Amazon is donating money to non-profit organizations when shoppers register through Amazon Smile. Once the regulars at your church plant register, ½% of all their (qualified) purchases automatically come to your church.

Or better yet, get all of your regulars to register for the nonprofit in town that your church partners with. Do it as a campaign on their behalf (and with their permission) to raise awareness in the community for their cause.

Here are the four things the nonprofit has to do for this to work:

1. Apply for 501c3 Tax Exemption

I’m sure the nonprofit you partner with has already done this, but if you’re doing this for your own church plant, you need to have the 501c3 in writing. If you’re relying on churches’ automatic tax exemption, they won’t play ball.

2. Register with GuideStar

These guys have positioned themselves as the clearing house of information for all US nonprofits. They actually pull the list of approved 501c3’s from the IRS, so you’re really more ‘claiming’ your nonprofit than registering from scratch. Hence step 1 above.

Register your nonprofit with GuideStar

3. Register with Amazon Smile

Amazon in turn pulls all of their nonprofit data from GuideStar, but you still have to register your nonprofit with Amazon Smile so they know where to send the check (which will actually come by EFT directly to your bank).

Register your nonprofit with Amazon Smile

4. Get People to Register with Amazon Smile

This is a once-only deal. They just need to log in to the Amazon account and select which charity they want the donation directed to. And then do their regular shopping.

Pick your charity through Amazon Smile