What is Unite?

Like any other business that wants to be successful, it starts with an idea …

2003 ... The Inception

A local motor vehicle repair centre on the North Shore in Auckland, like any other business, wants to grow their business and having tried traditional advertising and marketing campaigns including everything from newspaper promotions, radio, direct mail, signage campaigns, etc.  They would see an increase in sales during the course of the campaign - however when the campaign (and budget) stopped they would see a drop off in sales until they embarked on another campaign some months later, so the trend for sales was up and down.

A new marketing concept was designed by this business owner and a friend, who has a 20 year history in marketing.  The concept was a rebate programme. Simply put, if a parent, caregiver or grandparent had their car serviced or repaired at this business, 10% of the total cost of the job would go directly back as a rebate in cash to the nominated school.   (It is important to understand that charges were not put up 10% to cover the rebate. Parents, etc were able to see what the cost of a job was from the standard menu board displayed at the business’s premises).

Before they could move ahead on this new idea they approached the principals of two local schools to get their feedback – they loved the idea.

The motor vehicle repair centre then re-directed their current advertising and marketing budget that they traditionally used in newspaper/direct mail etc and took advertising space in the schools newsletters) as well as producing posters and having more presence at the schools gala days.

It took a while for the message to get through to the parents, however a few months later the business started to see a trend - a slow but sure increase in sales with no sharp downturns. They then approached over 10 other schools with the same programme - again it took time, but after a while they saw excellent increases in sales - slowly upwards month to month.

The business also assisted the schools with prizes for gala days and utilizing his premises for sausage sizzles to raise funds for the schools, and accordingly had built up an incredible element of trust with the schools principals.

This motor vehicle repair centre had seen a 14% increase in sales over a two-year period directly attributable to this programme and the schools had received over $5000 in rebates alone due to this sole business’s rebate programme.

This business had earned the trust of the schools and they were extremely grateful for the money received.

2005 ... The Birth of a New Company

The business then approached the schools again and asked if they would be happy if they brought an additional 20 plus businesses with a similar rebate opportunity.  They all agreed but on one condition -we had to control the programme, not them.

Now one vehicle repair centre can’t control all this, so along with his marketing friend and the business owner’s administration manager, they set up a company called The Community Support Company Ltd (TCSCL). 

The rebate programme was simple - businesses paid a fee to join our programme and gain access to the parents of the schools and we (TCSCL) advertised those businesses through bulk marketing, letting the parents and school community know that by making a purchase with any of the businesses, a percentage of that purchase would be paid to their school.  We would collect the purchase receipts from the schools, processed the rebates, bill the businesses for their rebate, which would be paid to us, and then we would then pay the rebates to the schools each month.

It did take time to educate the parents to use these businesses and many of the businesses saw the results of this over a period of time.

By the end of the first year trading under our new name, the rebate programme had paid over $15,000 to local schools on the North Shore.

2006 ... A New Opportunity

The key passion of ours has always been about financially supporting the schools in their ongoing fundraising endeavors.  The rebate programme was great, but we wanted to do more.  An opportunity presented itself in the form of school newsletters.  To date, schools had only ever received free newsletter shells from the printing company who sold the adverts on the back of a school newsletter.

But we wanted to do more than that – we sold the adverts on the back of a school’s newsletter and provided the schools with free paper but we also gave the schools a percentage of the sales revenue as a rebate/fundraiser.  For some schools this would be nearly $1000 per print run.  We started with three schools and paid out over $2000 in rebates for those school newsletters alone.

2007 ... The Next Step Forward

Given the success of the rebate programme to date, we saw opportunities for its growth beyond the North Shore of Auckland, but it needed a more global name – a more definitive and stronger brand name.  In March we launched our new brand, Unite.

At the same time, we knew that our manual rebate system was not going to be the way of the future, although we had helped raise over $41,500 for schools by the end of March 2007, we had to find a way to make it an electronic system and a swipe card was the next step.

In May 2007 we started negotiations with an Australian company that offered an electronic swipe card solution that not only could upgrade our current rebate system but would also offer customers (the cardholders)incredible fuel discounts as well.  The launch of the Unite School Card was set for June 2008.

2008 ... The Evolution

To date we have raised over $72,500 for schools on the North Shore through the Unite Programme, its Business Members and business associates.  Currently we have over 30 schools involved in the Unite Programme, we produce over 20 school newsletters on the North Shore and have over 75 Business Members … and growing!

June 2008 and the pilot launch of the Unite School Card in 16 schools on the North Shore in Auckland has arrived.  During the course of 18 months the number of Business Members grows to 160 and parents are visiting the website to register or apply for a school card.  The Unite School Card replaced the manual receipt based system, turning it into an electronic swipe card making what had been a time consuming manual system into an automated system at point of sale.

2009 ... The Upgrade

By November 2009 Unite had given back to schools nearly $89,000 dollars through it's various fundraising strategies and if we thought moving from a manual to electronic system was enough for an upgrade, we've taken it one step further by taking it online and creating a website based voucher system that can link from schools websites directly to this new one, and being able to offer schools better financial rewards than under our previous systems.  It will offer businesses direct access to creating their own special deal for parents, teachers, etc and will encompass the move into secondary schools.

The launch of this new voucher website is in February 2010 - watch this space as we take this schools programme online!