When the economy goes south so do the fundraising totals for most nonprofit organizations. That doesn’t mean that American families have stopped caring about important national and local causes. In a recent study sponsored by the Sears Holding Corporation statistics showed that a majority (81 percent) of Americans remain generous at heart, and admit that if they received a prize or gift, they’d likely donate a portion of the funds to a charity.
It was in this generous spirit of giving that the Billion Points contest was created as an addition to the existing Shop Your Way to Rewards program. The grand prize for the contest is one billion reward points, which is equal one million dollars. The winner personally gets 500 million points to spend as they wish, and the remaining 50 percent of the prize will be donated to a charity of the winner’s choice. For the charitable component, the winner has two options: Give all of the charity points to one or two of Sears Holdings Corporation’s charity partners (Rebuilding Together, St. Jude or March of Dimes). Or give half of the charity points to a Sears Holdings charity partner and the other half to a charity of their choice that meets the qualifications of the contest rules.
Here’s the gist:
1. Shoot and upload a video. Shop Your Way Rewards members can enter the contest by submitting a 45-second personal video message. This should be your decree of why you should win the billion points and what you would do with your winnings. Make it funny, make it sad, make it a desperate plea, make it a musical … just make it stand out. The more videos uploaded, the larger the total points rewarded gets. The prize pool started at 100 million points, and for every video submitted, another 10,000 points will be added. All videos will be posted online at www.billionpoints.com.
2. Get the most votes. America chooses the winner for this contest. So get all of your friends and family to vote for the best video (your video). In fact, get distant relatives, random acquaintances and that stranger you shared inappropriately long eye contact with on the subway to vote. As many votes as possible, and you are on your way to earning one billion points!
3. If you are lucky enough to win the grand prize you’ll decide to which charity you will donate 50 percent of the winnings. And, you’ll need to prepare yourself to shop ’til you drop at Sears, Kmart, Land’s End and others — because the other 50 percent is yours to keep.
The video uploads and initial voting is happening now and will continue until October 5. Contestants from the top 20 videos will continue on to the next round. A grand prize-winner will be announced in mid-November.
Sears’ Senior Vice President of Relationship Marketing Lou Ramery explained the duel effect of this oh so good program, “Creating benefits for our consumers and maintaining our charitable efforts are both key — this campaign creates a way in which we can fulfill these goals simultaneously. It also engages and empowers our consumers by giving them the ability to direct our charitable initiatives. Sears wouldn’t be able succeed without the support of loyal customers, and what better way to show our appreciation than to give them a voice in our corporate social responsibility activities.”
Speaking of CSR, Sears maintains long standing relationships with three key organizations. “Sears Holding Corporation has supported March of Dimes for 26 years, St. Jude for four years and Rebuilding Together for three years. The first two organizations are very closely aligned with Kmart, which focuses a lot of its corporate social responsibility efforts towards children. Sears has a long history of supporting those in the military, so its partnership with Rebuilding Together is very effective since the organization focuses on homes for military families in need.” Ramery said.
Who can argue with this program? It’s good all around!
For more information about Shop Your Way Rewards, go to www.shopyourwayrewards.com.
For more information, about Sears Holdings’ visit their website at http://www.searsholdings.com.
Sears is a sponsor of Tonic’s Thoughtbubble.
Image courtesy of Sears.