Giving back Archives

Friday Favorites: Financial Institutions Honor Veterans

By Jim Bruene Posted on November 11, 2016
Categories: Bank of America, Credit Unions, Giving back, Holiday promotions, USAA, Zions Bank

If there’s one thing Americans can agree on, it’s honoring and celebrating the service of our veterans both past and present. Given the contentious election week in the United States, you’d think U.S. financial institutions would be rolling out the red, white and blue on their websites on Veterans Day today. But there was surprisingly little activity at the major banks. Most had the same old-same old on their homepages. Even Navy Federal Credit Union passed on adding anything extra for the day.

The only top-50 banks with Veterans Day graphics were Bank of America, Zions and of course USAA, all displaying page-dominating graphics on their homepages (see below). We also looked at a few credit unions (at random) and found BMI Federal Credit Union and PenFed honoring vets (see below).

**Zions bank homepage featuring Veterans Day homage (11 Nov 2016)**

**USAA homepage on Veterans Day (11 Nov 2016)**

**Bank of America Veterans Day image on homepage (11 Nov 2016)**

penfed-veterans-day-homepage — **PenFed Credit Union homepage on Veterans Day (11 Nov 2016)**

bmi-fcu-vets-day — **BMI Federal Credit Union leads with a Veterans Day announcement (11 Nov 2016)**

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CafeGive Powers Cause Marketing via Facebook

By Jim Bruene Posted on November 29, 2012
Categories: Chase Bank, Facebook, Giving back

The response to Chase Bank’s Community Giving Facebook campaign has been remarkable (except for a few glitches). It’s one of the top social media successes across all industries (see previous post).

If you are looking to do something similar this holiday season (or more likely in 2013), you may want to outsource the tech to a specialist who can help maximize the power of social networks while keeping you from free from any controversy.

There are a number of companies that can help you create Facebook apps. For example, we were recently briefed by a newcomer that has been getting some traction recently with a large U.S. bank and several credit unions, CafeGive.

CafeGive-powered financial institution examples:

US Bank ran a successful program earlier this year in partnership with the Oregon State Activities Association. In a strategy reminiscent of Chase Community Giving, the bank invited the community to nominate and vote (see inset; case study). Six winning high schools each received $2,500. The bank is expected to run the promotion again in 2013.
Patelco Credit Union is using a simple fundraising app they were able to deploy within a few days after Hurricane Sandy hit the Northeast USA (see screenshot 1 – 4). The app includes a progress bar, updated in real-time, showing progress towards the goal.
Alaska’s Credit Union 1 is donating $1 per like to the Food Bank of Alaska (see screenshot 5 & 6)

Many marketers have mixed feelings about cause marketing. On the one hand you are bragging about how generous you are while at the same time convincing your CFO that there is a positive ROI. But regardless of your motives, you want to get as much bang for your buck. Outsourcing the plumbing makes a lot of sense for these less-frequent programs.

Bottom line: It’s win-win. You do the right thing and it improves your brand image and boosts employee morale.

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Patelco Credit Union

1. Patelco features its CafeGive-powered donation app on its main Facebook page (link; 29 Nov 2012)

2. Simple donation page with progress meter (link; 29 Nov 2012)

3. Co-branded payment page powered by PayPal

4. After completing the PayPal process, a thank-you page shows the progress bar updated with the new donation

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Credit Union 1

5. Credit Union 1 showcases "like us | give" link on its main Facebook page (link; 29 Nov 2012)

6. CafeGive-powered "like us" promotion pays out $1 per like (link)

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Notes:
1. According to CafeGive Founder Sandra Morris, consumers gravitate towards brands with a conscious. She cites a survey that showed the top-3 reasons millennials gave for using a brand were: a) convenience, b) online services, and c) give back.
2. See our Online Banking Report "Banking in Facebook" (published Feb. 2012, subscription)

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Great PR: Fast Company’s "One Bank to Love," Triodos Bank

By Jim Bruene Posted on March 25, 2010
Categories: Giving back, Green Marketing, Public Relations, Vancity CU

One magazine I always look forward to receiving is Fast Company, not only do they love the same companies as we, but their pages are chock full of ideas and real-world case studies. I find something inspiring in every issue.

But I was surprised to spot (April issue) this headline in the upper-left corner of the cover —

One Bank to Love

— and immediately thought of Vancity. But the object of Fast Company’s affection this month was Triodos Bank, a Dutch bank founded in 1980 (company timeline) with a mission similar to my Vancity friends in Vancouver. Wikipedia says Triodos is a pioneer in ethical banking and that it “lends only to companies and nonprofits with social or ecological benefits.”

And to prove that they follow this mantra, Triodos maintains an open database of the organizations it lends to. You can search by country and sector, or narrow your search to specific topics such as “wind farms” (see UK results below).

