Amazon Shopping

Amazon Smile vs. Affiliate

The Amazon Smile program pays 0.5% on your purchases. You can setup this program through your Amazon.com account.

Amazon Associates is an "affiliate" program that pays from 4% to 10% (depending on products), or up to 15% (depending on marketing link) on your purchases. You can only use this program by starting your purchase through a web link, such a the ones at the RVUUF.org web.

The Details:

"Amazon Smile" is a program through Amazon.com where your purchases can be used to support a "favorite charitable organization" of your choice.

Amazon donates a (small) percentage of your purchase to your chosen affiliate.

Not all purchases there qualify for the "Smile" program (but most do).

The key to the system is the following URL:

https://smile.amazon.com/

(If you experience difficulty, you can copy & paste that address into your browser.)

Additionally, for this to work you must have an Amazon.com account, and be correctly logged in.

As long as you see "smile.amazon.com" in your web browser's address bar (see example below), you are in the right part of the system.

On most Amazon.com pages you will also see the name of the "charity" (affiliate) that you selected, typically near the upper-left portion of the page. (Also illustrated in the example below.)

You do not need to go through a RVUUF web page (with an Amazon Affiliate link) to have your purchases registered correctly. You do need to verify that your charity of preference is selected. (You can use more than one, just not at the same time.)

Here are some additional reference links to help you understand this affiliate donation program better. Most of them require that you log into an Amazon.com account. All of these items are available through the "Supporting" link of your "Smile" account.

• About Amazon Smile
  • No login necessary.
• Change Your Chosen Affiliate
  • You can "donate" to more than one affiliate, just not at the same time.
  • For RVUUF, at the above location, search on:
  • Rogue Valley Unitarian Fellowship
    • For some reason RVUUF comes up twice. Both entries appear correct. One has a longer description (the only one we have tested) and is obviously the right choice.
• Amazon Smile Dashboard
  • This location shows your currently selected affiliate. It also offers (more towards the end of the page) two ways to ensure that you are correctly supporting your charity of choice. One is with a simple bookmark (what we suggest). The other is to "Install the Amazon Assistant" (something we have not tested, so if you try this, please let us know the result). Additional information is available at that location for these features.

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The following image shows an example of what to look for

to verify that you are properly logged into

an Amazon.com account,

so that your purchases will be eligible for donations

to your chosen "affiliate" (i.e. "Supporting" charity).

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