Overwhelming Requests for Restaurants to Donate, Donate, Donate: Finally a Tracking System Worth Implementing

Overwhelming Requests for Restaurants to Donate, Donate, Donate: Finally a Tracking System Worth Implementing.

Systems have been put in place at restaurants to make their everyday operations run smoothly, ones they often wondered what they ever did without.  Systems that can make and track reservations, such as Open Table, have transformed the way a restaurant can run its business.

There is another piece of technology hitting restaurants promising to make their everyday operations more efficient while offering benefits such as good community relations, professionalism, and a tracking service bound to help their bottom line.

Restaurants, like hotels and Spas, are often hit up for free donated dinners for the sake of non-profit fundraising, some receiving hundreds of requests a month for donated items.  If you are a restaurant handling these types of requests, there are some important questions to be asked. How much exposure will you get in return for your donation? How much time do you spend handling all these requests?  Are you on or off your donations budget for the year? How much is actually being given away?  How much business is being generated by these donated items?   Tracking this type of information can be time consuming and is normally is put on a forever backburner.

Cutting edge restaurants have started using the latest technology offered by cMarket to explore this untapped arena.   cMarket/BiddingForGood, the leading online auction platform connecting charity auctions, consumers, and commercial item donors is offering a FREE implementation of their interactive Auction Item Request System (AIRS) to companies’ websites to better manage their item donor program.  This allows for item requests to be handled directly through the restaurant’s website, with significantly reduced administrative resources, all while giving a professional experience to the item donor (often an influential member of the local community).

One Example;

UpStairs on the Square, a nationally recognized restaurant located in Cambridge, MA, has been one of the first to implement the system and has started to track the amount of requests they receive, the requests that have been approved or declined, what type of request, what type of organizations have requested items and what percentage of the items donated are being used for specific purposes.  They have a dashboard of all their request information, including monthly tracking charts all in one place.

“We are so pleased at the way our item/donor request system through cMarket/BiddingForGood is working for us and our management team. Not only does the system give us an organized view of evaluating donation requests and fulfilling them in an orderly and timely way, but it also helps us to keep track over the year how much and what we have donated and to whom. We have gone from an anecdotal and disorganized system of donations to one we feel in control of. It also sends inquiring minds to our website—always a good thing. We recommend it highly for all those restaurateurs who often felt, as we did, overwhelmed by the number of requests, and how to handle them” says Mary-Catherine Deibel, owner of Upstairs on the Square.

As easy as it is for the restaurants to use the system, it is just as user friendly for the person making the request.  Organizations can visit the restaurant’s website, click on the item request link, and this will bring them to a form where they can easily complete their type of request.  The system immediately sends the organization an email acknowledging the request and telling them when they will be back in touch avoiding the problem of organizations feeling like they don’t know where they stand. “The professionalism is a key part of the value”, says Chris Parsons, owner of Catch, another nationally recognized Boston restaurant that uses the system.

The system notifies the restaurant of the request and then allows them an approval letter or letter of decline, in a timely fashion.  For those requests which are denied, not all is lost. Within the response letter is an offer from BiddingForGood to find donated items for them.  The organization will then have an opportunity to run an online auction with BiddingForGood, using supplied donated items, including many luxury brands, in efforts to raise funds for their organization.

The program has had a welcomed reception by all those using the system as of date.  The system literally takes moments to set up and offers tracking that would normally take hours to do on a weekly basis. “Charity auction requests are one of the most inefficient parts of my job. I’m glad a system has come along to make this administrative headache go away” says Sean Reardon, VP Marketing, Liberty Hotel, currently using the AIRS system.

Finally, an efficient way to handle requests with real metrics being tracked.