A shopper starts shopping online by first going to iGive.com.

The shopper, your supporter, identifies your cause as the one they support. If your cause is not already on our list of causes either they or you can add it. This tells us where to send the donation. This only has to be done once unless the shopper wants to stop or change causes.

The shopper then identifies the merchant where they want to shop that day from our categorized list of over 1700 merchants. Once they click on that merchant, they are finished for the day with iGive and taken directly to the merchant’s website. If they have shopped there before, they begin shopping. If it is their first time shopping at this merchant’s website, they will have to follow the merchant’s instructions for registering there by providing their name, delivery address, payment method, email address, and perhaps some other information depending on the merchant.

When they are finished shopping, they check out as usual. They are done and only have to wait for their order to be sent to them.

Meanwhile, back at iGive, a message is received from the merchant which documents the transaction. Periodically the merchant adds up what they owe iGive in the way of commission and sends iGive the money. This sometimes takes a month or more after the shopping trip because the merchants want to take into account returns, exchanges or other modifications to the total amount they collect.

iGive then adds up all of the commissions that they have received that are designated to be shared with your cause and sends you the accumulated portion for your cause. This is usually added up on a monthly basis for the period since the last donation to your cause.

There is no cost to the shopper or to your cause.

iGive works with all types of causes — big or small, local or national, and regardless of whether they are a registered 501(c)3 nonprofit or not.

Merchants pay iGive a commission from the shopper’s purchase because iGive referred the customer to them. They want customers to shop at their store, and shoppers with iGive want to shop at stores that support their cause. iGive utilizes that commission to facilitate a donation to your cause on behalf of the shopper.

The money sent to your cause is the incentive iGive offers shoppers to use iGive.com as the entry to online shopping at our 1700+ affiliated stores.

This is different from when a cashier asks if the shopper wants to round up or add a dollar to donate when the shopper checks out — in that case, the shopper is paying slightly more to donate to the store’s chosen cause—not the shopper’s. With iGive, the shopper pays the same amount they would if they didn’t use iGive. Your cause receives a donation from iGive for all of your supporters who use iGive.

The amount the cause receives depends on how many of your supporters use iGive and the amount of money they spend shopping online. You can increase the amount of the donation by encouraging your supporters to use iGive.com when shopping online. Your cause does not pay iGive anything.

iGive has a wide range of participating stores. These are listed at iGive.com either by category of merchandise or a comprehensive list of all merchant affiliates. This includes popular online retailers in categories such as clothing, electronics, travel, and more. See the list of affiliated stores here.