Safeway Checkout Promotion for Philanthropy
Yesterday I went to Safeway on Colorado Boulevard in Denver to buy groceries. A sign on pink paper near the register about donating to Easter Seals caught my eye. Easter Seals is a nonprofit, community-based health agency dedicated to helping children and adults with disabilities attain greater independence. When it was my turn in the checkout line, the cashier told me my total purchase price and then asked if I would like to round up to the next dollar as a donation for Easter Seals. For me it meant adding $0.96 to my bill. Of course I said yes and told her I appreciated Safeway doing this.
I mentioned I am always on the look out for examples of how companies support local nonprofits. Turns out she was the front end manager and shared with me that initially she had thought the round up idea that another employee had proposed wouldn’t work well. She had thought asking people to donate a dollar when they were checking out would be a more effective way to raise money from customers. The store tried both approaches and, to her initial dismay, the round up model raised a lot more money. So now the store uses the round up “ask.” She is very pleased how well it works and is proud of the dollars they are raising to support this good cause.
If you are a retail business, could a round up checkout promotion be a strategy to enlist your customers as partners to support one of your company’s causes? For nonprofits, if you approach retail stores for a donation and they have already allocated their budget, perhaps you can negotiate a similar checkout promotion to raise dollars from their customers?
Tags: charity, corporate philanthropy, donations, Easter Seals, Safeway
March 16th, 2008 at 10:13 pm
Hey Susan, I’ve done a lot of point of sale programs, but never a round up program. Wrote a recent post on whether incentives motivate cashiers to make the all important ask. Check it out at http://www.selfishgiving.com. Joe
April 23rd, 2008 at 5:02 pm
Hi Susan
I was so happy read your posting about the Safeway checkout promotion, and the question you posted to Retailers and Charities about this type of round-up checkout process.
Our company, Change Round-Up® actually provides a round-up service to online retailers in which we do just that. We create a virtual “spare change jar” for online retailers. At the point of checkout, customers are asked if they would like to “round up” their purchase to the next dollar (or higher) and donate the “spare change” to one of the charities on the site. The retailers choose which charities they would like to support (we suggest limiting it to 5) and then the customer can choose whichever charity they would like to donate their spare change to.
We are currently reaching out to the entire online retail industry to try to provide an easy and efficient means for their customers to donate.
We have been overwhelmed with the success of the program to date, with some of our women’s based online retail sites experiencing as high as 70% of customers donating, and the overall average donation for all of our retailers is running at $1.20! We have been thrilled with the results and look forward to matching many wonderful charities with online retailers and generating millions of dollars in new donations for them.
Our service is free to online retailers, and there is no out of pocket cost for the charities, allowing more funds to stay within the charities, and allocated toward their core mission. Also, the service provides a very visible way for retailers to support charities by facilitating the donation process with every transaction.
We would welcome any online retailer, or charity that would like to use our service to please feel free to check out our site at http://www.changeroundup.com, and please contact us. Together we can truly make a difference for those in need.
Thank you.
Jane Goewey CMO Change Round-Up
May 13th, 2008 at 2:32 pm
[...] of point-of-sale programs, Sue Hyatt, The Business Philanthropy Coach, has a good post on being asked at Safeway to “round-up” her purchase total with the [...]