Yes. CommUnity Merchants are free to engage in any additional sponsorship arrangements they please, with whomever they please. 

Yes. 

You can even open a CommUnity Group account for any community group or charity that you represent, providing that group meets our legal requirements for recognition as a legitimate non-profit group. 

The only restriction is that you will require separate CommUnity accounts for each of your roles. You will not be able to link your accounts and there is no overlapping functionality between account types. For example, you will not be able to see your Merchant details from your Member or Community Group account. This enables us to maintain overall financial transparency, eliminate the possibility of fraud and streamline administration of the system as a whole. This process also maintains confidentiality. 

No, we don’t believe it will. 

CommUnity should not diminish your participation in any regional or national level sponsorship. In fact CommUnity will free up your business to focus on regional and national sponsorship opportunities where the traditional model of advertising in exchange for monetary support can potentially allow you to reach targeted people. This can happen while knowing that supporting your local community is taken care of and your customers are happy as they choose the community groups that receive the funding. 

In addition to encouraging your customers to become CommUnity Members, you can also encourage your suppliers to support you and your business colleagues to become CommUnity Merchants.

You can also make sure that any community groups you or your staff belong to are registered with CommUnity and their members are encouraged to join as well. Remember, every CommUnity Member is a potential customer with a strong motivation to do business with you whenever and wherever possible! 

No. 

It doesn’t matter if a CommUnity Member lives in Invercargill and goes on holiday in Kaitaia. Any time he/she shops in person or online with a CommUnity Merchant, no matter where they are in New Zealand, he/she will be raising funds for his/her chosen CommUnity Groups. 

Any business that is a registered business with the NZ Companies Office and uses a NZ bank account to receive payments from customer/client purchases is eligible to become a CommUnity Merchant.

Yes. 

As a CommUnity Member, you win by directly supporting the causes that are important to you while you shop.  Less fundraising costs and time also helps members. 

CommUnity Groups win by gaining access to an untagged revenue stream that, unlike existing fundraising models, does not divert them from their true purpose as an organisation. 

While funds circulate through CommUnity Merchants, Merchants win by giving customers a powerful incentive to do business with them rather than global online retailers. They also win by having CommUnity handle all the customer loyalty administration for them and by no longer having cumbersome loyalty cards for customers to remember to carry and for their staff to process at the checkout. Plus, they get to show their support for the community that supports them. They fulfil their corporate social responsibility in a way that everyone understands. 

We anticipate strong natural growth for CommUnity via word-of-mouth as CommUnity registered community groups and charities, we believe, will encourage their members to become CommUnity Members and select their own group as one of their three beneficiaries.  

We also hope that CommUnity Merchants will actively encourage their customers to become CommUnity Members in order to retain their future custom. We believe that CommUnity Members will encourage their friends and family to join the movement and help raise money for the causes they care about. 

We know CommUnity has a bright future and that we will grow on the strength of our ideas rather than by aggressive marketing. Our sole focus is on delivering on-going, un-tagged funding to Kiwi communities at the grassroots level, and we know that CommUnity has the potential to become New Zealand’s largest provider of funding in coming years. 

CommUnity was founded with one singular purpose: to deliver as much money to Kiwi communities as possible. A primarily online company with no physical product to manufacture or sell, CommUnity is focused exclusively on creating and maintaining working relationships between New Zealand merchants, the consumer and their communities. We believe that New Zealand’s future will be determined by the vibrancy of its communities. 

To achieve this, CommUnity has been built from the ground up to be lean and agile, operating with the fewest possible overhead expenses. In fact, once we get established, we aim to operate CommUnity on just 3-8% of generated revenue, with everything else going back to New Zealand community groups and charities. 

Before CommUnity, community groups and charities raised money by applying for grants and sponsorship deals, or from direct fundraising activities such as sausage sizzles, cake stalls, or by simply requesting donations. But these methods have significant drawbacks. 

There are always a far greater number of deserving recipients than there is grant money to go around, the same applies to sponsorship requests. There is little if any untagged money that community groups can spend on whatever they choose. 

