I love this corporate partnership initiative between the United Way and Rogers. It's so smart and so simple, that I'm a bit surprised I don't see more companies doing this. Am I missing something?
Sometime before the holidays, Rogers sent me an email offering some sort of customer reward gift. I don't remember what the gift was. In fact, I only vaguely remember getting the email. I was only reminded of this, because I just received a little thank you email with a link to a website with nice music. When I clicked on the link that said "click here for your special message", a new window popped open with music and a personalized, thank you message appeared. I took a screen shot to share here:
If I recall, I received a customer appreciation email that asked me to play an online game, where I picked a gift box on the screen, to determine which customer gift I would receive. After I played, it gave me the option of receiving the gift or donating the value of the gift to the United Way. The item was pretty insignificant (or I just didn't like it), so I opted to donate it. Either way, it's a win for Rogers. If you want the gift, you keep it and you're a happy customer. If you don't want it, you donate and you feel all warm and fuzzy about yourself, the company and the charity who is benefiting from your donation.
Every single charity in the country should be able to find a company willing to do this with them, and here's why:
- Basically, this is a "no cost" effort. Find a company that already offers some sort of customer appreciation give-away and ask if they'll include an option to donate the item to your charity.
- The company looks great! They're no longer "a company". They're people. They care about you and the things you care about.
- Both the company and the charity get measurable results from this. They will know how many people took advantage of the donation option. If enough people choose to donate, it creates an excellent opportunity for future partnership opportunities and data that you can use when approaching other companies (assuming your corporate partner will allow it).
- You don't need a large company to make this work. As a sales rep, I used to send gift baskets to accounts over a certain size. I bet, that if I had polled them, many of them would've requested a donation to a cause, instead of the basket. (In fact, one client held a draw for the basket I sent them and donated the money to a charity!)
- It's a win, win, win, win! The company looks good. The cause benefits. They can measure results and the customers are the ones who are donating. The company is just redirecting money it already planned to spend - and looking like a hero in the process.
Now - if I were Rogers, I would've offered a choice of charities, but hey, nobody's perfect!
So... get out there and start asking your corporate friends if they have any customer appreciation programs and see if they'll include a donation option in the future. Show them how amazing they'll look and how they will be able to measure its impact... and go raise some money.
And don't forget to keep the partnership alive with a nice thank you letter at the end... it's a nice touch and once again, people will feel warm and fuzzy about themselves, the company and your charity!
(Although, I do wonder if they should've sent the thank you earlier? Is February too late to thank me for something that happened in November or December? Given that I'd forgotten, I think not. But maybe you think otherwise?)
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