Amazon does not allow us to motivate users to make purchases with donations. We therefore use Amazon commissions to cover our own operating costs.
How we handle Amazon
We want to make sure all donistas have the best possible shopping experience. That's why we're happy to offer Amazon too. Amazon is a special case at donista, because it is legally and technically not possible for us to pass on Amazon's affiliate commissions directly and in full to the organisations you've chosen.
We therefore use these revenues in two ways:
- to cover donista's operating costs
- to support additional fundraising campaigns for listed organisations
In this way, Amazon creates an indirect but very important foundation for our work: only when our operating costs are covered can we dedicate our work entirely to the charities.
What does "operating costs" mean for an online service?
For donista to work reliably and be available to you at all times, ongoing costs are incurred. This operational effort is necessary so that the platform runs smoothly from a technical, organisational and legal perspective.
These include, for example:
- Server and hosting costs for the stable operation of our platform
- Maintenance and further development of the website and app, so that donista keeps getting better
- Security measures to protect your data and the partner interfaces
- Fees for interfaces and tools that connect donista with shops and payment services
- Legal and organisational expenses, such as accounting, data protection and licences
In short: these costs are the foundation that allows donista to exist and lets us together turn purchases into donations. By the way: we all work voluntarily for donista, no salaries are paid.
Our goal: maximum donation volume
Through revenues from the Amazon Partner Programme and other income sources not directly linked to individual users, we aim to cover our operating costs as fully as possible.
This has a decisive advantage for you and all charities: we can pass on a large share of the affiliate commissions you generate through other partner shops as a donation.
This means:
- At all other shops, 80% of every commission flows directly as a donation to your chosen organisation.
- Amazon contributes indirectly by covering our basic costs.
- Every organisation benefits, because operating costs don't have to be funded from the donation share.
Summary
Amazon is different from other shops: we cannot and are not permitted to allocate the revenues from there directly to individual charities, instead we use them for our operating costs. These costs are necessary for donista to function, from servers to further development to legal expenses.
Amazon helps cover operating costs, so that 80% of every commission at all other shops flows directly as a donation to charitable organisations.
By helping us cover these costs, Amazon creates the foundation that allows us to pass on 80% of commissions from all other partners as donations.