How Amazon Can Help Nonprofits

One of our web design clients found a creative way to pull in some donations, so we thought we’d share some inspiration. YouthLink, a Minnesota-based nonprofit helping homeless youth, has a nonprofit donation wish list on Amazon to help bring supplies in. Amazon is making donations easy as a click of a few buttons!

How Amazon Wish List helps:

YouthLink takes in homeless youth and aids in finding temporary or permanent housing, furthering their schooling, and provides access to valuable resources. The way this works is they can live in a transitional apartment with the help of the organization’s facilities and then eventually into a place of their own. With this, YouthLink depends on generous donors who help with expenses and basic living supplies.

That’s why Amazon is a great fit for the nonprofit. Donors can help youth with just a few steps on this trusted shopping site. Amazon even sends the supplies right to YouthLink so donors don’t have to bring in or send the supplies themselves.

How this works:

Functioning similarly to a wedding registry, YouthLink enters their Amazon Wish List items based on what their users need. They can add a quote to the item to emphasize how important the item is. They can even note how high of a priority the item is and how many they need so they can draw attention to the most necessary commodities.

Amazon shoppers can quickly add to their cart and it’ll ship to the YouthLink center.

To learn more about getting this started visit the Amazon Help Center.

How else is Amazon Helping Nonprofits?

If you shop on smile.amazon.com rather than the normal site, your purchase automatically donates a portion of this money, with NO cost to you. Nothing about your shopping experience changes except before you purchase your items, you get to choose from nearly a million organizations to determine where your donation will go.

There are a few products for which this doesn’t apply so check to see that a product is marked as “Eligible for AmazonSmile donation.” If you want your nonprofit to be on Amazon’s list of organizations you can go to org.amazon.com.

Sweepstake’s Program

If you’re looking to draw attention to your cause with prizes, you can use the latest – Amazon Giveaway.

You simply choose from one of the eligible items on the site, select and buy the giveaway item, share your link to your following, and in the end, the winner gets the gift shipped directly to them.

Learn more about ArcStone’s work with nonprofits.

Reprinted from http://www.thenerdynonprofit.com/

Flood Advice From Former Flood Victim

If you have flood insurance you should be getting a call from your insurance adjuster. If you applied for FEMA disaster assistance you should be getting a call from a FEMA inspector. These are two separate entities with different purposes.

Insurance adjuster:  
Assigned by your flood insurance company to determine the "Proof of Loss" (POL), or your flood insurance claim. The POL must be completed within 60 days of the of the flood. After you provide your adjuster with as much "evidence" as possible of your contents and building loss, they will provide you with the POL. You should review it and if you don't agree, you can tell them what needs to be changed or added.  It should be a negotiation back and forth between you and your adjuster. You may get solicited by public adjusters. These are people that make a profit by helping you negotiate your POL. I would only use them as last resort after you've tried negotiating. We saw several rough draft POLs before we signed the one we agreed on. If your POL is not yet finalized and you are getting close to 60 days, ask the adjuster to file for an extension.

Evidence can be:

1. Pictures of contents/structures in your house
2. Receipts
3. If you don't have receipts, go through your credit card statements and highlight and put a note next to the price of the item there.
4. Contents spreadsheet

The initial visit by adjuster is pretty simple. They walk around and take pictures. You don't have to give much information. They will give you some pamphlets that are not helpful. They give you their contact info which is helpful...ask for phone number, email and fax (because you will to send them pictures and documents as part of your evidence). You don't need to provide much info or evidence at this meeting. If there are samples of your structure that you tore out, show them (built-ins, flooring, etc). Basically give them a general tour of your house.They may want to see your piles of trash. Take your time by gathering your evidence over the next week or two before and then submit it to them via email.

FEMA Inspector: 
Assigned by FEMA to confirm you indeed flooded and need FEMA assistance such as rental assistance, the SBA loan, or other programs you're eligible for (especially helpful if you don't have flood insurance). They will provide proof of who they are with a name badge. You will need to provide them with a copy of your homeowners insurance FULL policy (not just declaration page). The reason is, it has to state in the policy that it doesn't cover anything for floods. All homeowner's policies should have this stated in their somewhere...if you can't find it, ask your insurance agent to find that page of the policy and email to you. (You may also need to provide this to FEMA to get rental assistance to prove your homeowners doesn't provide it). The inspector asks very simple questions about who lives in your home and this is a quick inspection.

Contributed by Sheila Dailey Nguyen (based on her home flood experience in 2015 & 2016)