Checkout Charity Grows Even as Economy Dampens Giving

“Embedded giving” at major stores, through either checkout donations or small gifts built into prices, is holding steady as overall contributions to charity decline, The Bay Citizen reports via The New York Times.

While donations to the nation’s largest charities dropped 11 percent last year, according to a Chronicle of Philanthropy analysis, supermarket chain Safeway’s October 2009 breast-cancer campaign raised $18-million, matching the 2008 total. Proceeds this year declined to $16.1 million, but experts expect many campaigns will suffer steeper drops as the recession lingers.

While embedded giving grows in popularity, with other major retailers like Petco, Whole Foods, and Target on board, critics raise concerns that overzealous employees are pestering customers to donate. “It makes it so easy to give,” Lucy Bernholz of philanthropy consultants Blueprint Research & Design said of the practice. “But it has become so pervasive, there is a chance of donor fatigue.”

A British charity is working to build up such checkout giving in that country, pushing technology that would offer shoppers paying by card an option to round up their purchase price and donate the difference, The Telegraph says.

The Pennies Foundation is urging retailers to adopt the technology for their card-reading machines and online sales sites. Dominos Pizza, Britain’s biggest pizza chain, is the first major firm to sign up.

Source: The Chronicle of Philanthropy