Small streams make big rivers

An innovative method of facilitating charitable donations by rounding up to the nearest euro at store checkouts

Inès is passing through the checkout at her local Franprix supermarket. The cashier asks if she'll accept to round up to the nearest Euro. She agrees. Instead of paying 39 Euros and 27 cents, she pays 40 Euros. Effortlessly, Inès has just donated 63 cents to the French Red Cross or to French Popular Relief, two of the charitable organisations selected by microDON.

This method of collecting donations, dubbed the checkout round up, is based on the concept of embedded generosity, which involves integrating the process of giving into day-to-day activities.

The 63 cents donated by Inès might seem like a tiny contribution, but the accrued sum of all donations in 2015 comes to one million Euros and the money was redistributed amongst more than 350 organisations. In response to these figures Grange is convinced by the words of Pierre Rahbi, in The Legend of the Hummingbird that "small streams make big rivers."

Due to the automation of the round up system at checkouts, 29 Adidas stores in France alone pulled in over 100,000 Euros in donations over five months, despite the fact that 1 in 2 French people have never donated to a charity.

Building on their success, microDON has diversified, implementing the salary round up, which had already been in practice for over 30 years in Great Britain. They've persuaded over 40 companies, such as Henkel and PepsiCo, as well as Maif and La Française des Jeux, to adopt the practice. The system is essentially the same as the checkout round up, with two small differences. The employees can choose the organisation they're donating to, and the company can agree to match the employee's contribution. It's also a way for companies to demonstrate their core values to their employees. Since the implementation of this system Grange assures us that "one in two HR directors has heard about it." They've also implemented an online round up system with Alloresto.fr, as well as a round up on bank statements with BNP Paribas.

Since microDON redistributes 100 percent of donations to charitable organisations, they fund themselves by providing legal, fiscal, accounting and communications consultation services to their partner organisations. This has allowed them to bring in over 600,000 Euros in funding.

The writer can be reached at @demaletcaroline; http://demain.lefigaro.fr; 

cdemalet@lefigaro.fr