Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff, a production of iHeart Radio, Hey
Speaker 1: brain Stuff, Lauren Boba Bom Here. You've seen it at
Speaker 1: your local supermarket, department store, or even on your rideshare app.
Speaker 1: You're asked verbally or digitally if you'd like to round
Speaker 1: up your purchase to the nearest dollar, with the difference
Speaker 1: going to a charity. It may not seem like much
Speaker 1: to hand over an extra sixty three cents, so you
Speaker 1: say yes. But how much do these charities collect and
Speaker 1: is it worth it? Check Out charity, as it's called,
Speaker 1: isn't just about community service and warm fuzzies. It's a
Speaker 1: big business engage for good and organization devoted to corporate
Speaker 1: social initiatives found that in seventy six point of sale
Speaker 1: fundraising campaigns raised more than six five million dollars in
Speaker 1: the United States. Each of these campaigns raised at least
Speaker 1: a million bucks. A viral TikTok video claimed that stores
Speaker 1: can right off these checkout donations from customers on their
Speaker 1: own end of your taxes, but that's simply not true.
Speaker 1: These donations don't count as company income, so they can't
Speaker 1: be written off. When a store donates from its own
Speaker 1: business income, the company can write that off as a
Speaker 1: charitable donation. Customers who donate to these checkout charities could
Speaker 1: also write off their contributions on their taxes, but most
Speaker 1: people don't as the amounts are so small. For the article,
Speaker 1: this episode is based on How Stuff Work spoke with
Speaker 1: Joe Waters, a consultant in what's called cause marketing, which
Speaker 1: his blog Selfish Giving defines as a partnership between a
Speaker 1: nonprofit and for profit for mutual profit. Waters said, what
Speaker 1: companies are hoping for out of checkout charity is that
Speaker 1: there's a halo effect and the consumers are going to
Speaker 1: spend more with them because they view the company more
Speaker 1: favorably and the tactics seems to be working. Of respondence
Speaker 1: to a survey said that they felt positive about a
Speaker 1: company after being asked to donate at the register. How
Speaker 1: stuff Works also spoke with Michael Giebelhausen, a marketing professor
Speaker 1: at Cornell University. In He and a team published a
Speaker 1: study that looked at revenue at a national chain restaurant
Speaker 1: following the implementation of a checkout charity campaign. They found
Speaker 1: it had a statistically significant positive impact on sales. This
Speaker 1: economic effect is something marketers call a warm glow. Everybody
Speaker 1: wants to see themselves in a positive light, and when
Speaker 1: companies give consumers the chance to engage in pro social
Speaker 1: behavior like reusing their towels at a hotel to save
Speaker 1: water or packing up groceries in an environmentally friendly reusable bag,
Speaker 1: consumers walk away feeling good about themselves in psychological terms.
Speaker 1: By donating to a checkout charity or reusing a hotel towel,
Speaker 1: the consumer has earned moral credit. And once you've earned
Speaker 1: a little moral credit, you have license to do something
Speaker 1: that's not as virtuous, like spending money on something frivolate,
Speaker 1: sorb unhealthy. Giebelhausen said, if your business is a vice
Speaker 1: business like fast food or candy, and it's a particularly
Speaker 1: good combination, customers who donate feel good about you, and
Speaker 1: then they have these moral credits that they can spend
Speaker 1: on your products. Rounding up can even beat asking for
Speaker 1: a straight donation. For nineteen days, and researchers from North
Speaker 1: Carolina State collaborated with a local zoo. The zoo employees
Speaker 1: asked patrons of its on site cafe if they'd like
Speaker 1: to round up their purchases to the nearest dollar for charity,
Speaker 1: and the results were compared to the campaign that the
Speaker 1: zoo normally ran, which asked patrons to donate an extra
Speaker 1: dollar at the cafe. The study found that of patrons
Speaker 1: agreed to round up, compared to only eighteen percent who
Speaker 1: usually gave a dollar. The zoo also raised more money
Speaker 1: during that nineteen day period. Check Out charity campaigns are
Speaker 1: not without their pitfalls, though. The Waters mentioned a local
Speaker 1: Austin grocery store chain that hit him up for a
Speaker 1: different charity every time he came to the register. The
Speaker 1: store employees didn't engage customers or bothered to explain what
Speaker 1: the charity was all about. An option just popped up
Speaker 1: on the credit card PINpad, and Waters felt pressured to donate,
Speaker 1: he said, of those are the programs that people complain about. Indeed,
Speaker 1: a study published in October two found that checkout charity
Speaker 1: could increase a shopper's anxiety, with respondents using words like pressured, annoyed,
Speaker 1: and concerned about being judged to express how they felt
Speaker 1: about being asked only used positive words to express their feelings.
Speaker 1: The researchers found that the anxiety quote can be relieved
Speaker 1: when customers agree to donate, but only when the solicitation
Speaker 1: comes from a cashier as opposed to an automated request
Speaker 1: made by a computer or self service checkout machine. In
Speaker 1: Waters experience, the checkout charity campaigns that work are thoughtfully
Speaker 1: executed and integrated with the company these mission and client base.
Speaker 1: For example, in outdoor retailer Patagonia donated a hundred percent
Speaker 1: of their Black Friday sales toward environmental groups and raised
Speaker 1: ten million bucks, which is five times more than they
Speaker 1: were expecting. Waters also pointed to the Month of Giving
Speaker 1: campaign at the sandwich chain Jersey mis during the month
Speaker 1: of March and only during the month of March, each
Speaker 1: franchise location partners with a local charity and solicits donations.
Speaker 1: The campaign is capped by the day of Giving, when
Speaker 1: the prose feeds from all sales made on March twenty
Speaker 1: eight are given to the chosen charity. Today's episode is
Speaker 1: based on the article checkout charity works if It's done
Speaker 1: right on House to works dot com, written by Dave Ruse.
Speaker 1: Brain Stuff. This production of I Heart Radio in partnership
Speaker 1: with how stuff Works dot Com and it's produced by
Speaker 1: Tyler Klang. Four more podcasts from my heart Radio. Visit
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