
	Pathmark AutoGive Operations Manual

Pathmark AutoGive Operations Manual
Available to any Nonprofit located in Morris and Essex Counties

Background - Nonprofit Organizations (NPOs) face major obstacles including:

A constant need to raise funds for their programs.
A need to repeat fundraising programs - often weekly or monthly
Spending excessive time -- administrating fundraising activities

Purpose of AutoGive - AutoGive is a supermarket loyalty / incremental sales program, that was invented by Every Penny Counts, Inc., (EPC) to relieve NPOs of some of the above stated difficulties.

AutoGive allows NPOs to enroll their supporters in a passionate shopping program that earns the NPOs a 1% rebate based upon the amount of qualified spending at Pathmark stores. To use the system, an AutoGiver (effectively an NPO shopper/supporter) simply:

Registers their Pathmark Advantage Club Card number with their participating favorite nonprofit.
Simply scans their loyalty card, as usual, at Pathmark every time they shop.

EPC's proprietary Point of Sale (POS) and host software keeps track of the amount spent for each AutoGiver and computes the amount of rebate due for each four to five week Shopping Cycle.

Nonprofits who enroll in the AutoGive program need to understand that the program only economically works for Pathmark -- when AutoGive:

attracts new shoppers
returns former customers
minimizes the cross shopping in other supermarkets
elevates more shoppers to become “premier customers” who spend $250 or more per month

Rebate Qualification - Based upon four years of offering the program to NJ nonprofits, EPC has found that we can get supermarkets happily involved in AutoGive, if we provide them with a guaranteed way to cover the cost of the program. In order to control the outside chance, that the cost to Pathmark (for offering the AutoGive program) could become uncontrollable, EPC recommended that Pathmark offer the +10% guaranteed AutoGive program.

In light of this reality, EPC has set up the Pathmark AutoGive program under the following terms and conditions:

For the term of October 2002 to June 2004, Pathmark offers a +10% AutoGive program to NPO organizations that are located in Essex or Morris Counties in NJ. When a qualified NPO joins the Pathmark AutoGive program, any of its supporters may shop at a Pathmark store and earn a 1% cash rebate based upon their spending at Pathmark after deducting all coupons, discounts, gift certificates, credits, and sales tax.

Under this version of the AutoGive program, Pathmark will pay the full 1% cash rebate to the registered Essex and Morris NPOs, as long as the NPOs as a group achieve a cumulative 10% increase in sales, as compared to the same shopping cycle for the previous year.

In the event that a cycle report shows less than a 10% cumulative sales increase, EPC will downward adjust Pathmark's payout to create an amount equivalent to a 10% increase in sales. If EPC needs to make monthly distributions of less than 100% of the available 1% payout, EPC will lower the donation amount to individual NPOs, based upon their level of performance, i.e. NPO organizations with less than a cumulative +10% increase in spending will bear the burden of the reduction, according to their relative performance.

Note: In testing the AutoGive program, with 28 Morris County NPOs, the NPOs, as a group, achieved a +18.9% increase in sales in their Pathmark shopping. Based upon this result, and the results of other AutoGive programs -- in two other NJ supermarket chains -- it is expected that Essex and Morris County NPOs will be able to achieve a +10% increase in sales for the NPO group, as a whole.

+10% Qualification Exemption - All Morris County NPOs that enrolled in AutoGive prior to June 2002 are exempt from the +10% Qualification requirement.

AutoGive Payments to Nonprofits by ACH (Automatic Clearinghouse) Deposit - In order to bring the highest level of service to EPC Nonprofits, EPC automatically “direct deposits” rebates into the nonprofit’s checking account.

For a NPO to receive a direct deposit -- at the time of their organization’s enrollment -- they simply enter in their Bank, Checking Account Number and Bank Routing Number.

Note: Please be advised that ACH is a bank certified and regulated way to send money to another account. EPC does not have access to your checking account or any of your checking account information. EPC is only authorized to deposit money into your checking account. In addition to sending an ACH to your checking account, EPC will also notify you by email of the exact date when your rebates will be deposited.

ACH Timing - Within five business days of receiving the check from Pathmark, EPC will ACH the rebates to the NPOs. There is no charge to the nonprofit for this service.

Registration of Nonprofit Organization (NPO) - Click on NPO Enrollment.

Enrollment of Supporters - After a NPO enrolls, you will be escorted to your nonprofit’s Hub Page where you can click on Marketing to Supporters for a customized Supporter Enrollment Form, Website Links, and Email Solicitations. The customized Supporter Enrollment Form should be duplicated and distributed to your supporters. Once a supporter fills out and signs the form you will then do the following:

(1) Data Transmittal - Go to Login and you will be escorted to your nonprofit’s Hub Page. Click on Enroll Supporters and enter each enrollee's information. Enrolling the supporter's correct information is the responsibility of the nonprofit. When viewing their current month's Activity Report, if a nonprofit sees an error, they will have to correct the supporter’s information. Rebates are not retroactive; therefore, the supporter with the incorrect card number will not be credited with shopping for that current Shopping Cycle.

After submitting your supporters' information, check your Supporter List. Please confirm that the information was entered correctly. If you are having a problem, please contact EPC at enrollment@epc.net or call 732-450-2424.

