'Giving' - Sum It Up with Small Change

Posted: Wednesday, September 1, 2010 - 12:13

A Melbourne academic has devised a way of giving money to charities using a 'small change' concept, but is looking to test the idea via an online survey.

The concept is called Sum It Up and aims to collect 'spare or small change' through retailers at the point of sale and subsequently distribute the funds to charities.

Susanna Zaleski has been working on the concept during her MBA studies at the Australian Graduate School of Management (UNSW). She agrees that the key to her concept is gaining support from retailers around the country.

She says for retailers it’s an innovative and easy to implement Not for Profit venture that allows them to demonstrate their corporate social responsibility to customers and to create customer loyalty.

For customers, she says, it is a quick, convenient and transparent way to donate with customers receiving a tax deductible receipt with their retail purchase.

She says charities will be selected into the fund via a criteria that encourages transparent accounting and governance and charities can promote their cause on the Sum It Up website.

The 'small change' concept has previously been used successfully in Australia and overseas including Change for Good, a partnership between UNICEF and the international airline industry which offers travellers an easy way to help the world’s children by donating their unwanted currency to UNICEF  on board their flights. To date, Change for Good has raised nearly AUD$9 million since it started on Qantas flights in 1991.

Zaleski has designed a ten-minute survey to test public opinion on the concept as well as investigate current giving trends including how people like to donate; for example face to face, online or through regular work place donations. 
It also asks about the amounts and frequency of donations to Australian and overseas charities. Responses are collected anonymously.

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Micro-giving

Submitted by Simon Monk (not verified) on 03 September 2010.

Yes, this works. We've been doing it for 5 years, have an API that e-tailers can integrate, partner with major Australian charities ... oh, and have raised $1 million from 378,000 people.

Yeah, right - come on: join us and make this a standard!

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