Rules about ads on non-profit web sites?

[tigergem]

So it seems to me to be so incredibly unconventional for non-profit organizations to have affiliate links on their web sites that I am beginning to wonder if there is some rule against it? If the affiliate programs are being run to (hopefully) cover the operating expenses of the web site, is this really a bad thing? Does anybody happen to know...is it just considered tacky or is it totally illegal under non-profit "codes of conduct" to run affiliate programs? Is the connotation of ads so purely profit that they are strictly taboo for NPs, or is this just done as a matter of "politically correct" common practice?

I know that it is not "illegal" for the NP to generate funds, so long as the board members are not profiting from the revenue, but the money is going to the expenses of the organization.

DH has become obsessed with the ads on his NP site (screening them for content and animal testing and one-more-pixel-thatta-way placement and size and he even selects or rejects some for the colors of their banners...) but we have not yet filed the NP application papers with the IRS, either...and that is partially what he is also attempting to raise funds for.

In order to keep strict accounting we keep the affiliate programs for that site completely separate from the affiliates for the other domains. But I am wondering if we are going to have to take them all down off that site eventually to be in compliance with some law I haven't found yet.

Oh by the way. We paid $1.95 for a trial version of an "ad program" that was supposed to guarantee 1000 ad impressions over 30 days. It looks to me like the "hits" they are generating on the stats are bot generated and not actual hits. 3 second one hit wonders. I will have to ask him what the name of that program is and I will post it here in a different thread because it is probably a waste of quarters if you are fishing for actual eyeballs.