This amazing story, inspired from the interview in Inc. Magazine Tech 1998 No. 3 issue, shows how two entrepreneurs took the idea of affiliate programs to create a full time business. They have built their own affiliate program by following the Amazon.com model and putting in their own, unique approach. They have provided a middle ground between the companies offering products and the non-profits they have targeted to help.

Rudy Socha and Carolyn Darrow thought of the idea for this online Gift Store in 1997. By March 1998 they opened their own store online. Socha had learned about Amazon.com's model and the amazing amount of affiliates they had.

Instead of copying Amazon, he invented his own approach, targeting non-profits. By May 1998 they had signed up their first, affiliated non-profit: the ASPCA (American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals). The ASPCA gets a customized entry page to their gift store. This is a model they have extended by working with just a select few non-profits, instead of managing the headache of many affiliates.

They provide products as the retailer of a variety of dolphin and whale related items (isn't retailer another name for affiliate?). They then sign up non-profits like the ASPCA, who gets paid 10% per transaction. The non-profit gains a source of ongoing income as an affiliate, while the gift store is able to focus strictly on doing something that matters to them, helping non-profits.

They do not actively promote their Web Site. They do not collect emails or customer information, because they feel it just isn't the right thing to do. Despite what appears to be the wrong thing to do, they are profiting by working through high traffic, non-profit sites, mostly wildlife organizations. Their marketing cost is the 10% they pay on every transaction. That is it. Donations are also accepted and routed to the non-profits.

By following their own passion and taking the high ground in business, they have developed core relationships with non-profits. Socha has estimated $7 million in earnings their first year, all for doing something they love, with little or no marketing, and helping non-profits survive.