Fight hunger with hunger.
That's the aim of MOGL, a restaurant loyalty mobile app that continues to gain credit union partners.
MOGL's premise is simple: Sign up for the app and get cash back for meals out, with the option of donating the money to local food banks.
Currently, the San Diego startup counts nine credit unions as partners. Three additional credit unions are finalizing their participation in the program. (One bank and two airlines have also joined).
Like other rewards apps such as SaveUp, SmartyPig, and The Spring, MOGL requires people to link their cards to the app. Users get 10% cash back when they swipe their connected physical cards at participating restaurants and bars.
MOGL said its software works with hundreds of thousands of cards. The do-good twist is that users can choose to donate their cash back to food banks in the area.
And it's an option that can add up: delivering one meal costs about $0.20. In other words, $10 dollars equals 50 meals. It's also very much in keeping with the credit union movement philosophy of people helping people.
A Satisfied CU Partner
Count Ventura County Credit Union in California as one of MOGL's satisfied partners.
"It's one of the quicker and easiest decisions that I had to make," says Joe Schroeder, president and CEO of the $652 million-asset CU and board member of Food Share Inc., the food bank for Ventura County. "It all lined up."
VCCU counts about 5,200 MOGL users since launching the program in April 2013 and continues to observe membership enrollment growth (the credit union has more than 62,000 members).
Ventura County Credit Union auto-enrolled cardholders who provided email addresses and hadn't opted out of communications. It's also invested about $20,000 in marketing MOGL.
Other credit union partners include Santa Ana Federal CU, Mattel FCU, CalCom, Schools FCU, LA Financial Credit Union, Vons Employees FCU, United Health CU and Eagle Community CU, according to MOGL.
Members who have downloaded the mobile app will receive push notifications or texts about the cash back and/or donations. Currently, those alerts work quickest with Visa cards (and can come within minutes of swiping the card), while MasterCard and American Express can take up to two days. Users can pre-set the percentage of cash back to donate on the app.
Unlike some apps that use Yodlee or Intuit to power the user's ability to link in outside accounts, MOGL has users enter in — or swipe in — their payment data.
The information is sent to the card associations, which send back a token. MOGL does not store any card data.
How VCCU Promotes It
VCCU's promotions for the program include e-mail campaigns, web banners and in-branch associates wearing t-shirts touting the service. Tellers are happy to chat up the program, and with it, the credit union's cards. "It makes [employees] feel better about the place they work," Schroeder noted.
Only one member has expressed privacy concerns, according to Schroeder. "It's great feedback — only one complaint."
The program has the potential to influence members to use VCCU's plastic as their primary payment, he added. Already, the credit union has observed monthly transactions grow among its participating members.
To be sure, members can and do tie other cards to the service — in fact VCCU encourages the practice.
"We want to see the poor and hungry get fed," said Schroeder. "Members get additional value and we help the poor out. It sounds corny but it's what we should be doing: We should be finding ways to give something back to the community and membership."
Another benefit is it benefits the brand. "It's something that isn't political at all," he added. "I haven't found someone who doesn't want to feed the hungry."
And if a person donates the cash back to deliver meals, the tech will "be a gigantic game changer for food banks," Schroeder noted.
Though credit unions — as non-profits — are MOGL's sweet spots, Schroeder sees such tech-enabled loyalty programs coming to other financial institutions, too. "I'd be surprised if more community banks didn't do this," he predicted.
Schroeder is looking to broaden the tech-enabled ways his CU gives back. "I'd love to layer something on top of this," he said. "I'm looking for something this good in another area to help out the community."
Broadly, MOGL is meant to help people "have an easy, easy experience in earning cash back," says Jeff Federman, chief executive and co-founder of MOGL. "It's very 1993 to walk in with a coupon or anything of that nature. Half the time you forget them or are embarrassed to show them."
The mission underscores a growing trend among financial services firms: Merchant-funded rewards are getting modernized for the smartphone.
Bank of America, for example, rolled out BankAmeriDeals to award customers with cash back for their swipes.
Young companies like Fisoc also sell merchant-funded loyalty programs to community banks and credit unions. MOGL offers yet another example of the trend and distinguishes its offering with its charity component and focus on restaurants.
Who Is Participating?
The young company counts more than 2,000 participating restaurants in California and Arizona and says it can launch its program in a new market with 100 users and five restaurants.
To gain users, MOGL stocks restaurants with kiosks that let a person swipe a card to enroll in the program and remove one possible barrier to usage: data entry.
The financial services strategy helps MOGL acquire users quickly, Federman said, adding that it will raise another round of investment in February as it works to expand into Nevada and Florida next and launch 10 more credit union partners into its program by the middle of the first quarter.
"It's the fastest way to grow customers," he said.
Credit unions, in turn, get to offer yet another way to give back to the community through a program designed to keep their cards top of wallet. "If you go out to eat, you're thinking about the credit union," Federman noted. "It's an increase in interchange."