Search results at Triodos Bank UK for “wind farms” (link, 24 March 2010)

Relevance to Netbankers
While many negative stories have yet to run, the tide may be about to turn. The press will increasingly be looking for positive stories where banks and credit unions are helping customers and small businesses flourish. You can help by identifying individual success stories within your customer base.

Or go full bore with a searchable database of your commercial loan customers, especially those in nonprofit sectors. Naturally, this requires written consent from your clients, but if there’s something in it for them (e.g., free publicity), you should get quite a few takers.

If that’s a little too open, you could anonymously map commercial loan recipients (similar to the screenshot above). That would demonstrate your involvement in various communities/neighborhoods without a lengthy consent process.

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Banks Help Fundraising Efforts for Haiti Relief

By Jim Bruene Posted on January 18, 2010
Categories: Advertising & Promotion, Bill payment, Giving back, Online Resources (ORCC)

One of the lasting benefits of the Internet is it’s ability to quickly rally resources. The latest proof point: raising funds for Haitian earthquake relief. The big Internet companies, such as Amazon, Google, Bing, Craigslist and PayPal, post links almost immediately to provide site visitors with a trusted path to donate funds (see screenshots below).

Consumers trust those companies and visit frequently, so it’s a great way to raise awareness and funds. But there’s another group of Internet powerhouses that historically have not participated in Web-based fundraising: financial institutions.

Even during the New Orleans flooding in 2005, we found only three top-50 banks linking to the Red Cross. It’s not a whole lot better this time. But one major bank, Citibank, has a homepage link to earthquake relief (screenshots below). Also, we found two other top-50 banks with homepage links: Astoria Federal and Webster Bank (see screenshots below). None of the largest 10 credit unions had links up on Saturday.

Several major banks, such as Wells Fargo and Chase, have homepage references to their own donations, but no way for their customers to participate directly.

Online bill-pay fundraising
Another welcome addition to bank-enabled fundraising was launched by Online Resources just two days after the earthquake hit. The bill-pay provider created banners and splash pages for its clients to use in publicizing the availability of bank bill pay for use in donating to the Red Cross (see inset right and top of the page; link to ORCC page with examples).

As of Friday, ORCC had commitments from about 10 clients to participate in the effort.

Mobile fundraising
It was also interesting to see the role mobile is taking in the current crisis. Websites and television networks have done a great job publicizing a simple way to donate $10 to the Red Cross: text “Haiti” to the shortcode 90999. Once you authorize the transaction via a return text message, $10 is automatically added to your mobile phone bill. The service is powered by mGive, a nonprofit based in Colorado. In a Friday blog post, the organization said $8.5 million had been raised so far, a number likely exceeding $10 million by now.

Banks with links: Citibank, Astoria, and Webster Bank (18 Jan. 2010)

Links for Haitian relief at Google, PayPal, Amazon, Craigslist, and Microsoft Bing (18 Jan. 2010, 11 AM PDT)

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Donors Choose Checkout Includes Amazon Payments along with Facebook and Twitter Integration

By Jim Bruene Posted on October 13, 2009
Categories: Alt Payments, Amazon.com, Facebook, Giving back, Twitter

I love how the Internet removes friction from everyday tasks, especially payment-related ones. And one of the great success stories of recent years, beginning with Hurricane Katrina relief in August 2005, is how easy it is to make charitable gifts online.

I’ve used the Red Cross site several times. It gets the job done, but not with the flair and superb user experience of Donors Choose (note 1).

Thanks to Fred Wilson, blogging at A VC, I contributed to the Social Media Challenge last week and got a first-hand look at Donors Choose. The simple checkout process has three features that I’d not seen before:

Amazon Payments as a payment choice (along with PayPal, credit card, or check; first screenshot)
Automated Facebook wall post integration (second screenshot)
Automated Twitter posting with two options:
— allow Donors Choose to Tweet a thank-you to you referencing your @twittername
— provides a template for you to make a Tweet from your own Twitter account

If you want to see a state-of-the-art checkout system in action, and support kids in the classroom, check out Donors Choose.

Or if you are looking to add a charitable-giving feature to your banking site for the holidays, you can easily create your own giving page at Donors Choose and run a widget on your website tracking the campaign’s progress (see inset). You can choose which projects to support so long as they fall within the nonprofit’s mission of “helping students in need.”

Donors Choose cart with Amazon Payments and PayPal integration (13 Oct 2009)

Facebook wall post integration
This screen popped up after I checked out

Twitter integration

Donors Choose shout-out page on Twitter (link)
Note: First Tweet was Sep 29. Have done 342 since then (through 13 Oct 2009).

Note:
1. My first donation via Amazon Payments failed because I accidentally used a canceled credit card number. And evidently there is a bit of a bug in the feedback loop to the Donors Choose site. I got an error message, but when I clicked “next” to re-enter the payment, the site transferred me out to the thank-you page and I was unable to go back and re-do the transaction. I had to start all over again, and now the site shows that I’ve made two donations instead of one.

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