Can We Link Our Earnings To A Charity Donation.

For tax purposes, if nothing else, handle your own charitable donations after faa pays you.
That way, you control to whom the money goes and how much.
I don't think it is reasonable to ask faa to get involved.
You are earning money here just like you earn it elsewhere and you should be controlling your donations without getting a third party involved in that process.
As far as letting people know to improve your sales, just write it in your bio to let people know.

I was thinking if I donate to a animal trust or similar and if I could put this on the image pages then fens would be more confident to buy perhaps.
Thank you, Marlene for the idea to put this on my bio.

You can post that info as the first line of your description for certain images as well ;)

Rumyana, you are suggesting that the charitable giving program would be part of your marketing on FAA. That has to be handled at arms length, imho. You can make the offer but the money flow has to be out of your control. I send several hundred dollars a year to each the, Boys and Girls Club, Breast Cancer Foundation and American Heat Association through my eBay Stores.

But that is all handled by eBay's Giving Works program. I just check the box on the listing, designate the charity and what percentage and it is out of my control from there.

The money goes strait to the charity as soon as the buyer pays. There are no refunds if the buyer returns the item or if the sale gets cancelled. I get an email every month of how much was sent to whom and at the end of the year I get a report that goes to my CPA for tax purposes. http://givingworks.ebay.com/charity-information/

Giving works has other programs other then eBay. I am not sure if they have something you can plug into or not but it seems to me that FAA would have to be involved somewhere along the line.

I like the idea but considering that we are only talking about a percentage of "out" mark-up, not to sure it would work here. Maybe something for the suggestion box thread.

Most charities do not like it when people use their name to sell products without getting permission.

I wonder if anyone on FAA is doing anything along those lines? It would be good to get input form them if they do. Or input from anyone for that matter.

I have committed to a portion of my UCSD images to go back to the school and noted it in the description. Not the first line like Marlene suggested but I am not sure it makes a difference, the customers have to get there first.

There is also a company out there that verifies that a charity or worthy cause is really what they say there are. Not sure if they can be used for this kind of thing or not. It is called GuideStar: http://www.guidestar.org/Home.aspx

Hi Floyd, Amazon also are involved in a similar scheme and I think this could be a good marketing tool. As you say we can only give a percentage taken out of our mark-up, which technically I do not know how could work, but I think that donations to charities would work better than advertising for a discount on out products. Personally I would be happier to do this through FAA, if it is possible and this way buyers will know that their money goes straight to the charity. Whether this is technically possible to be done, I do not know. This was just an idea that came to me, and the question is to find the right people who are willing to donate to a particular charity and their list is endless, I believe.

Yup, I can see a symbol of some sort on the home page or other appropriate pages that say sellers displaying this image have committed a certain portion of their proceeds to a designated charity. Or maybe just on the AW or on when they click on an image.

It could be used in marketing and advertising.

It would be great if FAA can do something like this, so then we will be able officially advertise it. I asked another similar site if they do it, and their advise was to open a separate PayPal account, that will be used for donations, but only the full amount of the earning can go to a charity, not a proportion from our earning, which is not going to be beneficial to us, sellers.
If I have an option to choose that the earnings from some of my images will go for my favourite charity I may decide to use it for a selection of my images.

I have a gallery of images that I have named "Art from My Heart"... I have indicated what charitable organizations will benefit from any sales in the description of those images and I also mention it in my biography.

Thank you, Karen for sharing your experience with us. It is good idea to do so and to start from somewhere.

There is also a group here on FAA that features the work of artists who donated profits to charitable organizations:

http://fineartamerica.com/groups/philanthropic-artists-for-a-cause-who-donate-faa-proceeds-or-original-artwork.html?tab=overview

Thank you, Karen for the link. I am joining this group.