Image courtesy Serving Up Change
Life is busy, and making it to a community fundraiser at a restaurant on a weeknight right after work doesn't always fit into the schedule. What if you could just purchase a restaurant e-gift card and still donate (and eat), but on your own time?
Johnathan Mayo, co-founder of Serving Up Change, has found the way to do just that.
Johnathan Mayo, co-founder of Serving Up Change (Photo courtesy Serving Up Change)
Mayo, a Richmond native, started the virtual fundraising platform in 2017, uniting restaurants and charitable organizations to make fundraisers more convenient for everyone involved. Serving Up Change recently paired with StartUp Virginia, a nonprofit incubator for entrepreneurs, to take its business model further.
As co-owner of Mama J’s, Mayo is no stranger to the restaurant world and saw the challenges restaurants and organizations faced while trying to coordinate fundraisers, and how would-be diners/donors were restricted.
“I thought, What can I do to get people more connected?” Mayo says. “I thought about the unique opportunity with restaurants because they engage with hundreds of thousands of faces, and that’s an opportunity to reach people.”
Most restaurant fundraisers are "spirit" or community nights, held on specific dates and requiring arrangements between the restaurant and the organization raising money, as well as community members to show up. Serving Up Change can streamline the process, eliminating restrictive time frames and excess paperwork.
An organization creates an online profile on Serving Up Change, finds a host restaurant that fits its needs and sends a virtual request. As with a connection request on social media platforms, the restaurant either accepts or denies the request. If accepted, the fundraiser goes live and gift card sales can begin. When an e-gift card is purchased, a percentage is donated to the fundraiser.
“The consumer can use the gift card anytime they want,” Mayo says. “For the restaurant it makes the process a lot easier. This way works great because they don’t necessarily see a big bump on one day, and the traffic is spread out. The restaurants don’t have to worry about staffing or about managing two different processes.”
Mark Overby, owner of Home Team Grill in The Fan, partnered with Serving Up Change for a Fox Elementary School fundraiser last year and found it successful.
“It seems cutting-edge for these kinds of fundraisers, and when you want people to participate and keep restaurants involved and excited, this works much better than an in-store event,” Overby says. “The success rate is a lot higher for the charity and the organization. People using [gift cards] at their own convenience is a big advantage for the restaurant. The lack of physical cards and no tangible exchange is really nice.”
Say you live out of town and just want to donate — there's an option for that, too, a click away. Restaurateurs and partnering nonprofits also can track sales, see the gift-card redemption rate and look at past fundraisers right from their phones.
“I knew [Mayo] had hit on an avenue that would be greatly beneficial for everyone involved,” Overby says. "It’s rare that something pops up and seems to work for everyone and they all win. The restaurant is looking to give back and get exposure, and that’s exactly what [Serving Up Change] does."
Restaurants currently participating include Cary100, Home Team Grill, Mama J’s, Q Barbeque, Stir Crazy, Quirk Hotel and Sweet Frog. Mayo plans to expand beyond restaurants and include businesses; he has already partnered with SkyZone trampoline park. Training materials are in the works to assist restaurants and organizations so they can use Serving Up Change to its full potential.
The biggest challenge right now is getting more businesses on board. “When you have a concentrated effort like this, people are more likely to participate; if it’s just kind of out there, they don’t,” Mayo says. “This model has that focus around it, and once we get through proof of concept, we can really start accelerating the growth and making a change.”
