Rachel Rofé

Supporting charitable causes is really important. Plus, it makes you feel great. But what if it could also benefit your business’ bottom line?

Increasing the number of designs available in your shops is one of the best ways to optimize your chances of creating high-selling products.

After all, figuring out what designs will sell well and which designs won’t is largely a numbers game.

So we created a big list of design ideas for you (150+), all of which relate to a variety of charitable causes.

We also included a list of charitable-cause design templates so you can come up with even more design ideas of your own. And we added a month-by-month list of when awareness is raised for certain causes throughout the year.

If you want to go a step further, you can donate a portion of the sales you make from these design ideas to the causes they support.

If that’s something you’re interested in, you can find a list of resources at the bottom that help you choose the most worthy charities.

(Some charities give only a small percentage of the proceeds they receive to the cause they support.)

To learn more about setting up an automated donation program, click here.

Now, let’s get started…

Here is the big list of charitable causes and design ideas

Instead of including the list of causes and design ideas here (and making this post crazy long), we created a PDF that you can download below.

The list includes 60+ causes with 2-4 design suggestions for each cause. And the causes pertain to the following categories:

• Illnesses, conditions, and disorders (e.g. breast cancer and autism)
• Humanitarian (e.g. hunger and homelessness)
• Social justice (e.g. racial and LGBTQ inequalities)
• Environmental (e.g. global warming)
• Military (e.g. disabled veterans)

The list also includes a clickable table of contents so you can easily jump to whichever cause interests you most.

Here’s a preview:

You can download the PDF here.

Charitable-cause design templates

As we created our big list of causes and design ideas, some patterns started to emerge.

So, in addition to our big list, I thought it’d be helpful to outline some design templates. You can apply these templates to a variety of the causes included on the list or any other causes there weren’t mentioned.

Fight Against [insert cause/condition]

Fight [insert cause/condition]

Stop [insert cause/condition]

End [insert cause/condition]

Stand Against [insert cause/condition]

No More [insert cause/condition]

Create a world without [insert cause/condition]

Together we can stop [insert cause/condition]

I support [insert cause]

Find the cure (with an image related to the cause)

HOPE (with a specifically colored ribbon indicative of a certain cause in place of the ‘O’)

SURVIVOR (with a specifically colored ribbon indicative of a certain cause in place of the ‘I’)

Hope. Believe. Love. (with an image related to the cause)

Someone I love has/is battling [insert condition] ]

[Insert condition] Warrior/Champion

Stronger than [insert condition]

Love is stronger than [insert condition]

My hero is now my angel (with an image related to the cause)

Calendar of causes

For many of the causes included in the PDF, awareness is raised during certain months.

Below, I’ve linked a number of causes to their corresponding month so you can plan your designs and promotional strategies accordingly.

January

Birth defects
Blood donations
Cervical cancer
Glaucoma
Thyroid cancer

February

Eating disorders
Heart disease
Prenatal infections

March

Brain injuries
Colorectal cancer
Developmental disabilities
Endometriosis
Kidney cancer

April

Autism
Oral cancer
Parkinson’s disease
Sexual assault
Stress

May

Arthritis
Asthma and allergy
Hepatitis
High blood pressure
Mental health
Osteoporosis
Skin cancer
Stroke
Women’s health

June

Cataracts
HIV testing
Men’s health

July

Eye injury prevention
UV safety

August

Immunization
Medic alert
Psoriasis

September

Alcohol and drug additional recovery
Childhood cancer
Healthy aging
High cholesterol
Leukemia
Ovarian cancer
Sepsis
Sickle cell anemia
Suicide

October

Breast cancer
Dental hygiene
Domestic violence

November

Adoption
Alzheimer’s disease
Diabetes
Lung cancer
Prostate cancer
Stomach cancer

December

Aids
Influenza

Resources to find the best charities to support

As a I mentioned earlier, not all charities are equally worthy of your donations.

Sometimes, a big percentage of the proceeds go toward covering the organization’s administrative expenses. And there are other “charities” that are outright scams.

To help you donate wisely, here is a list of resources to check out:

BBB Wise Giving Alliance
Charity Navigator
Charity Watch
GuideStar

What do you think of this list of charitable causes and design ideas? Do you think these types of designs will be a hit or a miss with your customers? Leave a comment below and share your thoughts!

Want a quick way to earn more money from your Etsy listings? We’ve been testing an easy strategy involving shipping insurance that I think you’ll really like.

As an add-on, Etsy lets you create “shipping bumps” for your store, which mostly involve faster shipping options.

But another thing you can add is a shipping insurance upgrade. This type of upgrade is great because you don’t have to do anything extra when people purchase (unless, of course, an order does get damaged).

