Tips from MyRegistry Founder for Setting up your Non-Profit Gift List

Tips from MyRegistry Founder for Setting up your Non-Profit Gift List

MyRegistry was founded to help make giving gifts easier. After a serendipitous phone call from a church in need of donations after Hurricane Katrina, we started working to provide a platform for any non-profit organization to use MyRegistry to help manage their in-kind donations. We’d love to have your nonprofit join the nearly 10,000 other organizations that work with us. To get started click here.

As you get started, here are the steps to follow to set up your gift list and a few tips that will help you out.

  • Create an Account
    On myregistry.com, in the Gift List drop down list, click on “Create an organization/nonprofit gift list.” Hit the Create button. Input your Organization Name and if you have one, your chapter name.

    Pro Tip: Think about how you would like donors to search for your drive - by chapter (if a large organization), by specific campaign, or by overall organization. You can select the best option for your campaign.

  • Add Items
    Once you’ve added the browser extension to your web browser, you can add any item from any store – even international. But remember you’ll want to keep the stores within the country of your campaign. You can also have different items shipped to different locations. For organizations that also have wishlists with retailers like Amazon, Target or Walmart, MyRegistry can sync all these Wishlists so your donors can see all your Gift Lists in the same place.

    Pro Tip: Choose retailers that align with your organization’s values. If you want to prioritize convenience for your donors, big box stores will work well. Alternatively, supporting local or purpose-focused retailers may be more important to your donors. In both instances, we suggest a mixture of stores to “spread the love.”.

  • Customize your gift list
    Customization is easy and strongly recommended.Making sure your gift list reflects your organization’s branding is really important. MyRegistry gives you the ability to add your logo, change the background color, and add header photos or images.

    Pro Tip: Create a welcome page where your donors will see your campaign message first, instead of landing directly on your gift list. From thank you for participating to a holiday message, you can create a landing page that fits your needs. It can even be a video.

  • Include cash contributions
    We understand that in-kind donations are a complement to cash. There are three different ways to add Cash Contributions.
  1. Utilize the MyRegistry/Generous partnership which is helpful if you don't have the bandwidth to handle the tax-related paperwork. You can search the Generous database of 1.2 million charities from the “Add Charitable Giving” option on the Things to Do drop down menu. Select your charity and it will be added to the top of your gift list.
  2. Send your donors to your existing donation web page by using the browser extension on your website's donation page, so contributions are added in the form of a product to your Gift List. You can manage tax and thank you communications the way you currently have it set up.
  3. Create a “Cash Gift Fund,” also found in the Things to Do drop down, which will connect to your organization’s PayPal account.

Pro Tip: Think about how the end-to-end cash contribution process can have the least amount of friction for your donors before deciding how to include it on your gift list.

  • Share your gift list and embed it in your website
    The best ways to share your Gift List are via email and social media. You can use the MyRegistry URL as a destination or create a custom URL.

    The best way to integrate your Gift List to your website is by embedding it.  An embedded Gift List will keep donors on your website as they look for more ways to contribute to your cause.

    Pro-Tip: We’re here if you need help. We know you are busy and want to remove any obstacle to getting started. Schedule a free consultation with the MyRegistry Concierge Team. They are available to help you set up your Gift List and free up your time for the important job of running your nonprofit.Here’s the link for you to set up a meeting directly: https://meetings.hubspot.com/ganderson5

That’s it. Now you’re ready to benefit from using the best Gift List platform available to manage your in-kind donations and spread the mission of your organization. We wish every non-profit out there an incredible holiday season. Whatever your initiative is, we would love to be a part of it.

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