Vroman's Bookstore in Los Angeles held an in-store celebration in February, handing out pieces of cake and $21,000 in checks to the honored guests -- 19 charities. The biggest recipient was the Pasadena Humane Society, which received $4150. The other charities' representatives have vowed to try to reach the Humane Society's level by next August, when Vroman's will hand out another sheaf of checks.
The celebration -- and the money -- were made possible by a new program called "Vroman's Gives Back," which was instituted at the store last July. Under VGB, customers register their support for one of 23 charities. From then on, Vroman's donates 1% of its customers' purchases to the charities they designated. The results have been astounding.
"We've added 10,000 to 12,000 new customers to our mailing list," said Vroman's promotional director, Linda Urban. "It's much better advertising that paying for print ads somewhere." It's also made for much better publicity than just giving charities donations outright, which has been what Vroman's has done in the past. Every one of the charities has a newsletter, which has heavily promoted the VGB program. The more successful charities have encouraged all their board members to become VGB members. They have also suggested that their corporate sponsors register as VGB members, since bulk purchases can really help rack up the amount that's eventually collected by the charity.
"Identifying the organizations that our customers would respond to was one of the most important parts of this program," said Urban, who noted that Vroman's adapted the idea from a program begun in 1995 by Harry W. Schwartz Bookstores in Milwaukee, after owner David Schwartz told members of an Independent Booksellers Consortium meeting about it and heartily encouraged everyone to try it. "We needed to choose charities that focussed on Pasadena, and we decided it was best to avoid any that were religious or political," Urban told PW. "We did respond to customer requests, which is one of the reasons we just added four new charities to the list." Vroman's has capped the number of participating charities at 23, however, fearing that too many charities dividing the customers might make the checks too paltry. "We want our donations to feel substantial, so that both the customers and charities feel this program is making a real difference," said Urban.
Vroman's computer system, Square 1, tracks the purchases automatically. Each customer signs up for one of 23 "book clubs," and the computer d s the rest. "One additional positive effect has been that it enables us to do more direct relationship marketing," said Urban.
Good news travels quickly, and already other stores are beginning to call Vroman's to find out how they, too, can start this win-win program. Boulder Books in Colorado started its program a couple of months ago, while Northshire in Manchester, Vt., is due to start one up in April. "I'm happy to tell other bookstores how we did this," said Urban, "because it's just been so great for everyone involved."
