Old-fashioned spare change, plus the intelligence of modern systems, can easily reenergize a corporate giving program
Change for Charity is a new spin on an old concept; it replaces the physical charitable change containers that retailers often have at their register with a far more efficient, accurate, and secure system to manage corporate giving. If fact, The Retail Equation’s own research shows that there is well over $30 billion worth of spare change exchanged annually via all types of retail transactions, almost half occurring during the holiday shopping season when people are most charitable.
Change for Charity is an unobtrusive electronic means for a shopper to quickly donate the spare change from her cash-based sale, return, or exchange transaction. As the collector and aggregator of the change, the retailer can efficiently distribute the funds to selected charities, while giving credit to the contributing shopper. A simple, spare change-based service at point-of-sale can impact the lives of so many individuals in need, put retailers at the forefront of community activism, and enable individual shoppers to be part of ‘the power of many’, where their small donations add up to help make a big change.
How It Works
Change for Charity is an intelligent system that operates at the conclusion of a cash sale, return, or exchange transaction. While the paper currency change is handed out, the shopper is asked if she would like to donate her spare coin change from the transaction to one of a list of charities chosen by the retailer. If opting to do so, the consumer receives a receipt indicating her tax-deductible gift, the retailer retains and consolidates the change for a future distribution, and the charity obtains a new source of income.
Charitable Benefits
The hope is to create a consumer-based new revenue stream, in addition of the funds already being contributed directly by retail organizations to of their selected charitable groups.
- If even one quarter of the retailer’s customers were impassioned enough to give their spare change, that can generate hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars of incremental donations.
- Plus, with the support of retail chains, charities have the ability to gain access to a much larger market from each retailer’s customer base.
Business Benefits
Beyond the positive net impact in the community from the increased giving, there are tangible business benefits to a modernized donation collection system.
- Retailers will see a decrease in labor costs associated with gathering, counting, and distributing donated funds, as well as a reduction of clutter by removing old change containers – which in turn may generate more sales through re-merchandising the register counter space.
- Plus, computerized fund dispersal from retailers will lower charities cost of handling cash, be more secure, less susceptible to theft or fraud, and allow for better accounting.
