One of the things I worked on this summer was getting ready for my older son's entrance into the fascinating realm of elementary school. It's important to our family to support his school, so we thought at length about fundraising issues. I first learned of eScrip from his school's "back to school" packet. Here are some tips I discovered along the way.

First, what is eScrip? Here in the USA it's a common system by which schools for children raise money. It's an electronic variation on the "paper scrip" system where you purchase coupons for cash, and then use them to buy groceries and some other commodities, usually at local businesses; somewhere between 2% and 5% of the face value gets channeled back to the school. eScrip is a paperless version of the above system, and has the potential to raise more money for the school since you can register multiple credit cards (more on this in a moment). Besides, there's no paper to hassle with, and you know from my past articles how much I yearn for a paperless office.

eScrip is intended to benefit schools and organizations that support children and children's programs. There's an annual fee of $10 to support one organization, and you can support up to three (another $5 fee per organization beyond the first). Many participating grocery stores offer a $10 coupon for their club card members who enroll in eScrip (my local Vons store did), so for the first year your eScrip enrollment is effectively free.

My trail began at my local Vons grocery store, but they didn't have registration forms and could only provide a phone number to call: 800-801-9003. I called that number on a weekend when the office was closed, and the message directed me to the eScrip Web site: http://www.TheNakedPC.com/t/322/tr.cgi?lee1

When I went there I was able to read about the program in great detail. Even without being registered, you can use the Web site to look up participating merchants by category, for example, Apparel, Books, Grocery, Restaurant, and many others, as well as by region.

Without being registered you can look up an organization's Group ID number. This Group ID number is one of the keys to the whole deal. By registering yourself with this number as the supported organization, a fraction of your purchases flows to your school. For example, with Vons purchases the contribution is 2% on monthly purchases from $0 to $200, 3% on $200 to $300, and 4% on $300 and higher. Another key is that you must use your grocery club card for a grocery purchase to be tracked for contributions. Your purchase can be by cash, check, or credit card, but you must swipe your grocery club card too. (For our family it's a VONSCLUB card. The other three cards they link up to during your online registration process are Safeway Club Card, PAVILIONS ValuePlus Club Card, and Joey Franco's PW Markets.)

You can register online, any time that is convenient for you. It involves six easy steps, and took me about five minutes. Have your grocery club card and primary credit card handy. Note that you only have to enter one grocery club card per family. The site states, "The merchant's system will connect multiple cards from within one household."

At the end of a successful online registration, you'll see a page that reads, "You have successfully registered as a supporter of the eScrip program." It goes on to show your supporter identification number along with the group(s) being supported; information about yourself (address and so forth); and the grocery store club cards, bank cards, and proprietary merchant cards you registered (last four digits only). That's all there is to it. You'll soon receive an email from eScrip confirming your registration information and status, followed in about three weeks by a paper packet via snail mail. Once a month has whizzed by you'll be able to view monthly statements of your eScrip activity online.

ESI, the firm behind eScrip, has a strong privacy policy, "ESI has made a firm commitment to protect the privacy of all customer information. ESI will not sell or rent any personally identifying information about eScrip participants to any third parties." Get yourself signed up, and encourage an extended family member or friend to sign up, too!

To view some supplemental information about eScrip, go here: http://www.thenakedpc.com/lee/escrip_p1/index.html

Lee Hudspeth can be reached at: mailto:leehudspeth@TheNakedPC.com

Copyright © 2000, PRIME Consulting Group, Inc. and Dan Butler. All Rights Reserved.
The Naked PC is a trademark of PRIME Consulting Group, Inc.
ISSN: 1522-4422
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eScrip Online: How to Easily Register and Support Your Child's School
by Lee Hudspeth
(This article originally appeared in The Naked PC newsletter #3.22, subscribe at http://www.TheNakedPC.com)

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