One World. One Company. One Donation.

When the word sustainability is mentioned in conversation, not everyone has the same understanding of what it means. When you google the term, two definitions are provided:

  1. the ability to be maintained at a certain rate or level.
  2. avoidance of the depletion of natural resources in order to maintain an ecological balance.

No matter how the word fits or does not fit into your life, it is a common buzzword that people, companies and governments are incorporating in their daily lives. Whether or not you agree and participate, sustainability is all around you.  

Do you compost or have recycling picked up at your home or office?

Have you ever seen a street lamp replaced?

Have you ever had a 10 minute oil change?

Are you signed up for paperless billing with your phone, utilities, car, etc.?

In working for a local utility, sustainability has not only been pushed to “maintain an ecological balance” but also to keep utility rates down for our customers. Utilities, like Motel 6, like to keep the light on for you. Lights go out and need to be replaced. Bulbs should not go to the dump for various reasons but mainly because of the mercury in them. Most bulbs are made up of glass, mercury and metal. My utility, crushes these bulbs onsite, then ships them off with a waste contractor who recycles them by sorting the glass, metal and mercury then finding ways to reuse all of these products.

Do you work with a company that requires travel or use some sort of transportation to get to work, that vehicle probably gets a routine oil change. Oil is often recycled through a filtering and refining process which then allows the same oil to be reused. This process can happen an infinite number of times.  

Paperless billing, is a process where companies are reducing their mail costs while being sustainable. If you were to just take the employees at the utility I work for who have signed up for paperless billing, this initiative has saved over a ton of paper per year. Just think of how much paper would be saved if 5% of the total service area moved to paperless billing.       

Years ago I heard on the radio that millennials were more interested in getting information fast and at their fingertips than protecting their identity.  I, on the other hand, really want both. One Donation helps me with this by providing a secure app that I can send a donation to the charity of my choice.  Soon, One Donation is about to add a platform for payroll deduction for companies to donate to their own selected charities.  This process will incorporate a paperless signup (wow sustainable) for companies and utilize HIPPA compliant document exchange to keep employee’s information protected.    

One World – One Company – One Donation

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Payroll Donations – How It Works!

There is a lot of buzz around One Donation and our payroll donation platform. That gets our team really excited but has also led to a lot of questions. For that reason, we created the payroll process flow below in order to answer some of the questions we get asked.

To begin, this process can be initiated in multiple ways:

  • Employers – If you are an employer that is interested in offering payroll donations to your employees, please fill out the form HERE. Once you submit the form, we will follow up with you shortly to discuss the best method for you to begin offering payroll donations. There is no cost to you the employer. One Donation charges a simple $0.50 flat fee per transaction and the remaining balance of the donation gets distributed directly to the non-profit. One Donation can provide secure online forms with any number of designated non-profits you choose or you can choose to leave the decision up to your employees and they can donate to the charity of their choice.
  • Non-Profits – Do you have a database of donors? Payroll donations are a great tool for engaging your subscribers and creating a consistent volume of donations to help your non-profit focus on your mission instead of your funding. If you are a non-profit, please fill out the form HERE and we will follow up with you to discuss the next steps. One Donation will provide a link to an online secure form with your non-profit details pre-filled.

Once the Donor/Employee is contacted, they complete the secure online form which gets submitted to One Donation. One Donation then sends a confirmation email to the donor/employee and a second email with the donation record is sent to the employer. At this point we also follow up with human resources or the accounting department at the employer’s office as needed.

Just like any other payroll deduction, the employer adds the donation as a new line item and on each pay cycle, One Donation receives an EFT and a ledger of donations. One Donation then merges and verifies all records for accuracy and then distributes funds to the appropriate non-profit.

One added benefit of payroll donations comes during tax season. Because the donations are deducted directly from the employee’s payroll check, all donations are recorded directly on their W2.

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One Donation – More Than Just A Phone Application

The One Donation platform has a four-pronged approach to Giving Made Easy.

  1. Phone Application – From our early days we have maintained our original giving made easy phone application. The application gives users the ability to search over 1.5M non-profits, make donations and then track all donations for tax purposes. In the next several months we will update the current application with major design improvements and to reflect our name change to One Donation.
  2. Ecommerce – Quickly after launching the initial phone application, the need for a web based ecommerce solution was obvious. One Donation took the process contained within the phone application and applied that to the web. Now any non-profit can directly link to their online profile and send potential donors to the One Donation website to process donations.
  3. Live Events – With One Donation Live Events, non-profits can manage every facet of their events in one place. They can manage event registration and setup live and/or silent auction items in the platform. Once a payment method is created, the information is saved making all transactions hassle free.
  4. Payroll Donations – By connecting secure online forms with the One Donation platform, payroll donations are an exciting new offering. The consistency of payroll donations offers tremendous stability for non-profits. For employers, payroll donations are a great employee retention tool and employees love the opportunity to give to the non-profit of their choice. All around, payroll donations represent a huge opportunity and a win/win/win for everyone involved.
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Overhead – The 5,000 lb. Elephant In The Room

 

Did you know that the average overhead for a non-profit is 36.9%?

Overhead is popular topic surrounding non-profit efficiency. While there are arguments on both sides of the topic, we will save that debate for another time.

There are a few non-profits that operate in similar circles as One Donation. Without mentioning names, one non-profit we have all heard of relies heavily on payroll donations. This organization boasts a 19% overhead rate; which is really good when compared to the industry average of 36.9%.

But what about One Donation?

At One Donation, because of the structure of our foundation, we are held to an even higher standard than the average non-profit. Of all the funds that pass through the One Donation foundation, we guarantee to send 85% onto their intended non-profit. That means we must maintain less than 15% overhead. While 15% overhead is the acceptable target, we are striving to be in the single digits.

Let’s look at two examples:

Example 1: If someone sets up a recurring payroll donation for $5, One Donation charges our flat fee of $0.50 per transaction. That means we have only 10% going to overhead and 90% going directly to the cause the donor/employee supports.

Example 2: If someone sets up a recurring payroll donation for $10, One Donation charges our flat fee of $0.50 per transaction. That means we have only 5% going to overhead and 95% going directly to the cause the donor/employee supports.

We are able to limit our overhead by utilizing technology. With the use of the proper technology, One Donation does not need a large number of employees or offices located in every major city across the country. We are able to stay lean and ensure that we pass as much from every single donation as possible onto the causes that our donors support.

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