Borders: Books for Ronald McDonald House
I am in Maine this week on a writing retreat at my family’s cabin on Green Lake. Though the leaves are not out yet, it is a beautiful and very quiet place as the summer tourist season won’t kick off for a while yet. Today I stopped by Borders Bookstore at the Bangor Mall on my way to Orono, my hometown, for a Pat’s Pizza. Best pizza on the planet with plenty of “local color.”
Anyway, seems like everyone is doing a checkout promotion for charity this month! The woman at the register in Borders asked me if I would like to purchase one of about 10 pre-selected children’s books that were on display behind the counter as a donation to the local Ronald McDonald House. She explained the cheapest book was $3.99, several were $6.99, and a couple hardcovers were a bit more. I bought one for them to add to their stack to deliver to the Ronald McDonald House.
I told her about this blog and that I wanted to be able to write a post about their promotion asking if they had any literature I could have. She called her supervisor and – no, they did not have anything I could take with me. They did have color posters tacked next to the cash registers about donating books to children but they did not mention what nonprofit organization was the beneficiary. I had to ask again who was getting the books and she told me, the local RMH. Also, the cash register receipt only listed the book, not that it was a donation.
So…my tips for them. Have a flyer or something a customer can take home, should they want more information. Also, have the purchased book labelled as a donation on the receipt. I understand that a book is not the same thing as having donated cash directly, but there must be some way to have the register print that out on the receipt.
Tags: Bangor Mall, Borders, customer donation program, Ronald McDonald House
August 1st, 2008 at 10:57 pm
I just went to Borders in the White Flint Mall in Rockville, MD and bought a book. The sales person asked if I wanted to donate a book for children. So, I purchased another book to donate — a thin Dr. Seuss book. I thought it would be a few dollars, but when I looked at the receipt after coming out of the bookstore, I noticed that the book was about $10. That’s not so bad for giving to charity, but I became quite irritated after thinking about it a while because the $10 wasn’t going to the children. It was going to Borders and their profit pot. I’m sure it didn’t cost Borders $10 to acquire the book and Borders wasn’t donating any of the books themselves. It seemed like “the donation” concept was an opportunity for them to sell bunch of childrens books at “full” price. The children get overpriced books and Borders takes ALL the profit. Next time, I’ll donate again only if Borders does a matching program, where for every book I buy, they donate one themselves.
September 6th, 2009 at 11:32 am
kelly, i completely agree with you. when i “donated” a book yesterday i actually mistakenly thought that the PROFITS not the book was being donated to charity. Only when I realized that the book i bought was not in my bag, did i realize the BOOK was being donated to charity. I found this whole incident very disappointing and it has made me a very unhappy Borders customer. There is nothing charitable about making money off of charity. Borders did not GIVE anything away. Their customers gave books to charity. Borders absorbed 100% of the profits.