Bean, the free fundraising tool.
#1. Where did the idea of a fundraising tool come from?
FARO, a business owned and operated by members of my family, has been in the specialty coffee business for many years. I started working with them last year and shared my desire to bring my own creative touch. I became aware of a question that was often raised by our customers. We indeed had a great deal of requests to participate in fundraising activities. So, we decided to find a way for help our clients raise funds. We were looking for a user-friendly approach that people could use to provide financial help to the cause of their choice. With our solution, practically anybody can create his or her fundraising campaign in less than 5 minutes, whether it’s for a sports team, a school activity or a well-established organisation in your area. Our goal was to make the fundraising campaign readily accessible for as many people as possible using an original approach.
We wanted to develop a very effective fundraising tool. Indeed, people have less and less time to organise old-fashioned fundraising campaigns. Handling the money, managing delivery, dealing with delivery errors, going door-to-door, supervising inventories are all steps that we will handle for you, the fundraiser. With Bean, all you have to do is create a campaign and then get in touch with your contacts via email, social networks or even by phone, which could yield better results. We also believe that our concept is safer for kids who no longer have to walk through the neighborhood after school. In addition, the Bean platform is embedded in today’s world of communications as it uses technologies that everyone can access nowadays. Let’s compare the old and the new methods of fundraising: if you were to knock on 10 doors and be lucky enough to sell 5 chocolate bars, you would raise all of $12.50 (based on a $2.50 profit on each bar), while you would have spent upwards of 30 minutes selling door-to-door and following-up on inventory and money management. With Bean, selling only one package will yield a donation of $15, with no deliveries and no inventory management on your part. This is what I had in mind when developing this fundraising tool.
#3 What makes your product unique?
At FARO, we make sure to deliver freshly roasted, gourmet, biological and fair-trade coffee; these are four value-adding factors in the equation. The added values that are associated with these certifications are in line with today’s consumers’ desire to make responsible purchases. We strongly believe that today’s consumers are mindful of the quality, origin and processing methods inherent to the products they buy.
For more information : www.beancommunity.com