Seeking private sponsorship is difficult and time-consuming for both the community group and the merchant. Each approach requires a great deal of time and effort to prepare, meaning that any one community group or merchant can only realistically sustain a few such arrangements. For the community group, the hope is that by offering naming rights or advertising space, they can generate funding for their activities. But there is only so much advertising space they can offer and only so many things they can name. For the merchant, the hope is that their endorsement of a community group or charity will bring customers to their business. But few have methods of accurately measuring whether this is being achieved. Nor can even the most generous of merchants afford to directly sponsor everyone who asks. 

Direct fundraising is similarly problematic. Fundraising drives are often time-consuming to the point where they overshadow the primary purpose of the organisation and diminish the satisfaction of participation. Because of this, funding methods are difficult to sustain for long periods. Fundraising often has costs which diminishes the funds that can be raised for the organisation’s activities. Unfortunately, the result often means Community groups and charities are either chronically underfunded or must focus relentlessly on money to the detriment of their work. CommUnity will significantly help with these funding issues. 

You can see the benefits of your participation in CommUnity directly and in real time. CommUnity Merchants can access data & reports on funds raised for CommUnity Groups in their secure dashboard including the number of community groups your business supports, the number of CommUnity Members supporting your business, the age range of CommUnity Members supporting your business, the gender of CommUnity Members supporting your business, the general location of CommUnity Members supporting your business and the CommUnity Member purchasing timeframes. Of course, there is also the ability to change the details of your business and invite others, including your customers, to become part of CommUnity and much more.  

Also you will get tax benefits and your CSR will be taken care of with no complaints from customers. Staff will be happier therdore more loyal as there is no additional administration and no inconvenience to customers. Happy staff, happy customers. All this will benefit your business!

At present merchants, both large and small are regularly approached for sponsorship by a far greater number of community groups than ever before and how could even the most prosperous and generous merchant possibly say ‘yes’ to all?

This presents an ongoing problem for merchants. If they sponsor one community group, another group who was unsuccessful in gaining their sponsorship may take offence and boycott their business. In addition, sponsorship agreements are difficult and time-consuming to negotiate, and there is often no way for a business owner to know whether these agreements are succeeding in bringing the sponsored group’s members to their business to help grow revenue. 

CommUnity finally gives merchants a positive answer to the requests for sponsorship from community groups and charities that they would otherwise have had to refuse. By becoming a CommUnity Merchant and encouraging those community groups and their members to also join CommUnity, the Merchant will be supporting those groups that are the most important to their customers. They will be able to give back to the communities that support them while no longer having to play favourites and run the risk of upsetting sections of their community. With CommUnity, CommUnity Merchants only pay when a CommUnity Member makes a purchase with them. For a CommUnity Merchant, there is no more paying money out before money comes in. Everyone wins! 

It’s no secret that retail is going global. Overseas manufacturing and the internet have made it possible for a handful of large companies to reach customers anywhere in the world. While this has brought many benefits for consumers, it has also come with a cost. All around New Zealand, local merchants have struggled to retain customers in the face of well-resourced global competitors who benefit from vast economies of scale and fewer business overheads, and who have far fewer incentives to return anything to the communities of the individuals who shop with them.  

This not only damages local communities by depriving them of necessary businesses and job opportunities, and it also damages the entire country by removing potential profits from the economy. Unless consumers are given reasons to support local merchants, this harm will only grow. 

But this goes both ways. When consumers perceive businesses, local or global, as being solely focused on profit above all else, they naturally become cynical. It ceases to matter to them where or from whom they buy the goods and services they need and they begin to shop purely on price. And the price advantage is almost always with the global online retailers whose tax advantages and economies of scale make them almost impossible to compete with. 

Here at CommUnity we believe the best way to remedy this is to forge connections between merchants and their customers that go beyond finding the cheapest price; connections that neither party will want to break. By bringing everyone together in service of the local community groups and charities that matter to them, CommUnity hopes to enable these connections. By showing you are willing to give back to your community in a way that global online retailers have no inclination and no incentive to do, you will command the respect and loyalty of that community. And it’s from that community that your customers are drawn. 

The benefits are significant!

In the present environment, most Merchants know they need to be involved in a loyalty program (their Corporate Social Responsibility CSR) – even if it is only because their competitors are and they also know few, if any shoppers change merchants due to a loyalty program. Most shoppers are confused due to the purpose of each program let alone all the cards and understandings required with all the separate schemes. Merchants have significant existing loyalty program costs already built into their overheads (advertising, administration, management as well as the cost of the rebate). If the merchant chose to replace their existing loyalty programs with CommUnity, they may not have any significant additional costs and if they do it will relate to only completed purchases (% contribution) and therefore having the money in before it goes out. CommUnity will simplify this whole area and merchants will end up with happy customers. 

