Social Investment Exchanges Rounditup Jatropha Platform

What we do

By way of Rounditup operated by GEXSI promotes micro-donations as a powerful "painless" way of raising significant flows for the charitable sector. We are currently developing the first stage of a “Social Bill” project in the UK. The pilot is based on GEXSI’s methodology, and involves: A group of Charities as future beneficiaries of the system promote the scheme within their networks. A corporate sponsor who - in the line of Corporate Social Responsibility - offers customers the option to routinely rounding-up their bills by pence to the next full Pound. A transparent routine for operating the system, which has been developed by GEXSI for Rounditup based on lessons from precursor schemes worldwide.

GEXSI advocates that the time has come to make the rounding up of routine bills a solidarity habit of middle class people the world over.

Features

• Rounditup features the routine, voluntary rounding up of bills to the next full unit (eg £, $ or €). For example, a customer would pay £24 instead of £23.64, with a micro-donation of 36p going automatically to a designated UK registered charity.
• Such rounding can be made of purchases, or pricing mechanisms within a business.
• Rounding of bills is particularly easy to introduce in the context of routine billing (eg utility, telephone, or credit card payments). The principle of rounding bills can also be adopted at retail level (supermarkets, department stores, hotels, ticket offices, etc.).
• Rounding down of salaries or bonuses is a variant of the scheme.
• Customers can choose from a list of qualified charities the one that should benefit from their micro-donation.
• Such micro-donations, or “painless giving”, across a large universe of contributing companies and customers can generate significant sums of money. If, for example, 50 percent of a major British Telephone Company's landline customers decided to participate, the resulting micro-donations could add up to some £ 90 million per year.
• Rounditup can lock in customer commitments, thereby creating predictable flows of funds. As increasing numbers of customers choose to participate, the scheme can grow in to a vehicle that raises significant funds for the charitable sector on a continuous basis.