Open Enrollment - The AutoGive program allows for ongoing enrollment. You can constantly add names of new AutoGivers. The most recent nonprofit enrollment received by EPC, for a particular Pathmark Advantage Club Card, will supersede any previous enrollment made with EPC for that card.

Be sure to enter your enrollees by the end of the posted Shopping Cycle to assure that proper credit will be given to your organization.

Note: On the AutoGive Enrollment Form, your supporters will list the number of their Pathmark Advantage Club Card. If they do not have a Pathmark card, they should go to a Pathmark Courtesy Desk and ask for one. Once a supporter gives you their Pathmark card number, the card can be used immediately to earn AutoGive rebates. A supporter should not return an Enrollment Form to your organization unless they list their Pathmark Advantage Club Card number.

A husband and wife may have the same card number. The rebates are credited by card number, not the person. If you enroll two people using the same card number, one of those people will be purged from your Supporter List.

(2) Forwarding of Signed Enrollment Forms - After you fill in your supporters’ information, you will need to fax (732-450-2428) or U.S. mail (Every Penny Counts, 227 East Bergen Place, Red Bank, NJ 07701) copies of each supporter’s signed enrollment form to EPC. This is requirement of the current “privacy regulations” that supermarkets need to follow. They will not be able to release customer shopping information unless they have a signed release. Without the current and past shopping information, EPC will be unable to calculate the monthly rebates.

(3) Refreshing Your Supporter List - On an annual basis we recommend to all participating NPOs that you carefully search your member list to determine the supporters who are no longer active AutoGivers, i.e. families whose children have graduated or moved away. If at all possible, when you remove them you should tell them that their shopping will no longer count for your organization. You could also encourage then to renew their involvement in AutoGive by selecting a new NPO that they are passionate about, i.e. their high school band, church, etc.

Communications - All notices and messages are sent electronically to nonprofit organizations. Therefore, please provide us with at least two email contact persons to whom we can send news and updates. (We know from experience that having two email addresses is a fail-safe approach, as one contact person may be sick, on vacation, etc. and be unable to report to the organization.) It is the email contact persons’ responsibility to inform their organization of any updates, etc. If a contact person changes, please edit your Enrollment Information (available on your Hub Page) with the change of the contact's name and email address.

Besides sending emails to your contact people, we also post them on the Internet. Links to general Current and Past Emails are located on your nonprofit’s Hub Page.

Report Review - The following reports will be available online for each nonprofit on their Hub Page, accessed by a User Name and Password.

Activity Report contains the number of visits, amount spent, and the donation generated for each individual supporter who was active that month.
Inactivity Report lists the names of those in the NPO who enrolled for the AutoGive program, but did not shop the previous month.
Qualification Report tells how your shoppers have increased/decreased their spending over the same month of the previous year.
Supporter List is a list of current and past supporters.

These reports should be reviewed monthly to verify that the report data matches the data that you submitted. If there are any errors, please notify EPC immediately so they can be corrected. Corrections will be applied for the next month. EPC is not responsible for data entry errors.

Note: Shopping information is received once a month from Pathmark at the end of the Shopping Cycle. The data is then processed by Every Penny Counts. EPC notifies nonprofits by email when the above Reports for the previous month are posted on your individual nonprofit’s Hub Page. This occurs approximately four weeks after the end of each Shopping Cycle.

Formula for Success with AutoGive - We have found the key to success for our nonprofits is to make sure they:

1. Enroll new shoppers for Pathmark.

2. Encourage existing Pathmark shoppers to reduce or eliminate their shopping at other supermarkets, convenience stores, etc.

3. Ask existing customers to also increase their spending just by purchasing those little “extras” (which they have to buy anyway) at Pathmark, e.g. flowers, plants, birthday cakes, greeting cards, presents, etc.

4. Review the monthly spending report they receive from EPC so they can determine how they may improve the performance of their supporters.

Successful Promotion of AutoGive - NPOs that have earned substantial revenue from EPC fundraisers usually do the following:

Encourage their supporters to enroll their family members and friends who can shop at Pathmark.
Have one person to head up the program and take ownership of the concept. That person would then be able to answer any questions that may come from your supporters.
Give special treats to classes that bring in a certain percentage of Enrollment Forms.
Frequent reinforcement the benefits of the AutoGive program by word of mouth, church bulletins, and inclusion in periodic mailings to their supporters.
Include a Pathmark AutoGive column in the church or school bulletin, special mailings, etc.
Announce the Pathmark AutoGive program at regular meetings, signs, telephone committee follow-up, etc.
Set up telephone committees to reach out to the supporters who do not regularly attend meetings or services.
Display signage serves as a frequent reminder to supporters. (On request, EPC will provide customized 8 ½ X 11 signs at no cost to your organization.)
Frequently provide reinforcement to supporters making them feel the warm "fuzzies" by knowing that he or she is personally helping the organization.
Telling supporters how the AutoGive funds are being used. Supporters are motivated when they can "visualize the dollars being properly used."
Thank supporters on a frequent basis.
Remind inactive supporters that their participation is very important and would be appreciated.
Thank you for reviewing this information. We always welcome any ideas and suggestions that you may have.

AutoGive never takes a vacation –
it works for you 7 days a week, 365 days a year!

Every Penny Counts, Inc. (EPC) 227 East Bergen Place Red Bank, NJ 07701
Tel: (732) 450-2424 www.EveryPennyCounts.com e-mail corporate@EPC.NET