By Lisa Bortner
At a recent Province VII gathering, Lindsey Murphy, the outreach director for The Church of the Transfiguration in Dallas’ food bank ministry, shared with us an innovative way of approaching outreach. Instead of asking parishioners to bring certain items to church that would be donated toward the chosen outreach, she created an Amazon wish list that was used instead. If you’re unfamiliar with Amazon wish list, here’s how it works. First of all, the church would have to have an Amazon account.
Whoever is the outreach coordinator for the church would then go to Amazon and choose items that the outreach recipient has already said are needed. For instance, if your outreach recipient is a Shower Ministry, the coordinator may set up a wish list of underwear, socks, soap, toothpaste, toothbrushes, etc. You can even indicate how many of each item is needed. Once the wish list has been created, you would then need to share the wish list with your congregation.
Lindsey indicated the easiest way to do this is by creating a QR code for your list. Again, you may be wondering: How in the world would I create a QR code? There are many websites that can be used to create a free QR code. Choose one, enter the Amazon wish list web address in the QR code generator, and after a few simple steps, you now have a QR code for your wish list.
This QR code can then be shared with the congregation through an email, in the church bulletin, or displayed in the church hall. The person wishing to contribute to the outreach project now just needs to scan the QR code, choose what they wish to purchase from the wish list, and purchase it.
The item will be delivered directly to the chosen outreach ministry’s address that was set up in Amazon. There’s no more going out shopping for an item, bringing it to church, and leaving it in a bin for pickup by the outreach coordinator, and then the coordinator having to deliver the items to the chosen ministry. You can now shop and donate items directly to the ministry from home! Doing God’s work has never been easier.
Amazon also has a program that is called AmazonSmile where non-profits may create a wish list so that those who wish to donate can do so online. This program allows you to create a charity list that buyers can search and purchase items for your organization. Amazon sends the items directly to the organization. As a bonus, the organization earns 0.5 percent of eligible purchases in cash donations that Amazon pays out to each organization quarterly.
