Thread: Suggestions/Advice on Fundraising with ClassiPress

Suggestions/Advice on Fundraising with ClassiPress

I'm looking for some suggestions on how to make a classifieds site friendly to fundraisers. For example, I'd like to offer FREE listings IF that listing is for fundraising purposes. I work with several non-profits, so I'm more interested in making this work for non-profits and community members than making $$ on this service--though, for regular listings, I'll still charge. Here's how it would work:

(1) A user will be required to have a membership pack to list anything. This will be a very low-cost annual subscription that allows me to validate all users. I want this to be for local use only (though I don't know if that's too restricting).

(2) IF a user wants to post a listing for a fundraiser, they must identify the non-profit organization from a pull-down list of verified organizations that I maintain, manually. To get the discount, they type "FUNDRAISER" into the coupon code field to get the listing for free.

(3) IF a user just wants to post a personal ad, they pay regular price and ignore the fundraiser pull-down field.

All listing submissions will be reviewed by me before approving.

MY question is this: Is there a better way to do this? Obviously, this is a simplistic approach. I have no way to enforce or validate any kind of payment to the fundraiser. A user could simply SAY they are donating proceeds to get the free listing and then keep the cash. I suppose I could include a link to a specific non-profit organization page on the classified site (if listed in pull-down), which includes instructions to "buyers" on how to make a contribution for "fundraiser" listings. Ideally, an organization could post all the listings on their own account, but then they become the go-between for questions pertaining to the listing, which is inconvenient.

I'd be curious to know if anyone has tried anything like this or has a suggested protocol I could try.

Thanks!

Matt