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Off-Campus Partnerships

Off-Campus Partnerships

Josh, Courtney, and Jen led a group discussion and exploration of off-campus partnerships. Participants had the opportunity to ask questions and share their experiences, as well as learn from those with established off-campus programs.

Discussion Questions

What is the purpose of your off-campus program? Is it to expand services for students or to expand your revenue sources?
How do you select your vendors?
How do you approach your vendors?
What commission do you charge?
What barriers to joining might your vendors experience?
How do you let your campus community know where they can shop?
Facilitator:

Jen McDonald, Georgian College
Josh Bodnar, The Ohio State University
Courtney Petrizzi, The University of Alabama

 Jörrun Liston:  Welcome everyone!  We are recording this and will post on naccuTV.

 Jörrun Liston:  Thanks to our facilitators today:  Jen McDonald, Georgian College, Courtney Petrizzi, The University of Alabama, and Josh Bodnar, The Ohio State University

  Jen McDonald:  What is the purpose of your off-campus program? Is it to expand services for students or to expand your revenue sources?

  Kim Pfeffer [she|her]:  Previously: Generate Revenue / Future: Service to Campus Community + Local Merchants

  Anthony Condo:  At Swarthmore it is mainly to expand services and build the “town/gown” relationship with our local community.

  Sheryl Puckett:  At ASTATE – both, but our off-campus fund is optional and individuals have to actually make a deposit to the account

  Scott Brannan:  Temple is really both.  Service to students and build revenue.

  Christina Mosakowski:  At UNLV it’s to generate revenue and be good community members

  John Reale – SUNY Polytechnic Institute:  I’ve seen what little we have of an off-campus program continues to decline.  I would like to boost this somehow.

  Jen McDonald:  How do you select your vendors?

  John Reale – SUNY Polytechnic Institute:  When I try to get new vendors or if any ask to join in the area, once they hear of the fee CBORD/GET UGRYD charges, they are no longer interested.

  Rachel Lawrence – Illinois State:  We’re just starting our Off-Campus program via uGryd with Potbelly.  They were really pushing to accept the Redbird Card.  We were really surprised they still wanted to join after seeing the fees.

  Anthony Condo:  Our program is relatively small (10 merchants) but we self-manage so no fees other than agreed upon commission.  We basically reached out to all of the food vendors in our community and all jumped at the opportunity.

  Corina Cruz:  We also currently met with GrubHub. We currently partner with Moocho.

  John Reale – SUNY Polytechnic Institute:  I like that option Josh, especially with merchants not needing to have another reader and fees.  Makes it more palatable.

  Kim Pfeffer [she|her]:  We are establishing our program similar to Anthony but our issue is that students want to use their dining dollars off campus, but because of taxes that isn’t an option.  How are you working around that @Josh?

  Bob Valenti:  We have an off-campus program with one of our sponsors for this program. We seem to have ongoing issues students about readers being down or establishments dropping off because of lack of participation and high fees. Grubhub seems to have been a game changer.

  Richard Tamborelli:  Will Grub Hub outpace UGRYD?

  John Reale – SUNY Polytechnic Institute:  I’d be interested in replacing UGYRD with Grub Hub if that is an option.

  Kim Pfeffer [she|her]:  Who has the “in” with GrubHub??  @Josh – send us the contact info.  😁

  Josh Pintar:  If anyone has a decision matrix like @Jen McDonald mentioned for accepting/rejecting vendors, we’d be interested in what you have if you’re willing to share.

  Monica Seko:  We have a lot of competition with two other Universities in our area. How can we stand out to get those businesses?

  Brittany Kragerud:  FYI. I now oversee OCF @ Grubhub [email protected]

  Kim Pfeffer [she|her]:  @Monica – can you work with those other 2 institutions to do merchant outreach together?  When I was in Philly we did that by partnering with Drexel University

  Monica Seko:  @Kim I have tried that, but it’s ultimately the businesses are saying no to us.

  Kim Pfeffer [she|her]:  @Monica – they are saying no to the group of you?  That is disappointing.

  Joshua Bodnar:  Thanks @brittany!

  Monica Seko:  They are saying no to either one of us or all of us because they don’t want to deal with students not having funds either.

  Kim Pfeffer [she|her]:  Why the tattoo shop hate????

  John Reale – SUNY Polytechnic Institute:  Is there a university contact for Grub Hub?

  Christina Mosakowski:  At UNLV we’re also getting a lot of outreach off-campus merchants. Also, we just went live with GrubHub off-campus

  Erin Chezick:  +1 to discussing fees as a barrier 🙂

  Monica Seko:  I’m liking the idea of GrubHub!

  Joshua Bodnar:  We have a GrubHub rep on the call today for those of you that are interested

  April Lattanzi:  The Dining partner doesn’t mind going off campus with their Meal swipes or dollars?

  Abe Cereno:  Does any of you have a discount/loyalty program with off-campus merchants? And do you track them?

  Scott Brannan:  Update on 1099K – 200 transactions or $20,000 annual numbers.  Just went through this with our AP dept.

  Corina Cruz:  I’m curious if everyone’s dining department is responsible for reaching out and adding vendors or if another department takes the lead?

  Joshua Bodnar:  Thanks, Scott!

  Jon Hillis:  Are the partnerships based on using dining/meal plan dollars or other payment methods

  Kim Pfeffer [she|her]:  @Corina – we, as the card office, reach out to off campus vendors, not the dining office.

