It’s All in the Cards – OvationWorx Revolutionizes Non-Profit Gifting

An Example of a Custom-Branded Gift Card

So today I met with Josh Warren, President and Founder of OvationWorx Inc., a company devoted to “…helping companies engage, motivate, and reward those who matter to them most” – namely employees, customers and sales staff.  And let me tell you, I’m beyond excited about our conversation (If you’re a Development Officer in a medium to large Non-Profit organization, trust me…you’re going to want to read this post all the way through).

Pioneer of the term, “SRM”, or “Sales Recognition Management”, OvationWorx is in business to revolutionize the way reward and incentive programs are implemented and managed.

After witnessing firsthand the dismal state of affairs that exists today in current sales incentive and employee motivation programs (think catalog of random items where a toaster oven costs 50,000 “points” or a non-motivating sales reward trip the same guy wins each year), Josh Warren and co-founder John Cava figured there had to be a better way.  Solution:  a strategic reward and incentive program featuring brand-able AmEx gift cards, redeemable at over 170 selected retail, travel and entertainment establishments of the employee’s choice and a back-end platform to manage incentive programs for sales staff, employees or customers.

Josh can talk for hours on the benefits of this type of reward and incentive program (they’re more green, have a proven ROI, research supports using items with “trophy” value versus cash, better employee engagement, etc.) but co-founder John Cava’s summation probably suffices.  “If your company is buying gift cards, we have a better one.”

And companies DO already spend a serious chunk of change for incentive and reward programs, both for employees and customers.  I about choked on my latte when Josh informed me that companies spend over $50 BILLION annually in travel and merchandise programs (around $127 BILLION if you included cash awards).  Wowzers.

Now for the part that I think is WAY cool about OvationWorx and an opportunity for savvy Development Officers out there.  Josh explained how a non-profit organization might capitalize on this type of program with their business partners.

Say I’m a Development Officer and one of my partners is a major car dealership.  I work with OvationWorx to produce a customized gift card featuring my non-profit organization, put my logo on it and the logo of the car dealership.  Then the car dealership purchases gift cards as a promotion and hands them out to customers doing a test drive.   As a monetary benefit, the non-profit organization gets a fixed amount per gift card purchased and a percentage when the card is redeemed.   The car dealership is able to offer an incentive to customers AND let them know a portion of the proceeds benefits the non-profit organization.

And it gets better.  Say my non-profit organization also has a business partner in the insurance industry.  As the Development Officer, I turn around and use the same custom-branded gift cards and use the insurance company logo this time.  The insurance company then uses these gift cards for their sales incentives programs, mentioning that a portion of the proceeds benefits the non-profit organization.  Again, the non-profit organization gets a monetary reward and some additional visibility.  The insurance company gets a more effective way to execute and track their sales incentives programs AND the added benefit of showing their employees their commitment to the community.

You could do this all day long with a variety of partners.

I love this for several reasons:

-       Flexible.  This gift card program gives the non-profit organization a way to think creatively and proactively on behalf of their business partners.  There are endless ways to use gift cards for employee incentive programs, length of service awards, sales force incentives and contests, customer incentives or rewards…the list goes on and on.

-       Proactive.  We all know this is a new economy.  Many employers are downsizing and are challenged to effectively motivate the employees that remain.  “Employee Engagement” is the new buzzword in human resource circles.  “Sales 2.0” is all about helping your sales force become more productive.  These gift cards are about helping your partners help themselves (while helping you, the non-profit organization, as a low-maintenance added benefit).

-       Classy.  How cool would it be to have a visual of your non-profit organization front and center in someone’s wallet, carried around with them daily and referred to often?  Oh, and these gift cards are reloadable, so it’s entirely possible the shelf life would be long.  What a great visual anchor to have your logo subtly associated with someone’s billfold!  ‘Nuf said.

-       Recruitment Tool.  Think how powerful this gift card program would be as a recruitment tool for new potential partners.  It’s different, highly visible, valuable to a partner and simple to implement.