate amounts to the respective clients’ accounts. Each
quarter Fill The Cup forwards to clients the majority of the funds collected,
retaining a portion to cover Fill The Cup’s operational costs and fees.
The Fill The Cup service is designed primarily for use by
non-profit organizations. For-profit organizations may be considered for
participation, based upon their specific mission and goals. Examples of
participating organizations include:
Charitable organizations
Schools
School or community teams and clubs
Arts organizations
Churches, synagogues and other religious organizations
There are no startup costs, and no annual or monthly costs
to participate. You will never send any payments to Fill The Cup for the
service. A portion of the commissions generated by your supporters’ shopping
is retained by Fill The Cup to cover the costs of operation. Your
organization doesn’t pay for the service, your supporters don’t pay any
extra for their shopping, and Fill The Cup only receives funding when your
organization does.
Absolutely not! All it will cost them is a couple of mouse
clicks! Instead of going directly to a merchant’s Web site to shop, your
members/supporters will simply go first to your organization’s shopping page
where they click on the merchant they choose. They are then transferred to
the merchant’s Web site, where they can shop normally. Their costs for
shopping online in this way are the same as if they had gone directly to the
merchant’s page. The only difference is that the merchant pays Fill The Cup
a sales commission, which is credited to your organization’s account.
The amount credited to your organization’s account for a
specific purchase depends on several factors, which may include the type of
item purchased, the amount of the purchase and the terms of the merchant’s
commission program. Some merchants pay a flat amount per purchase, for
example travel services that may pay several dollars for a purchased ticket.
Other merchants pay a percentage of the purchase price, and the specific
percentage can vary greatly from merchant to merchant and for different
products. Additionally, merchants may vary the amount they pay based upon
total purchasing volume as well as special promotions they may offer from
time to time. Here are a few examples as of November 1, 2004:
Amazon.com: 5-8% on all purchases
American Blooms: 15% on all purchases
Sharper Image: 10-14% on all purchases
Target.com: Normally 5-7% on most purchases. During 4th
Quarter 2004, increased to 10% on most purchases.
Things Remembered: 6-9% on all purchases
Orbitz: $5 for air transactions, $6-$12 for hotel
transactions, $2 for car rental
Babystyle: 10% on all purchases
The Gap: 5% on all purchases
Hammacher Schlemmer: 10% on all purchases
PetsMart: 15% on all new customer purchases and 5% on all
repeat customer purchases
· Establish and maintain affiliate program relationships
with high quality merchants wishing to increase online sales activity.
· Set up and make available on the Web pages in Fill The
Cup standard format, branded with the logo and name of your organization.
· Maintain your organization’s Fill The Cup pages,
incorporating links to additional merchants, enhancements and new features
as they become available.
· Provide you with sample brochure and communications
messages templates. These can be used and customized by you for
communicating about the shopping program to your supporters.
· Set up accounting processes to track the affiliate
program commissions to be credited to your organization’s Fill The Cup
account, based upon the various commission policies established by
participating affiliate program merchants. Most participating merchants
are able to track and remit to Fill The Cup the commissions specifically
attributable to the shopping by your supporters when they go thru your
organization’s shopping pages. However, a few merchants cannot track
purchases and commissions at that level, and will remit to Fill The Cup a
single payment encompassing the shopping commissions of all of Fill The
Cups’ clients. Any such revenues received by Fill The Cup which cannot be
attributed to specific clients will be credited to each client’s Fill The
Cup account on a pro-rata basis, using the ratio of the client’s
attributable commissions for the quarter to the total of all clients’
attributable commissions for the quarter.
Operate the Fill The Cup service and your
organization’s branded shopping pages, allowing your supporters to access
affiliate program merchants with commissions being attributed to your
organization's Fill The Cup account as described above.
Remit on a quarterly basis the commissions due to your
organization based on actual affiliate program payments received by Fill
The Cup during the prior quarter and credited to your organization’s
account, minus the agreed upon portion to be retained by Fill The Cup in
payment for the expenses incurred and services provided by Fill The Cup.
The amount retained by Fill The Cup will be 40% of your organization’s
credited commissions.
