Does your business raise funds for charity?

[kcsquare]

I work on our Payments team, and I want to learn more about how Square sellers donate money to charitable causes. 

Does your business participate in raising funds for charity? How have you been most successful doing this, or what has been challenging about it? Do you donate a percentage of sales over a time period, ask customers to tack on a donation, or something else?

[applesandmore]

We ask customers to round up to the next quarter or dollar depending on how we feel at the moment.  When they do, we take the change from the cash register (the rounded amount) and put it in a fish bowl on the counter.  

[Sean]

@Dudafun @Ron I'm pretty sure I remember both of y'all talking about how you give back to your community. Your thoughts here would be super valuable! 

[Ron]

We donate a percentage of our monthly sales to 3 Local Charities every month. The 3 charities selected are given the monthly donations each month for the entire year. We use Facebook to let our customers choose which 3 local charities we select at the beginning of each year. We keep everything local only. Through our daily Facebook posts we let customers know that when they dine with us they are helping those less fortunate. This has been a big success for us for the past 10 years. 

[kcsquare]

@applesandmore Rounding up is a great idea! 

@Ron Very cool that you let your customers choose the charities, and that you support local organizations!

[Tritter82]

We have chose a day and promote that a certain percentage of our sales will be donated. Usually 20-25%, although we once helped a family that had a fire, with no insurance, and gave 50% of our sales. 

It's hard to choose which to support so I usually choose more general or those most people may be affected by

[EJ_]

Hi @alanar

I don't usually recommend this since the tipping screen isn't customizable, so you wouldn't be able to inform your customers that the tip is actually a donation.

This also holds true for reporting, as all of your donations will appear as tips in your reports. 

[alanar]

Hello, with the holiday season upon us I too would like my business to participate in a "round up" when a customer is checking out. Is there a way that you can program this into your Square POS system so that Square can keep track? 

[EJ_]

Thanks for sharing your thoughts on this @alanar

Right now there's no way to program Square to track charitable donations for you. It's a great idea though and if anything changes with this feature we'll chime back in and let you know!

[alanar]

What are your thought of using the "tip" setting on Square for this? 

[Ron]

We simply set up a Category called Charity and ring the sales there.