• Have all your Social Responsible (CSR) taken care of.
• Considerable tax benefits – Download annual financial information showing your business % contribution and the Listing Fee and receive the tax benefits.
• Help retain you present customers. Retention is more cost effective than gaining new customers. Happy customers talk to others and your business is protected and loyalty is built both ways.
• The Community app/website allows each store (regional/national office) to list promotions. These promotions will require start and end dates/timeframes.
• Encourage your staff and customers to become CommUnity members, then you will have a constructive answer to the requests for sponsorship from community groups and charities you would otherwise have to refuse.
• Merchants have many existing local sponsorships yet are approached most days for more. Unfortunately, they cannot support all requests. The reality of sponsorships is that they are often divisive as when you give to one and not the other, the ones who miss out are often disgruntled toward the merchant.  The ones who are successful come to expect the support to continue annually yet don’t always support the merchants who sponsor them as well as they should.  Few sponsors can track the level of support they get from the groups they sponsor. 
• When shoppers ask a Merchant for sponsorship or financial support the merchants reply might be – “Join CommUnity and I will support up to three community groups you choose every time you shop here, PLUS CommUnity Groups can eventually apply for funding that shopping here will contribute to, for projects or program development and potentially receive up to 100% of the cost”.
• Merchants receive reports on funds raised for CommUnity Groups, number of community groups your business supports, number of CommUnity Members supporting your business, age range of members supporting your business, gender of members supporting your business, general location of members supporting your business and Member purchasing timeframes. Of course, there is also the ability to change the details of your business and invite others, including your customers, to become part of CommUnity and more.  
• Merchants will be able to promote amounts of community support as CommUnity will make available reports showing how much they are generating. (At present merchants find this difficult as savings relate to individuals, this information has privacy issues).  
• Merchants will know which community groups support them the most and can potentially develop a further relationship that will enhance both. 
• With CommUnity the merchant will only pay approximately 1/3 of the agreed % as they will receive tax benefits for approximately 1/3. They should encourage their suppliers to contribute 1/3, so all in the merchant chain is contributing to New Zealand’s community groups, who are made up of the people they want to buy their product. For example, if a merchant agrees to 4.5%, he/she will only be contributing approximately 1.5% of each purchase. (merchants always could increase the price of product to accommodate any agreed % however some costs already exist in most cases). 
• Merchants within community group memberships, are now in a position where they will get support from their fellow community group members as they are giving as well as gaining from every CommUnity transaction. 
• No additional administration costs and no inconvenience to customers. Merchants in some cases will save costs as there is limited, if any administration, staffing, advertising, resourcing and support required with CommUnity. 
• The CommUnity App directs Members/ shoppers to CommUnity Merchants. Everything that is on the website, including access to reports and Merchant promotions will be available through the CommUnity App. 
• The CommUnity App will become the focus of shopping and will change the way we shop.
• Free advertising using Merchant search function on app/ website.
• Online resources on website for promotion of involvement in CommUnity.
• Merchants should encourage their customers to become CommUnity members creating a positive relationship, helping ensure they carry on as your customers. A QR code will take customers straight to the relevant registration pages as directed from the menu holder on the merchant counter.  
• CommUnity Merchant’s customers are extra happy as all community groups they select are supported and receive untagged money for annual operational expenses to spend how they like. PLUS, they have an opportunity to apply for future project or program funding. The Merchants will be heroes for supporting the community. 
• Merchants are supporting up to three community groups identified by each customer, so all customers are happy – no shopper that is a CommUnity member is refused support.  
• CommUnity bypasses any issues existing loyalty programs have as CommUnity Members will keep coming back to those merchants who are Members of CommUnity and who are good traders, as they are creating a positive shopping environment. Merchants also have their own accounts where they get immediate updates of information relating to funds generated, information relating to shopping trends and much more.
• All CommUnity Merchants will be on a level playing field and those that do the best, will be the best traders – provide the best possible shopping experience. 
• The Merchants who join early will gain an initial competitive advantage of profile over merchants who aren’t involved from the beginning.  

