Customers Gave $441 Million at Checkout Counters Despite Retail’s Woes

Point-of-sale fundraising campaigns, which let store and restaurant customers make small donations to charities when they purchase goods, continue to generate millions for nonprofits despite recent turmoil in the retail business.

Seventy-three campaigns raised more than $1 million for charity last year, for a total of $441 million, according to the latest survey by Engage for Good, formerly known as Cause Marketing Forum.

The figure shows an increase from 2014, when the previous survey found such campaigns raising more than $422 million.

As in the past, children’s health causes scooped up the most checkout-counter donations. Together, Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals and St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital got 48 percent of all money collected by retailers and restaurants in the survey.

Checkout Champs

The U.S. retail sector has taken hits recently, with more than 3,500 stores closing thus far in 2017 and tens of thousands of jobs lost as stalwarts like J.C. Penney, Macy’s, Sears, and Target have struggled.

Some top performers in Engage for Good’s survey did see significant declines from 2014’s totals. Kmart, for instance, which raised $12.9 million for St. Jude in 2016, saw its haul for charity drop 26 percent from 2014.

It’s possible that more companies in the contracting retail sector could see their efforts to raise money for charities struggle in the coming years, acknowledges Megan Strand, director of communications for Engage for Good. But she’s optimistic.

“The retailers that are committed to doing this are finding ways to keep giving levels high,” she says. Some are adding requests to give on their online checkout forms. And as for nonvirtual retailers, she says, “anecdotally, I’ve heard, ‘We’re talking to Apple Pay.’ ”

Online shopping, a growing threat to brick-and-mortar stores, helped boost eBay to the top of Engage for Good’s list of “checkout champions,” a spot it’s held since the survey began in 2012.

The auction website raised $56.6 million from its customers in 2016, benefiting more than 34,000 charities. The online company allows people who sell goods on the site to donate a portion of their sales to a nonprofit and invites buyers to make donations as well. However, eBay’s total was down 9 percent in 2016 from the two previous years.

Among other findings:

• Sixteen percent of the money raised last year, or $69 million, was generated by online companies like eBay and Humble Bundle. That’s nearly as large a share as the 18 percent raised by mass merchandisers and warehouse clubs like Walmart and Costco and by specialty retailers like Best Buy and Petco.
• Two-thirds of campaigns asked for $1 donations.
• One charity, Boys & Girls Clubs of America, entered the rankings for the first time with two fairly new campaigns. A fundraising drive with Buffalo Wild Wings, begun in 2013, raised nearly $4 million last year, while another campaign with the discount retailer Ross Stores, begun two years ago, raised $2.7 million.

The emergence of new campaigns, Ms. Strand says, shows charities still have plenty of unclaimed opportunities to seek fundraising partnerships. She points to a campaign by Big Lots on behalf of behavioral-health programs at Nationwide Children’s Hospital. The discount retailer started its drive in 2015 and raised $3.6 million last year.

Winning Tactics

Several of the campaigns included in the survey saw gains by adopting new tactics in their efforts to raise money. Among them:

• The Albertsons Companies saw fundraising for charity jump 174 percent, thanks in part to a merger in 2015 with another supermarket giant, Safeway. Albertsons reported raising $3.8 million, but that total doesn’t include all the efforts by its far-flung stores to raise money for local and regional social-service groups.

Since the merger, the organization has given authority on which causes to support to its 14 operating regions, rather than making those decisions at its Boise, Idaho, headquarters. Customers, its foundation says, have responded to the local focus.

• Ace Hardware, which raised $2.6 million in 2016 for Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals, up 127 percent over 2014, began asking customers to “round up” their purchase bills for the charity. The practice was in addition to other ways Ace customers were already being asked to give.
• Panda Express, which also raises money for Children’s Miracle Network, hauled in $9.7 million from customers in 2016, up 614 percent. One secret to its success lies in a unique twist on thanking donors. When a customer makes a donation, the cashier rings a bell and all employees holler, “Thank you!”

The practice, which began at a single California location, got the attention of the company’s top executives when the restaurant began posting huge fundraising numbers. Panda Express sent a camera crew to film the boisterous Californians in action, and showed the film at a 2015 leadership training meeting. Now the bells ring at locations nationwide.

Top 10 Checkout-Counter Fundraising Drives in 2016

Source: Engage for Good