Giving Back Equals Gain
by Jessica High

Feeling stumped in your fundraising efforts? Wondering what would really inspire people to give? Sometimes, it takes some giving on your part. Consider the story of Purolator, a Canadian company, which started with a small idea and a little creative thinking.

 

Purolator started a “tackle hunger” campaign to help support Canadian food banks by asking people who attended Canadian Football League games to bring canned food donations. "We wanted to pick something that aligned with us and food banks deliver critical items on a daily basis just like we do as a courier company, so it was a good fit,” said Tim Maloney, manager of corporate sponsorship and field marketing for Purolator Canada.

 

However, they decided to go beyond asking for food donations and give back to the people who helped them out. Those who donated also got to have their picture taken next to various iconic sports items such as important trophies, etc.  The people could then get their photo from a Purolator-branded website, be entered to win tickets to a big sporting event, and fill out a short survey.

 

"We were pleasantly surprised at the number of web hits we got," Maloney says. "It confirmed the impact of the Grey Cup and people's love for the CFL, but it also confirmed we had the right incentive in place for people to donate because the retrial rates of those photos are extremely high." What was more impressive though were the statistics on how much food was donated.

 

In the last five years, Purolator has gathered more than 1.75 million pounds of food for food banks across the country.  This has increased the courier company's customer relations, brand recognition, business development and media exposure. We haven't ignored the recent trend where there's a difference between social marketing and philanthropy, which is just giving donations without any sort of return," Maloney says. "Through giving back to the community the way that we are and raising donations for the food bank, there is an indirect benefit back to our company and to our bottom line."

 

The biggest success sometimes comes from the simplest of ideas and the biggest of hearts.

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