At present each sale you make will have a loyalty cost included, therefore CommUnity may well not cost you anymore than at present. If it does you only pay when CommUnity Members shop with you. 

At present people are confused/suspicious of loyalty programs.  In general, people do not understand them.  With CommUnity you can get on with trading, get rid of the administration and the costs around your existing loyalty programs and focus on having happy customers. You will be able to form a relationship with CommUnity Groups where the more CommUnity Members shop with you, the more their CommUnity Groups will benefit. With CommUnity, the CommUnity Groups get the benefit, which will improve activity levels within Community Groups with less cake stall and sausage sizzles, so everyone benefits.  

There will also be savings to you from the moment you register as a Merchant with CommUnity as maximum funds that you will generate will take time, as not all of your customers will register with CommUnity at the same time, and therefore you will be saving the funds of your old loyalty program for a period of time. During that time you might be saying to your customers they should become CommUnity Members and continue shopping with you so together you can generate funds for their selected community groups.  

There is no risk for your business as you end up with happy customers who save money for their community group, as there are less demands on fees, fundraising issues and time.  

You get all the benefits listed and everything is much simpler than before.  Everyone wins with CommUnity. 

Yes, we capture and process all transactional data via payment methods that you accept in your business including payments made by direct credit (bank to bank), smartphone banking apps, Buy Now/Pay Later transactions, eftpos, debit and credit cards. We also capture data from sales made either in-store or online. 

Much less work than having your own private loyalty program.  With CommUnity there will be little administration work, minimal staffing education and promotional cost and we will supply promotional/educational material to help inform your customers of the opportunity presented by CommUnity. 

You will have your own private account where you will see all the following information: 

• Merchants get reports on funds raised for CommUnity Groups
• Number of community groups your business supports  
• Number of CommUnity Members supporting your business, age range of members supporting your business 
• Gender of members supporting your business  
• General location of members supporting your business  
• Member purchasing timeframes

Of course, there is also the ability to change the details of your business and Send an Invite to others, including your customers, to become part of CommUnity and more. 

All funds will go back to the community in one of two ways. Members can select up to three community groups to support and can change them at any stage. 

CommUnity directs 60% of the income generated from each transaction made by a CommUnity Member at a CommUnity Merchants, to those community groups chosen by the CommUnity member equally (if there are more than one selected by each member).  

This money is untagged, and the recipient CommUnity Group(s) can spend it how they wish. 

The other 40% goes into a fund called The CommUnitiy Fund, and after operational costs, will be distributed to the community by way of application, where it is possible (but not guaranteed) a project or program could be funded up to 100% of the cost. 

The application process will be as brief and as straight forward as possible and depending on the needs, may not require significant time and can span over several years potentially.  

These grants will be subject to ‘audits’ by CommUnity and may need to be repaid if they are not spent as understood by CommUnity. 

The CommUnity Fund may take two or three years to have enough funds to distribute, but we will keep everyone up to date with progress. Our aim is to at least equal the amount of money going into the community that Gaming Machines provide. 

We will have ‘packs’ that provide you with material initially (then the ability to print or distribute your own if you need more), to educate your shoppers about the benefits of CommUnity, identify your business as a CommUnity Merchant and more.  These will be sent to you at the time you register as a CommUnity Merchant or an agreed start time. CommUnity will keep you updated. 

We also suggest the following; 