Actively promote the branded shopping service to your
supporters, in order to generate and increase your commissions. This can be
accomplished by:
increasing the number of people using the service on your
behalf,
increasing the amount of online shopping people do thru
this service on your behalf, and
encouraging supporters to shop at the online merchants
providing the affiliate programs shown on your organization’s shopping
pages.
Spread the word to other charities, religious organizations,
schools, teams, arts organizations, etc. regarding Fill The Cup's services.
The more organizations that Fill The Cup can help, and the greater the
amount of collective online shopping thru these organizations' pages, the
greater the commission percentages can be for your organization.
We want your organization to make as much as possible from
your partnership with Fill The Cup. There is no limit to how much you can
make! The results for your organization will depend upon:
How many of your organization’s members/supporters choose
to use the service
How much they purchase online at the service’s merchants
Total volume of purchases going to merchants thru the Fill
The Cup service from your shopping pages and the pages of other Fill The
Cup client organizations
Fill The Cup’s business model is very simple and totally
based upon shared success. When we and you are successful at getting your
organization’s supporters to shop via the Fill The Cup service, we both make
money. Of course, we want the majority of the funds raised to go to your
organization. Every quarter we send to you most of the amount credited to your
account (60%), and Fill The Cup retains a portion of the money raised in
order to fund the service’s operations and growth.
Fill The Cup is not the only service providing online
shopping and commission sharing to organizations. When looking at any of
services, here are some good questions to ask:
How much of the base commissions from merchants will come
to my organization?
Fill The Cup remits 60% of base commissions to you. Most other services
remit 50% or less. Some remit much less!
How much of any bonuses or special monetary incentives
will be shared with my organization?
Fill The Cup credits all bonuses and special monetary incentives to its
clients’ accounts on a pro-rata basis. Most other services keep any
bonuses and special monetary incentives received, rather than share it
with their client organizations.
Will my organization benefit from the higher base
commissions possible when we and other client organizations increase the
total amount of purchasing done thru the service?
The Fill The Cup shared success business model means that when higher
commission levels are achieved because of total dollar volumes, all the
Fill The Cup clients benefit from the higher commission levels. Most other
services do not share the higher commissions with their clients.
Does the service provide tailored shopping pages, branded
with my organization’s name and logo?
Fill The Cup creates shopping pages specifically for your organization and
your supporters. We want them to always be reminded that by shopping in
this way they are significantly helping your organization. Most other
organizations would have your supporters come to shopping pages that are
branded for the service, not for your organization.
Is the service committed to continuous improvement, high
availability, and supporting my organization?
Fill The Cup is a professionally managed service. We are continually
working on improvements to help improve the shopping experience for your
supporters, increase the amount of funding for your organization, and
adding high quality, desirable merchants. The service is monitored for
high availability and reliability. Additionally, Fill The Cup develops and
makes available to your organization templates and examples you can use in
communicating with your supporters about the service and the benefits to
your organization. That is the nature of Fill The Cup’s shared success
business model.
Does the service provide a tasteful, helpful resource to
help our supporters with their online shopping?
Fill The Cup is committed to providing you with shopping pages and
services you’ll be proud to have display your organization’s name and
logo. Our pages are free of offensive banner ads, pop-ups, redirection,
etc. Only high quality merchants are selected for inclusion in the
service.
Many organizations do attempt to do this on their own, with
varying degrees of success. In comparison to trying to do it all yourself,
Fill The Cup’s economies of scale and shared success business model are
designed to provide you with a method of raising significant incremental
funds
faster
easier
at lower cost, and
with much greater success!
Instead of each organization spending resources to create
their own capabilities, Fill The Cup handles all the operational costs
associated with software development, web hosting, site monitoring, merchant
acquisition and relationships, commission tracking, etc.
By acting as a focal point for many worthy organizations’
shopping services, Fill The Cup is able to negotiate and achieve better
returns than each organization could do individually. This translates to:
Higher commission rates
Increased bonuses and monetary awards
Greater appeal to top merchants who restrict their
programs to only high-volume organizations
In addition to the above, Fill The Cup acts as a focal point
for the sharing of best practices, brochures and promotional materials
templates, and other information to help your organization achieve a level
of success and funding far beyond what you could do on your own.
