How to Sell on eBay Using Giving Works eBay provides a means by which people selling items can designate from 10 to 100% of the proceeds of the sale to a charitable organization of their choosing. Having made such designation, that same percentage of their normal eBay handling fees is forgiven, maximizing the amount which is actually given to the charity without penalizing the seller on the remainder of the sale not going to charity. When such sale is made, eBay actually transfers the funds to its own charitable organization, MissionFish, which in turn, forwards the proceeds to the designated charity. The Brazos Valley Chorale has now been established as an eligible charity to which such funds can be transferred, and you are invited to begin making "charitable sales" as you sell items on eBay. The rest of this document provides the details about how to get set up and then begin selling-‐-‐AND GIVING!! The first, and one-‐time step, is to tell eBay what charities you wish to have available when you actually begin to sell items. But before you begin, if you are a novice to selling on eBay, you might be interested in viewing the following video which covers the set up for Giving Works as well as just the normal selling process: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=2otl2ovfkZY One-Time Setup (1) Point your browser to http://ebay.com and log in. If you don't have an eBay account, you will first need to create one. Then click on the My eBay link at the top of the page: (2) The next screen will display a window with a number of options. Click on the "Account" tab heading: (3) A drop down menu of all the things you can do with your account is presented. Near the bottom of the list you will find "Donation Account." Click on that option: (4) You will see a number of options you might eventually come back to once you begin donating through your sales, but first is to designate "My Favorite Nonprofits:" (5) The next screen then provides a tool to find a charity. Enter "Brazos Valley Chorale" in the search box, and then click the Search button: (6) When the results of your search appear, you should see an acknowledgement of this designation as follows: This completes the process of selecting the Brazos Valley Chorale as a preferred charity. If there are other charities to which you might wish to donate on occasion, you can return to step 5 and search for it. Understand, however, that not all charities you might wish to donate to are set up for this program. Now, all you have to do is start selling. Donating by Selling These instructions are not a full tutorial on the process on what must be done to sell items on eBay. For that, the video mentioned above is suggested. But, what is pointed out here is the process of getting started, and a couple of steps in the process required to donate to your preferred charity. (1) The process starts by logging into http://ebay.com, and selecting "Sell" on the main menu at the top of the screen: (2) After selecting "Sell an item" from the dropdown list, you might possibly land on a page that is part of the "quick listing tool." If you proceed on this page, you will not be presented with the option to donate part of your sale to charity. The quick listing page looks like this. In particular, pay attention to whether there is a link available to "Switch to advanced tool." If you see that link, click on it. If you do not see the option to switch to advanced tool, then you are likely already using the advanced tool. Bottom line: you need to used the advanced tool. (3) As you go through the next few steps of describing your item, uploading pictures, designating shipping methods, etc., you will eventually arrive at the section you've been looking for-‐-‐the section that allows you to designate a portion of the sale to the Brazos Valley Chorale: (4) There are four items related to donating that you must designate: which charity (if you have more than one), what percentage to donate, a check box agreeing to terms and conditions, and a check box on whether you want your charity to know who you are. Make the appropriate designations and proceed with the remaining steps to complete your listing. That's it-‐-‐simple. eBay takes it from there. Your listing is just as searchable as any other listing on eBay, but if you really want to tell your friends about how they can help the Brazos Valley Chorale, you can tell them to go to the Chorale's page on eBay: http://donations.ebay.com/charity/charity.jsp?NP_ID=58241 People going to this website will see the listings of all the items for which a portion of the sales will go to the Chorale. If they find nothing they want to buy, they have the option of doing a simple donation, or another option that guides them into selling something they might have. If you arrive at this site and find nothing listed, all it takes is your selling something to the benefit of the Chorale to populate that page. Happy eBay selling!!