• You encourage all your customers to become CommUnity members. 
• Train staff to ask the question of customers as to whether they are CommUnity Members and direct them to the resources we provide. 
• Use the resources we send to you to help this process. This will mean you will have more happy shoppers and less people asking for sponsorships. 
• Stay in contact with the CommUnity Groups that support you the most and form a mutually beneficial relationship with them. 
• Encourage all those who want extra funds to apply to The CommUnity Fund for specific funding of projects and facilities. 
• Use the information from your reports to identify strengths and weaknesses in your business, so you can gain more support from CommUnity Members. The information from the reports will be good indicators as to how well the CommUnity Members think you operate as a business – what sort of a trader you are.  For example; if the funds raised for a CommUnity Group is minimal or is less than you expect, then one can conclude that few CommUnity Members are shopping at your business. You might then ask yourself why is that the case? Are prices too high? Are your staff not knowledgeable and happy? Are your processes difficult for customers to understand? Do you not have the right stock? Is our facility not presented well? Is your facility difficult to get to? Is parking difficult? And many more. If the number of CommUnity Groups you support is not very high, you might ask yourself the same questions. If the number of CommUnity Members supporting your business is insignificant, again you might ask yourself the same questions. The age range of CommUnity Members tells you whether you are reaching the customer base you want and if not, you might ask yourself the same questions. The same might apply to the other information in the reports, with the last one, Member purchasing timeframes helping you identify when you need the most and best staff available. All valuable information for each merchant. 
• To support you, CommUnity will; 
• Have media promotions beginning before launch and carrying on right through the life of CommUnity. 
• We believe we will have huge FREE media coverage as most days there are articles about CommUnity Groups who are struggling for money and most media people are involved with groups who need more money – especially untagged money. 
• We will be present on social media, which will be a focus for us. 
• We will target all the local FREE newspapers around New Zealand as they target the local communities that we are focusing on. We will supply material for the publications on a regular basis. 
• We will be targeting the local radio stations as well, in a similar way to the newspapers. 
• All the community groups – perhaps 100,000 – will be supplied material that they can include in their communications to their members. This will be huge as schools, churches, sports clubs, arts and music groups , health, cultural and all other community groups, will be involved as will major national charities.  

Merchants in community groups will now be happy to promote their business as they are giving as well as gaining. Previously merchants felt uncomfortable as they couldn’t sponsor every group they were involve in but still wanted members of their community groups to shop with them. A difficult situation that CommUnity solves. 

There is an ability within CommUnity to Send an Invite to other people to become a member of any kind (Member, Merchant or CommUnity Group).   

CommUnity is for both the National Chains and the smaller local merchant. All will agree a % of every transaction with CommUnity Members to go back to the CommUnity Groups of the Members choice. Both will end up needing to be involved as if they don’t the other merchant group will gain an advantage. For example, if the national chains are slow to get involved then the local merchant gains an advantage, and the chains will be encouraged to be involved and if the national chains are quick to get involved then the local merchants will need to register. 

We have learnt many things through the COVID-19 process with the main one being that we must work together to help each other.  We must be kind to each other and care for people around us.  

With CommUnity, the whole focus is on working together so everyone wins.  

For Merchants (retailers) to stay in business they need shoppers they can rely on and for shoppers to maintain their mental and social health, they need to participate in challenging activities (community groups) outside of work hours. A lot of these activities (community groups) that CommUnity will support, care for each other and/or the environment as well as develop skills that will have a positive impact on others, in all sorts of areas such as sport, music, recreation, cultural, art, education and health.  All of these areas plus religion and social welfare involve people interacting with others and virtually all of these people are shoppers. 

Merchants working with community groups and shoppers supporting merchants is very promotable as CommUnity will, and this good news can be relayed across the country and will only generate more and more positive interactions. 

At present, merchants generally have their own individual loyalty programs that are focused on savings for individuals who then have to choose to be part of community groups where the focus mainly is one of existence (money)rather than the specific activity for which the community groups were started.  This support to individual New Zealanders is difficult for merchants to turn into positive promotions that might generate more and more positivity, due to personal information, privacy and such things. 

The present loyalty options are both multi-layered and confusing. 

CommUnity can operate alongside existing loyalty programs however COVID-19 has presented an opportunity for merchants to start again and be part of a program that is a level playing field for everyone and where money is generated rather than given.  Mental and social health is catered for and shoppers save money and time as their community groups have untagged money and shoppers have more time to be involved in the activities of each community group. 

Out of this crisis will come a positive, easy to understand the opportunity where our communities can work together so that everyone wins. Support of each other is a major component of what has made New Zealand a very special place and CommUnity will help ensure this can continue. It has real potential to play a major role in keeping New Zealand’s population engaged and aware. 

CommUnity – Turning Commerce into Community. 

