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Making a big difference with small change

SINGAPORE — The act of stealing via a computer small amounts at a time from numerous transactions is commonly called “salami slicing”, an arguably brilliant technique of harnessing a large amount of money inconspicuously — and an idea that inspired the team behind One Cent Movement, a budding social enterprise start-up in Singapore.

Mr Yi in front of the Big Red Bus outside The HUB Singapore in Somerset. The One Cent Movement is located on the top floor of the bus. Photo: Don Wong

Mr Yi in front of the Big Red Bus outside The HUB Singapore in Somerset. The One Cent Movement is located on the top floor of the bus. Photo: Don Wong

SINGAPORE — The act of stealing via a computer small amounts at a time from numerous transactions is commonly called “salami slicing”, an arguably brilliant technique of harnessing a large amount of money inconspicuously — and an idea that inspired the team behind One Cent Movement, a budding social enterprise start-up in Singapore.

Turning a method for crime around into a means for social good, One Cent Movement aims to allow individuals to round up online purchases to the nearest dollar and donate the difference to charity.

“It’s not literally just donating one cent, it’s the power of the notion of what one cent can do, and everyone can do it,” said Mr Yi Sung Yong, founder of the project. Small change really can make a big difference, the 25-year-old said.

In a few days’ time, the team will be launching its Chrome plug-in, which will allow those using the browser to make an online purchase to “round-up” their payments during checkout. For instance, for a S$20.60 bill, the user could choose to pay S$21, with S$0.40 going to a charity.

The donations can be directed to any non-profit organisation listed in the SG Gives portal, the National Volunteer & Philanthropy Council’s (NVPC) online donation portal.

The team, which consists of three core members and six volunteers, all in their 20s, began working on a prototype last year, after taking over the top floor of the Big Red Bus outside The HUB Singapore in Somerset. “Since no one was using it, we thought, might as well,” Mr Yi quipped.

Learning from similar initiatives overseas, such as godaddy.com, the team started out by tying up with several online retailers, instead of creating a browser plug-in. Overseas programmes tended to be initiatives by independent retailers on their own websites.

The team explored two donation prototypes. One model tested allowed buyers to donate S$0.50 with each purchase; another model saw online shoppers automatically donating RM0.10 to homeless animals with every purchase.

The prototypes did well. In the span of one-and-a-half years, they raised close to S$10,000 for several charities, such as ARC Children and the POSB PAssion Kids Fund.

But the team eventually hit a wall: Negotiations with one firm continued for a year without progress; scripting for each site was also complicated by the wide variety of payment options and coding variations.

“We continuously struggled with all these challenges, and we knew we would continue to struggle with them,” Mr Yi said.

They needed a new plan. “We asked ourselves: What we can do to solve these problems, and make this product scalable?” he recounted.

The answer was to design a plug-in for the web browser, and not the website. Like any Chrome extension, this would bypass the challenges they had encountered. As long as users installed the plug-in, they could donate on any website using any online payment method.

So far, more than 100 individuals have subscribed to the team’s newsletter, awaiting the launch of the plug-in.

If at least 1,000 people come on board in the first two weeks after the launch that will be a really good start, said Mr Yi, who quit his well-paying consultancy job last year to pursue this project full-time.

“It’s just completely different, helping companies that were making billions to make more profit, and creating something from scratch to do good for society,” he said, explaining his decision to quit his job.

The team was awarded a S$50,000 NVPC grant last month to further pursue their work. The grant will be used for further product development to expand their plug-in application. For Apple users, a Safari plug-in is also in the pipelines.

The team is working on several ways to make the business self-sustainable and profitable, one of which is through collating and analysing “big data”. For example, information on consumer patterns collected through monitoring One Cent Movement usage is highly valuable for companies.

“Ultimately, what we believe in is turning everyday occurrences into opportunities for charity, to show that you don’t need to be rich or very active to do good,” Mr Yi said.

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