Contributions at the POS - RoundUp for Orphans
Big Change for Small Change
Although we have made great strides over the years in getting donations from companies for RetailROI, the real opportunity to make a lasting and major difference is getting consumers involved at the POS through individual donations.
The need is huge. A child dies every 5.2 seconds and every 14 seconds an orphaned child ages out of the government protective system (if there is one) at ages as early as 13 years old.
But with your help we can make a HUGE difference.
The idea of the Round-up for Orphans is to offer either a fixed $ value SKU or a function that offers the consumers to round up the transactions to the nearest dollar. Basically, it’s a “Keep the Change” approach that goes to help children in need. But because of the sheer volume of transactions the money adds up quickly one dime, quarter, or $1 at a time.
And every dollar is crucial. Keep in mind $1,000 raised can rescue a child from the streets and pay for their housing, medical care, clothing, food, and education for a year in a country like Cambodia or Zambia. In the US, through the Safe Families program, $1,000 can turn into a benefit of $1.6M to society if we are able to keep that child out of the state foster care system.
But we need you…we need you to be an advocate within your company, to introduce RetailROI to the appropriate Operations/HR personnel within your firm so that we can share RetailROI.
IBM's ACE Application already has this functionality. You can read about their AutoRoundUp feature here.
Ideally we would love to time the contributions around the Back-to-School season; however, any period of time would work. RetailROI would help promote the days, promote your company through our newsletters, Facebook, website, and other social media sites.
The Process
- Top organizational support will be required to secure a round-up cause, time frame, and plan. Senior leadership will need to adopt the cause and vigorously support it across the organization for meaningful impact to be achieved. Developing senior leadership commitment and engaging the company’s culture will take time, but once started progress will come quickly.
- Once executives commit to a round-up, (our hope being that the cause is orphan care through ROI), store operations are then informed of the details which include: the cause details, the time frame of the round up, and any special messaging for customers. The Store Communications Department downloads the memo to stores typically a week in advance of the round-up. POS materials are developed by the Visual Team to coincide with communication.
- Support materials for the round-up are printed at store level as created by the company’s visual team. Typically a round up will have a data sheet at the POS or a sign calling out the cause.
- Properly informed and motivated employees are the key to the round-up success. Each employee, from a well informed position, asking each guest is the power of the process.
- Once the customer agrees to the round-up the cashier uses a SKU designated for the round-up. Either a fixed item amount or the round-up amount. Your POS application may already support the roundup feature. The SKU is set for no tax. If your POS system does not support a round-up option electronically, we recommend you use a fixed SKU amount. The SKU gets posted to the sales detail file just like any other SKU.
- Accounting runs a query over the sales detail file to get the total for the SKU for each period and puts that amount into a liability account until accounting is directed where to send the cash reserve.
- In accounting a separate SKU number is set up to track amounts donated by customers for the cause. Each week of the round-up period a query is run to gather the amount “sold” on the SKU. This amount is removed from sales and recorded as a liability on the General Ledger.
- Once the round-up period ends, a check is requested by the executive team and made out to the orphan care cause.
The impact of this process is typically 5%-10% of transactions involve a donation!
Note: A powerful incentive for customer donation involvement occurs when the company matches the round-up donations from guests. Guests are made aware of the match amount up front and are more supportive when a company match is involved.
Your Help is Needed
We will also work with you on the types of projects you would like the funds to go towards. Clean water, education, domestic programs, etc. and customize the material at POS to help you maximize the connection with your customer.
If you are willing to be a company advocate, we will strategize with you on the best types of projects to meet your company’s needs.
The Bottom Line, however, is we cannot do this without your help. We need you to help us make the connections inside your company. You don’t have to be the expert. Simply open the door and we will work with you.
You can Make a Huge Difference
To find out more about the Retail Orphan Initiative, see our case studies and how we use the funds you entrust to RetailROI. Feel free to also email us at retailroi@ihlservices.com or call us at 615-591-2955.