Noah Glass is the Founder and CEO of Olo, the leading technology platform for the restaurant industry. He is also a member of the Board of Directors of Share Our Strength, the organization behind the No Kid Hungry campaign.
The Cavalry Is Coming
These days, it often feels like we’re losing a battle and the cavalry isn’t coming.
I'd like to challenge that idea.
I think this is the time when individuals can have the most meaningful, systemic impact.
Take Justin Capozzo, for example, Senior Software Engineer for Ordering here at Olo.
A couple of years ago, Billy Shore of Share Our Strength visited Olo HQ for a fireside chat on No Kid Hungry, the campaign to end childhood hunger. In true Billy form, he delivered an inspiring message. Most of us made a donation and then moved on to the next thing in our day.
Justin didn’t.
He kept thinking about what he heard and the reality that millions of children in this country face hunger every day. Then he decided to do something about it.
As a software engineer, Justin writes code all day, every day. He began thinking about how the checkout experience could become a tool for impact.
The idea became what is now called “Round-Up Donations” at Olo, an option at checkout where guests can round up their order to the nearest dollar for a charitable cause, in this case, No Kid Hungry.
We already had an existing charitable donation tool where guests could add $1 or $5 to their order for charity at checkout. After an A/B test, we saw Justin’s Round-Up Donations significantly outperform the existing feature.
40% more donations raised
4x higher guest engagement
25 basis points higher checkout conversion
The most remarkable part was that the average donation was just 36 cents. We have since raised hundreds of thousands of dollars through Round-Up Donations, a pocketful of change at a time.
And we’re just getting started.
Round-Up Donations for No Kid Hungry will be embedded in every checkout experience in our upcoming Olo App to further amplify the good.
Thirty-six cents may not seem like much.
But apply it to every one of Olo’s 1B+ annual transactions, and it becomes $36M per year.
And remember, Olo represents only a small share of restaurant industry transactions.
The restaurant industry as a whole could raise $1.8B per year by attaching a feature like Round-Up Donations to every order.
And it’s all because Justin took it personally and decided to apply both resources and resourcefulness to effect positive change.
That’s the kind of leadership that gives me hope.
Not waiting for someone else.
Just people deciding to act where they are, with what they have.
Thirty-six cents at a time.
The cavalry is coming. We are the cavalry!
