Holiday Donors Use NFC for Salvation Army Kettle Pay

     This past holiday season, bell ringers at The Salvation Army's traditional kettle donation sites were accompanied by a technology upgrade that gave shoppers a digital option for their 2019 donations. In addition to accepting spare change dropped into the familiar red kettles, the organization allowed shoppers to make donations via their smartphones, courtesy of Near Field Communication (NFC) technology or QR codes.The Salvation Army has deployed NFC as part of the Kettle Pay system, with GoToTags NFC 13.56 MHz RFID tags compliant with the ISO 14443 standard on signs posted with the kettles. The system was first piloted in Seattle, Dallas, Kansas City and New York City, then rolled out across the country this holiday season. "This is the first time that smart chips and QR codes are being used nationwide, and The Salvation Army is seeing donations come through via the Kettle Pay option," says David Jolley, the organization's director of communications. 

    The Web-based solution was provided by technology integrator Clearscale, and was pre-encoded by GoToTags to more than 50,000 of its NFC tags. The goal was to enable spontaneous payments for shoppers who are increasingly reliant on phones and digital payments, and who may be less likely to carry cash.