I need to explain something boring first in order to tell you about something that I was having trouble with earlier today. Bear with me for just a paragraph or two ;)

Did you know that clicking on someone’s link to a product or page at Amazon.com can make that person some money? It’s called an “affiliate program” and is a way to make money while doing things like writing product reviews. I do this all the time over at my review blog, and occasionally make decent money doing it.

Still not sure what an affiliate program is? Here’s a simple rundown:

Let’s say I write a review of a toy and link over to where Amazon has it for sale. If someone clicks on that link and buys that toy (or anything else at Amazon during the next 24 hours) I get a percentage of the price of the items they buy. The percentage you get at Amazon starts at 6% and increases as you refer a greater and greater number of items during the month.

OK, now that you know about the Amazon affiliate program, I can explain the problem I was having this afternoon. I was checking out lots of blogs I know are written by good friends of mine who are also suffering from money problems. I was hoping to find that someone was an Amazon associate so I could click on one of their links and then do the bulk of my Christmas shopping today. I’m going to be shopping at Amazon today anyway, and I like to make it “count” for more.

But I couldn’t find anyone! Lots of people were linking to Amazon products, but not one was using affiliate links. Grrr… Foiled. So then I thought I’d google around and see if any charities I like had Amazon affiliate accounts, and I was pleased to discover that one of my absolute favorites, Kiva, has some links you can use to get to the Amazon home page and from there on, any shopping you do for the next 24 hours gets credited to their account. Sweet! So let me share them with you now:

http://www.amazon.com/?&tag=kivafrie-20 (For US shoppers)

http://www.amazon.ca/?&tag=kivacanada-20 (For Canadian shoppers)

All you have to do is click the right link, shop at Amazon, and Kiva gets 6-7% of the price of what you buy. It costs you nothing and is a painless way to donate to Kiva while doing shopping you would have done anyway.

Nitty Gritty:

Clicking links in this post makes me NO money.

If you want to become an Amazon Associate yourself, go apply here. It is super-simple to apply. After you do it, stick an Amazon banner or link in your sidebar. It could be small and way at the bottom, but make it somewhere that people can find it.

Then what?

Before you shop at Amazon, go to a friend’s blog and click on their Amazon link. Bookmark the link to your favorite charity’s Amazon link (google ‘charityname amazon’ to find it). Make your shopping count.

Questions? Stick them in the comments.