CharityMaker Frequently Asked Questions

Check here first before contacting support.

Are Member Charities under any obligations when they sign up to CharityMaker?

It is completely free to sign-up and you can cancel your profile page at anytime. There currently is no cost to utilize the services of this site. New sign-ups must check that they have read the terms of service and are 18 years of age. Though you have no obligations, we do maintain a watch of members and do have the right to cancel any member at any time for material deemed inappropriate or questionable to our core members. There's more on that below.

How are funds distributed to member charities?

CharityMaker has clicks and sales tracked through an independent service. Once sales are finalized through this service and payment is received to CharityMaker we then post a credit to the member charities account. Checks are sent 4 times a year to member charities.

Do member charities receive all of the money rebated back from the stores?

They receive a large percentage, 70% to be exact. But CharityMaker LLC is not a nonprofit organization. We do not charge the charities or shoppers to become members and our only revenue stream to run CharityMaker comes from our percentage of the sales.

Do you have to be a charity to have a member page?

Technically no, the word "charity" in our name or verbiage on this site does not limit who can be a member but we will review member pages and in our judgment keep some guidelines as to our intent for the web site as a whole. We do reserve the right to refuse any request to have a member page or to delete existing pages and members.

Can individuals create a member profile and shopping page?

We do realize that often individuals start up a collection of funds for a community member that has suffered a tragic loss or illness and that there are other needs of individuals to raise money for happier occasions like a college fund. The wording on your profile page description will go a long way in helping us determine if your member profile meets our intent for this site. In fact, profile pages do generate automatically upon sign up but content will be reviewed and pulled if we feel the member is potentially deceptive and not within the spirit of the site.

How can you prevent bogus charities and fraudulent individuals from being members?

Only through complaints registered to us can we investigate the validity of a member. Remember that the intent of this site is for member charities to solicit their constituents to shop at their profile page mall. If a visitor chooses to shop on a member profile page they do not know they are doing so at their own discretion. Visitors of this site should only shop at member profile pages they know, not based on the write-up or description of a member charity.

What other criteria would cause cancelation of member pages?

Obviously any "inappropriate" content in the public member description box but also keep in mind this will be mostly populated with church and school/youth based members. Any content or profile page we feel may be highly offensive to that core membership will be removed. The same for any member collecting funds for what we deem to be, hate organizations, violent or militaristic organizations, sexually explicit organizations or any organization that may offend the core values of our membership.

How safe is it to transact shopping through member sites?

As noted in our Learn More section, CharityMaker or the member charities do not handle any of the financial transactions and do not collect personal data of visitors. By clicking on any store on your charity's profile page you are then sent direct to that stores web site, the same as if you had accessed them through Google or typed their web address in your browser. So to answer the question it's as safe as the store's web site makes it but shopping through a member profile page can not breach the security protocols of a store's web site.

Does CharityMaker collect information of visitors browsing or shopping on member profile pages?

Not of a personal nature. CharityMaker does not require visitors to register with us to browse or shop on member profile pages. We do know how many times a store link is clicked on every profile page but we do not have any personal data as to who is making the click-thru's.

What if I have a warranty issue or complaint with a store accessed through a member profile page?

All shopping transactions are done at the customer's discretion and any issues must be directed to customer service of that store. CharityMaker simply offers a list of stores willing to rebate money back for purchases but we do not govern their policies. Always check a store's terms of service if you are unsure of their policies. However, alerting us by email of a store issue is acceptable and if enough complaints are registered we will remove the store but we will not respond to individual issues.