With CommUnity you get a third back in tax benefits and if you get your suppliers involved for a third (they will also want to help the community), then it will only cost you one third. The minimum percentage we are targeting is 3.0% (we are targeting 4.5% as the average), and so will only cost you 1% or 1.5% if you agree to 4.5%, That is $1 or a $1.50 for a product costing $100 which is not much for either the merchant or the consumer.  We understand you have your methods of recovering your costs and want prices to be consistent, however our research shows that price is not the only determining factor for the consumer and that people will shop with merchants who are supporting causes they like. ( A major piece of research commissioned by a major NZ corporation, tells us 83% of Millennials believe corporates should be more socially responsible, 80% of millennials say corporates should give more to the community. 67% of millennials say they would choose merchants that supported the community when making a purchase). With CommUnity the consumer likes who they have chosen to support therefore they only need to shop at CommUnity merchants to achieve that. The CommUnity app will take them (GPS them) to those CommUnity merchants.

Add to that a merchant is able to post ‘Daily Deals’  and is another feature of the app/website and gives each merchant the ability for each store (or from regional/national level) to list promotions that can be loaded with a start and end date including scheduled timeframes for a year planner. This a free addition to your advertising program.

A merchant is any business that provides goods and/or services either online or in person to a consumer (member) where those transactions require the consumer (member) to make a payment to the merchant in return.

The ‘Listing Fee’ covers a period of 12mths and the annual fee must be paid before a merchant becomes ‘active’ or continues to stay ‘active’ as a CommUnity Merchant in the CommUnity app and website merchant directory.

Each merchant that registers with CommUnity pays a listing fee.  This listing fee is $1000.00 plus GST per store and needs to be paid before a merchant is listed or continues to be listed as a CommUnity Merchant. The Listing Fee covers all the administration costs required for being part of CommUnity infrastructure – the valuable report information you receive, the directing of CommUnity members to your premises and the advertising opportunity that CommUnity provides through the ‘Daily Deals’ which allow each merchant to list promotions on a regular basis.  These promotions can be prescheduled and need a start and end date and will be targeted at CommUnity Members. All for $1000.00 plus GST per year.

$1000.00 plus GST per year.  To find our what you receive for the Listing Fee, visit the FAQ ‘What is a Listing Fee?’

CommUnity takes care of all other costs of the program including costs relating to the supply of transactional data provided by Akahu. There is no additional costs to a CommUnity Merchant over and above the annual listing fee for each site and your chosen % contribution on every CommUnity Member’s purchase.

A merchant might get new customers if they are an early shopping option for CommUnity Members and appear on the CommUnity app from day one.  The GPS system on the app directs shoppers to CommUnity Merchants and as CommUnity will take time to grow then those that are in first is where the CommUnity Members will shop. We know CommUnity will retain customers once everyone is registered as if they are customers and they can choose where the money goes, why would they change?

Yes absolutely! Community Funds Limited trading as CommUnity is a registered New Zealand charity –  charity number CC59084

Yes, a Limited liability company may claim up to 28% of all funds paid to CommUnity, and a sole trader may claim 33.33%.  This includes both the annual listing fee and the amounts contributed through each CommUnity transaction.

Yes, early adopters will receive a number of benefits.  They may get new customers if they are an early shopping option for CommUnity Members as they will appear on the CommUnity app from day one.  The map and GPS system on the app directs shoppers to CommUnity Merchants and as CommUnity will take time to grow then those that are in first, have a much higher chance of attracting new customers who are wanting to generate money for their clubs / charities.

CommUnity will also help retain your current customers, as they can generate money for their favourite causes/charities, without having to shop with a competitor. Happy customers talk to other consumers.

CommUnity also allows you to answer all your sponsorship approaches positively as the community group wanting sponsorship should be encouraged to register and then they encourage their members to join and shop with you. They will then be raising money for whoever they all wish and you will save that up front amount for all requests you choose. You will only be paying out a little every time you get money in.

Good news stories and promotions can be written about you for our platform and for local papers.

Yes, if you process a refund for your customer, our system will pick this up and will reverse the relevant amount that you will be invoiced by CommUnity as part of your % contribution each month.

If your business has both a physical store and an online store, the merchant account number for each of these will be different.  Therefore, we would need to register each store as a separate listing (However, you will only be charged for one listing fee).  As each store will be a separate listing, they will require their own login.  Please note, you cannot use the same email address for both logins.

If you are part of a national group like a franchise owner, which shares an online platform with other businesses/franchise owners, a discussion may be required with your Head Office to discuss the logistics of capturing online purchases.