How to Make Giving a Commercial Lever | #655

There's a link in ecommerce that mostly goes unsaid, and it's a slightly awkward one: the connection between giving and commercial benefit. When a brand partners with a charity, they're doing it for the right reason. But to get it off the ground and keep it alive when budgets tighten, they usually have to rationalise it commercially, and that's the part that feels a bit icky to say out loud.

It shouldn't. GoGenerosity carries a real commercial upside, and being honest about that is often the very thing that lets the good happen at all. The thing worth chasing is the win-win-win: a win for the retailer, a win for the charity, and a win for the community in need. Get all three and it's powerful. Miss one and it falls over.

This came out of a conversation with Rohan McCloskey, founder of GoGenerosity, a pay-it-forward platform that turns small customer donations at the checkout into full-value gift cards for people in need, without ever touching the retailer's margin. Rohan has since sold the business. This episode was co-hosted by Rosa Willis.

In this playbook, we cover three things ecommerce operators need to know about making giving a commercial lever:

• Let purpose lead, but give it a commercial backbone so it isn't the first thing cut when the year gets tight
• Weave the giving into the problem you're already solving for the customer, rather than a guilt trip at the checkout
• Make the impact visible and pick a cause that fits, because alignment plus visibility turns a giving feature into a real relationship

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