Fill The Cup can have your shopping pages ready within 2-3
business days. As soon as the pages are ready, we will notify you. You can
then announce the capability to your supporters and they can begin shopping
(and generating commissions!) immediately.
When your supporters go thru your organization’s shopping
pages and make a purchase, that triggers a commission from the merchant.
Most merchants send commission checks monthly to Fill The Cup within 15-30
days after the end of a month, although some merchants are quicker while
others only remit commission payments quarterly. As commission payments come
in to Fill The Cup, the commissions generated by your supporters’ shopping
is credited to your Fill The Cup account. At the end of the quarter, Fill The
Cup will deduct from your account our agreed upon service fee and send to
you a check for the balance. Please note, however, that if the check amount
would be less than $25, the payment is instead carried over to the next
quarter in your account. In this way, both Fill The Cup and your organization
avoid the costs of dealing with a check of a small amount.
You can add a link or links from your organization’s Web
site directly to your shopping pages. This is the preferred method.
Your supporters can also go directly to your shopping pages
by going to http://www.FillTheCup.org/organization.html . The “organization”
in this URL address would be some appropriate name for your organization.
The above link can be copied into any email, electronic
newsletters, or other messages you send to your supporters.
Your supporters can also go to the Fill The Cup Web site at
http://www.FillTheCup.org where they can select your organization from a
list of participating organizations.
The success of your fund-raising and the amount of money
raised depends primarily on how many of your supporters you can get to use
the service, and the amount of online shopping they do thru it. Therefore
you’ll want to do everything reasonable to get as many people as possible
shopping online, and making as many of their purchases online as they can.
Possible users include:
· Your organization’s staff
· Your organization’s members, supporters, congregants,
alumni, etc.
· Friends and family of the above
Encourage them to use the service for both business and
personal purchases. For example, many of your staff or supporters who travel
may already be booking all of their business flights, hotel, car rentals,
etc. online; simply encourage them to come to your organization’s shopping
pages first when they need to book travel. Some of them may also have small
businesses that make online purchases (e.g., office supplies, office
furniture). These could just as easily be done thru your shopping pages, at
no additional cost to them.
Use frequent reminders. Reinforce in everyone’s mind that it
is very easy and it costs them nothing extra to be helping your organization
every time they shop. These reminders can be repeatedly done:
During face-to-face discussions, meetings, presentations,
conferences
In letters and emails
In your organization’s newsletters
On your organization’s website
In your telephone system’s on-hold messages
In your organization’s email signature blocks
On your organization’s letterhead and business cards
Finally, remember that when more organizations and users
shop thru Fill The Cup operated shopping pages, it builds the total dollar
volume of shopping. This results in higher commissions, bonuses, and special
monetary awards that benefit all the Fill The Cup clients. Synergy is a
wonderful thing, isn’t it? So please encourage other organizations to join
the Fill The Cup family, including:
Charitable organizations
Schools
School and community sports teams, music or other clubs
Fill The Cup searches for well-known, reputable and
respected merchants with an established record of online sales and support.
The merchants must have a robust shopping page or pages with the ability to
handle secure credit card transactions. They must have established policies
for returns, privacy, etc. that are easy to find and readily available for
shoppers. We seek to have a balance of merchants, offering a broad range of
choices and products.
Ultimately, any online shopping that is done is a
transaction between the shopper and the merchant. Please bear in mind that
Fill The Cup is not a direct party to the transaction, and cannot make any
guarantees or warranties about either the merchants or products purchased.
You are welcome to visit the shopping pages of other Fill
The Cup clients. You can find links to several on the Fill The Cup home page
at http://www.FillTheCup.org .
We’d love the opportunity to answer any other questions you
have, and to create a branded shopping page for your review. Please contact
us at info@FillTheCup.org and we
will respond to you as quickly as possible.
Do you know other worthy organizations that would like help
raising funds? Have them contact Fill The Cup. More
participating organizations actually helps increase the benefit for all
organizations!