But you’d need to replace any orders damaged during shipping anyway if people ask. So this way, you make some extra income. And most people won’t even need to use their insurance.

So far, we’ve been making some easy sales from this upgrade option — not a ton of sales, mind you. But all the sales are passive income and they are likely to increase as we get closer to Christmas.

(We’ve already started seeing sales pick up as the holiday season progresses.)

To learn how to set up this optional insurance upgrade in your Etsy shop, keep reading below.

Here is the 3-part process…

Part 1: Create the insurance upgrade

You can add upgrades to individual Etsy listings. Or you can add them to a shipping profile.

How to add an insurance upgrade to an individual listing:

• Login to your Etsy account.
• Click Shop Manager.
• Select Listings on the left-hand side.
• Choose a listing you want to add the upgrade to.
• Scroll to the Shipping section and choose either an existing shipping profile or where it says Enter custom shipping options.
• Complete all the required information.
• At the bottom, select Add a shipping upgrade to complete the setup.

How to add an insurance upgrade to a shipping profile:

• Login to your Etsy account.
• Click Shop Manager.
• Select Settings on the left-hand side and choose Shipping settings.
• Click the Edit link on the shipping profile you want to add the upgrade to. (NOTE: If you haven’t created any shipping profiles yet, you will need to do so.)
• Scroll down to where it says Shipping upgrades.
• Click the Add a Shipping Upgrade link.
• Input your shipping upgrade settings. Here’s what I used:

You could create another upgrade for International destinations if you wanted.

I named the upgrade “Upgraded Optional Insurance,” but you could modify that.

Next, you choose your Shipping carrier and select a mail class (if you want).

Then, you input the price you want to charge people for the upgrade. I tried three different price points:

1. $2.50
2. $3.75
3. $5.00

But you can charge whatever you want.

Finally, select Save profile and the upgrade will be applied to however many listings you have with that shipping profile.

NOTE: When you set up this insurance upgrade, bear in mind that the price you set for the upgrade will be added to the base shipping costs you charge.

For example, if you have a base shipping cost of $4.95 and an insurance upgrade cost of $2.50, the total shipping cost for buyers will be $4.95 + $2.50 = $7.45.

If there’s any question about a buyer’s selected shipping option or whether he or she purchased the insurance upgrade, just check the receipt page for the order in question. There, you’ll be able to see the mail service that the buyer chose.

Part 2: Add info about the upgrade in your Shop Policies

• In your Etsy account, go to Settings then Info & Appearance.
• Click the Policies tab.
• Scroll down to the Additional Information section.
• Add a message about the insurance upgrade.
• Click Save.

This is what I wrote and you can feel free to copy and paste this info into your own Shop Policies:

Optional shipping upgrade: INSURANCE. Sometimes accidents happen. When you purchase our insurance upgrade, if you accidentally damage your item, just send us a picture within 60 days and we’ll re-send you a new one for free.

Part 3: Add a blurb about the upgrade to each individual listing’s description (optional)

Parts 1 and 2 are the most important and can be done in less than 10 minutes.

But if you want to take it a step further and optimize your chances of having people purchase the insurance upgrade, I recommend implementing part 3 as well.

Just, depending on the number of listings you have, this part can be more time-consuming. But, again, part 3 is optional.

• Go to Listings on the left-hand side of your Shop Manager.
• Click a listing you’ve added the upgrade option to.
• Scroll to the Description section and add a quick write-up about the upgrade.
• Click Publish.

I included pretty much the text here that I added to my Shop Policies.

That’s it!

That’s all you have to do to increase your Etsy earning potential. And if you stick to parts 1 and 2, you can wrap this up in under 10 minutes.

When your customers check out, they’ll be able to select the insurance upgrade from a drop-down menu with their shipping options. Then, the cost of the insurance will be added to their totals.

Here are the results I got…

I added the optional insurance upgrade about a month ago. And so far, eight purchases have been made, all at the $2.50 price point.

These results obviously aren’t fantastic. But I think once holiday shopping really kicks into gear more people will start buying the upgrade.

People want to make sure their gifts arrive safe and sound. And if they don’t, they want the peace of mind knowing they can quickly and easily get replacements.

If you look at companies that sell things like electronic devices, one of the most profitable parts of their business is selling insurance.

And that’s exactly what we’re doing here with this insurance upgrade, which, again, most people won’t need to take us up on, so it’s almost entirely pure profit.

Adding an insurance upgrade to your Etsy shop takes very little time and doesn’t cost a cent, so you really have nothing to lose.

If you end up adding an insurance upgrade to your Etsy shop, let me know how the experience goes for you by leaving a comment below.