GoodSearch is an organization that provide an opportunity to support the churches and charities in a pain-free and cost-free method. At the end of 2007, after researching Goodsearch, I completed the steps necessary for Fellowship Baptist Church of Salisbury to be able to receive funds from the Goodsearch program. We recently received our check from Goodsearch for 2009 in the amount of $55.24 and I thought this would be a good opportunity to explain the program and to encourage you to use Goodsearch and Goodshop if you use the internet - or have friends and family that use the internet.
How does Goodsearch work?
Goodsearch provides a donation to the church whenever you use Goodsearch to search the internet - instead of using Google or some other search engine. The search results are powered by Yahoo!, so the search results are good results. Anyone who uses the internet already uses some method to search the internet, with Goodsearch, we are simply asking that choice of search engine to be Goodsearch and that the designated charity be Fellowship Baptist Church of Salisbury.
It is a blessing to be able to receive this money and for a small church like Fellowship Baptist Church of Salisbury, even a relatively small amount of money like this can help offset the cost of Sunday School curriculum or Vacation Bible School materials or Jr. Church materials or tracts or bulletins. The more people who use Goodsearch for us, the more we are able to raise. The amount of money raised last year was from a relatively few people searching.
In addition to being able to receive donations by simply using GoodSearch as you search the internet, over the last year or so, Goodsearch has added a program called GoodShop. GoodShop uses the same concept, except that instead of making a donation for searching, it makes a donation when you buy something online by going through GoodShop to get to the store's online presence. The stores represented by GoodShop are places many of us go shopping anyway, such as Wal-Mart, Target, Best Buy, Staples, Petsmart, etc. The difference is that you would be making your purchases online instead of at the store. Depending on the store, you may even be able to make your purchase online and pick it up at the store in person (or have it shipped to you - or to a loved one in another part of the country for Christmas). The amount of donation from Goodshop purchases are a percentage of the overall purchase, so that purchasing that Wii from Target through Goodsearch (instead of just going over there) could result in a donation of $7.00 (3.5% of $200).
How do I use Goodsearch?
Goodsearch has made the process pretty easy. You can either go directly to the site (www.goodsearch.com) and enter "Fellowship Baptist Church of Salisbury" in the box that asks "Who do you Goodsearch for?". This should only have to be entered once. You could also just simply CLICK HERE and it will already be pre-populated with the information for Fellowship Baptist Church. In addition to this, they also have a Goodsearch toolbar that you use that adds a Goodsearch search box to your Internet browser, allowing you to search for anything you want from anywhere on the internet (using this feature, you don't have to leave the page you are looking at in order to search for something else).
You can Goodsearch at your home computer or from any other computer you use. Even if you don't use the internet very much, perhaps a friend or relative may be willing to "Goodsearch" for us (my sister and mom in Illinois use Goodsearch for our church). If you need help with setting this up, please see me.
While we are not going to raise a large amount of money through this method, it can definitely be a help. If we had just 50 people using Goodsearch an average of ten times a day for searching, we would raise over $1500 during the course of a year. If we had 25 people make $100 purchases that they were aleady going to make at Staples (for instance), it would be an additional $50.
So, thanks to Goodsearch for the recent donation and thank you to all of you who already use Goodsearch for Fellowship Baptist Church. If you don't, would you consider helping us out in this way? Click here to get started.
Thanks for your help,
Pastor Frank Sansone
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