Donate 10% of plan amounts to charity, like TPO does

[srlawren]

Hi Public Mobile,

I realize this one is a long shot, but I recently read about an MVNO named TPO that donates 10% of plan costs to a charity of the customer's choosing.  I think this is a tremendously cool idea:

http://www.androidcentral.com/tpo-why-saving-money-cellular-service-never-felt-so-good

https://www.follownews.com/how-becoming-a-tpo-subscriber-can-affect-change-2yt1d

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:NhTxqOd68AAJ:www.androidcentral.com/how-becomin...

I realize this is probably not going to happen, but this would definitely be something else to further differentiate PM in the Canadian market if they were to implement something similar to this.  

Food for thought? *

Thanks for your consideration!

* (c) our dearly missed friend Martin.  I hope he wouldn't mind when I use it from time to time.

[Mana]

Good and thoughtful idea. 

[NDesai]

Ya i highly doubt they would do something like this. There are people who donate on their own and probably won't like the idea of paying some to charity through their phone bill. Instead, they would probably want 10% discount on plans. 

[stonechucker]

I would certainly support this idea, especially with it being a donation to a charity of the members' choice.

I would recommend it be a properly registered charity.

[xCameron94x]

Id rather donate the money myself, because I know for sure that it will actually go somewhere. I am a montly donor for SickKids in Toronto.

I know companies do it (like Apple and RED products) and McHappy day, and while I support what they do, its only a small percentage of the sales that actually go to chairty, and given how much apple charges for their products, they can donate way more.

Keep in mind Bell does "Lets Talk", so perhaps PM can do something similar to that.

[kwirky]

I think you'd be better off with a 10% reduction in plan costs, then just donate it to the charity of your choice. Seems much simpler and you'll get to use the donations as deductions on your tax return anyway.

[Luddite]

Perhaps a slight tweak: matching donation if you designate a charity for your Rewards. 

[srlawren]

Thanks for the feedback everyone, this has been an interesting discussion!

For everyone that already actively supports the charitiy(s) of your choice:  that is fanatstic and I applaud you for it!  

I think that a lot of people have great intentions but maybe either don't have extra to donate, or just aren't very disciplined at doing so on a regular basis.  I was thinking something like this might help.

I know some suggest that they'd rather have a 10% discount and then give the funds themselves to their chosen charity(s).  This is a great idea too but again I think it goes back to my above point in that some people just might not.  It might work well for some folks though!

I do realize that this isn't a perfect idea and not everyone would like it.  I know that parent company definitely does a lot of charitable work and donations, which is great.  I don't really know what--if anything--PM does for charity.  I image that there probably are initiatives, or that a portion of our funds go toward the Telus initiatives.  I guess I like this concept becuase (a) it puts a lot of visibility and transparency to the charitiable efforts, and (b) it gives you control--to stonechucker's point within a menu of verified registered charities of course--as to how your funds are being used to help.  I think it's a simpler setup (for the customers--there would obviously be some admin overhead for PM unfortuantely) rather than a simple rate plan rebate or $ reduction, and it would ensure those funds really are being used as intended.  A major drawback is indeed that you don't get a tax receipt for the donations.  On the other hand, you also don't get one for the money that Telus already donates to their chosen charities out of the money they collect from us.  So I'm thinking that it might not really be any worse for the customer.  You'd still pay the same every month, and you'd still not get a tax writeoff receipt, but you'd know where some of your money is going to charity.  

Anyway just my $0.02.  And yes Ndesai I realize it's probabliy never going to happen.  I just like the concept.  Hypothetically if you had two similar pre-paid operators available to you with similar plans that meet your needs similarily, and running on one of the 3 (well, 2 really due to the Telus/Bell network sharing) major networks, and one gave you this type of charitible flexibility and the other didn't?  Well, I'd go with the latter.  🙂