Rally for Community Non-Profits with Change

By Pat Burns, General Manager

You may have noticed that we started a new donation program in October, called Rally for Change. Cashiers ask, when you check out, if you’d like to round up your order to the nearest dollar to benefit our non-profit community partners. Since October, we’ve had feedback on both sides of the fence – some from customers who appreciate the opportunity to donate change and others who prefer not to be asked. We continue to refine the program and find ways to balance how we talk to customers with making sure that no one feels pressured to give or that there’s any sense of expectation coming from us.  

We’ve been working behind the scenes on Rally for Change for months, researching what other co-ops are doing and trying to find different ways to draw attention to many of the local non-profits in the area that are doing great work for our community. We know we have many Members who are already giving to these non-profits, myself included, and on the other side of that, many Members who are not able or not interested in donating. We think that there is enough to be gained in the community by working through any kinks in the program and continuing to find ways to talk about it with customers that don’t feel judgmental or lead with expectations.

What did we notice in prior years that led us in this direction? We’ve been offering “tear off” tags at each register for years now, so customers could donate set amounts of money directly to the Chittenden Emergency Food Shelf. Over the years, we’ve updated these signs, but participation (and thus donations) decreased almost 15% in fiscal year 2014 versus fiscal year 2015 (a difference of almost $4,600). So we have multiple goals for this new Rally for Change program: support the many local non-profits in our community that are working to affect positive change; offer greater support to our neighbors through the Chittenden Emergency Food Shelf; find easy ways for customers who wish to and are able to donate change (but not negatively affect any larger donations they might make to these same non-profits).

Originally, we thought about starting a City Market fund into which we would deposit the rounded-up change so we could donate to a variety of non-profits throughout the year. In order to consider the Rally for Change proceeds as donations from our customers and Members, though, we need to tell you exactly where the money is going. This led us to the idea that we could streamline all of the donation programs into one through our Rally for Change program.

Each month, 40% of the donations go directly to the Chittenden Emergency Food Shelf. We also offer rotating spots for a 10% partner and a 50% partner. Our 50% partners are generally part of our Community Outreach Partner program and are working to strengthen the local food system or alleviate childhood hunger. Our 10% partners are local non-profits doing great work in our community, but who might not be aligned directly with the food system or food insecurity.

In the first 4 months of our Rally for Change program, almost 103,000 customers have donated over $40,000 in change, with an average donation of $0.38 (it’s amazing how change adds up!). Over $16,000 of these donations was sent straight to the Chittenden Emergency Food Shelf. This is an increase of 34% over the same 4 months of last year (with the tear off tags)! A total of over $4,000 was donated to 4 of our Community Outreach Partners and over $20,000 was donated to 4 different non-profit partners.

When we all work together cooperatively, we certainly make a collective difference. So whether you are able and choose to round up your transactions at the register or not, I wanted to share more information about the origins of this new program. Our over 10,600 Members choose to engage in the Co-op in many ways, large and small (shopping is one of the ways you engage with us on a very regular basis!), and this is just one more opportunity. Thank you for all you do to make this your Co-op. Feel free to introduce yourself the next time you're in and let me know what you think.