How Partnering With a Charity Can Help Your Craft Business

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If you are looking for a way to boost your sales or get your Silhouette or Cricut small business out of a sales rut, consider partnering with a charity. A relationship with a charitable organization can get your small business in front of new customers while doing good in your community or the world. Let’s look at how this works.

Ways to Partner for a Craft Business to Partner with a Charity

• Donate a portion of your sales to the charity.
  • You could donate a portion of your sales on all products for a specific time period.
  • You could donate a portion of your sales of a specific product for a specific time period.
• Donate products to the charity to resale for profit or use in their facility.
• Sponsor an event hosted by the charity. Be sure that your business name is used in marketing materials for the event.
• Volunteer at events hosted by charities. (You may even be able to wear shirts with your business name!)

How to Find the Right Charity

• While some experts will advise you choose a charity related to your business, this can be harder for a craft business. If you can’t find something directly related, I’d recommend that you choose something close to your heart. When you choose a meaningful charity, you’ll be more into the process and you’ll likely get better results. Plus, choosing a charity that personally affects you allows you another way to connect with customers.
• After you’ve browsed and chosen several charities, do research on them. See where their funds come from and how they use donations. I recommend Charity Navigator or Charity Watch as great tools to research potential charities.
• If you’d prefer to support a specific cause, sites like Kiva (my favorite!), Global Giving, YouCaring, or GoFundMe can help you find one.

Tips for Getting the Most from Your Charity Partnership

• Time, supplies, and money donated for charity can all be written off in your small business taxes. Consult your accountant for instructions on how to do this.
• Since you are a small business, consider partnering with a small or local charity. Ideally, you can promote each other through social media posts and local efforts.
• Be sure to advertise your charitable donations on social media and in your online listings for customers to see. To make a connection with customers, explain why you have interest in the charity.
• Have a policy for future partnerships. Before you go, I wanted to leave you with this last tidbit: Once your business is seen as a charitable partner; you may get more and more requests to work with charities or events. Having written policies or information sheets on how you work with charities can save you a lot of headaches in the future.

If you are looking to fundraise after a tragedy or disaster – head to this post. Does your small business support a charity? Share it in the comments!

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Christine Schinagl, Cutting for Business

Since 2015, Christine Schinagl has been helping crafters start and run craft businesses through her blog, Cutting for Business. As a Silhouette and Cricut crafter herself, she has a unique take on what works and what doesn’t work in the craft business world. She also teaches a course on creating digital SVG designs, available at How to Design SVGs.

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