  Marion Standaert:  We have a Merchant of the Month program where that vendor will run a special for the month for anyone paying with our card.

  Erin Chezick:  Can / will you discuss the perception Dining Services that programs like this take away their bottom line?

  Corina Cruz:  Thanks Kim

  John Reale – SUNY Polytechnic Institute:  I would also like to hear a response to Erin’s question.

  Rachel Lawrence – Illinois State:  A barrier we’ve had in the past is that the partners want to take the Dining $/Flex Dollars (which is part of the dining plan).  Our dining department doesn’t want those funds going off-campus, so we’re only able to offer our Redbird Dollars (optional account on the card).

  Kim Pfeffer [she|her]:  Same situation here as Rachel describes.

  Scott Brannan:  Erin, our Dining Services doesn’t like it, but I have repeatedly proven to them that they have the highest percentage of sales.  All of our meal plans also come with a seed amount of $50 in stored value.  Students can use it anywhere, but it is meant to be available to take care of those small amounts at dining hall where equivalencies are accepted.

  Marion Standaert:  I reply to Dining that we’ve found if students put money into their declining balance account with the intent of using it off campus, they usually end up spending more money on campus than they would have before.

  John Reale – SUNY Polytechnic Institute:  I wouldn’t think that campus dining would be in support of this, but we certainly cannot prohibit students ordering off campus merchants.

  Jon Hillis:  John – you could create loyalty programs where incentive is greater on campus then off

  Joshua Bodnar:  Our self-operated Dining is actually very much supportive and in-favor or our program and see it as an enhanced service level for our students.

  Erin Chezick:  Thanks all for your replies! My primary beef with zoom – not able to react to comments in chat. I am reading and appreciating all the insights

  Rachel Lawrence – Illinois State:  Our dining department tends to only worry about $$$$$ (funny we’re a non-profit public university) 🤦🏻‍♀️

  Josh Pintar:  For those that are using GrubHub but have restrictions on how funds are used (alcohol, etc.), how do you enforce those limits within GrubHub?

  John Reale – SUNY Polytechnic Institute:  We contract out our campus dining services.  I like the idea of a loyalty program; I’ll have to look further into that.

  Brittany Kragerud:  Through Grubhub- if a student is using any campus funds, they are restricted purchasing anything that requires an ID

  Joshua Bodnar:  Thanks, Brittany!

  Brittany Kragerud:  So all tobacco/ alcohol cannot be purchased through any meal tender

  Marion Standaert:  We don’t allow students to use the SVC accounts on alcohol, tobacco or gift cards

  Erin Chezick:  We have been told very bluntly that 3% is more than VISA/MC so why would they pay us that … I can’t say they don’t have a point

  Anthony Condo:  We are 3.5% as well but always said if we ever expand outside of our community to chain vendors, etc. we would be at a higher rate.

  Kim Pfeffer [she|her]:  As we are working very hard to get merchants back, we aligned our commission rate with VISA/MC, so we are at 2%

  Richard Tamborelli:  Has COVID had an impact on anyone’s program? Positive or negative?

  Marion Standaert:  We’ve lost some vendors who had to close up shop due to COVID.

  Kim Pfeffer [she|her]:  @Richard – YES!  We discontinued our program with DishOut during 2020 – and as we have reached out to merchants to reestablish our program, we are finding it very difficult to get them back – even though the fees and commission are now significantly lower.

  Jen McDonald:  What barriers to joining might your vendors experience?

  Meghan Rosenberg:  I’m sorry I have to jump off but this has been great thank you!

  Shana Bock:  I have to jump off the call for another meeting. I appreciate everyone’s input. This is extremely helpful. I will watch it on naccuTV. Thank you!

  Nicole Kerns:  what terminal types do you use?

  Wendy McCrory:  what commission levels are you getting GrubHub?

  Sheryl Puckett:  This has been great.  I have to jump off.  Thank you Jen, Courtney & Josh!!!

  Lacey Skalsky:  Curious if anyone requires the vendor to have a static IP to pass traffic past a firewall…

  John Reale – SUNY Polytechnic Institute:  We have a recent alum who opened up a Mediterranean restaurant and he wanted to be able to service our students and accept our Wildcat Dollars but again the UGYRD fees precluded him doing so.  Is there another avenue I can look at to be able to do business with this alum?

  Marion Standaert:  Our website, social media, digital signs around campus

  Jörrun Liston:  Reminder!  Update your Campus Profile with number of off-campus merchants, commission rates and more.

  Jen McDonald:  https://www.georgiancollege.ca/student-life/campus-services/onecard/where-to-use-onecard/

  Kim Pfeffer [she|her]:  This was FANTASTIC – great job!!

  Scott Brannan:  Thanks everyone!!!

  Anthony Condo:  Thanks!

  Josh Pintar:  Thanks everyone!

  Wendy McCrory:  well done!!

  Amy Slaughter:  Thanks for the great information!

  Christina Mosakowski:  Thank you!

  Janice Weston:  Great job everyone!

  John Reale – SUNY Polytechnic Institute:  This was great, thank you!!!

  Monica Seko:  Thanks, everyone! This was a great discussion!

  Abe Cereno:  Thank you everyone. Appreciate you all.

  Jon Hillis:  Thanks everyone this was awesome for our first session!

  Richard Tamborelli:  Thank you all!!!  Great work!!

  Lynn Ernsting:  Thanks to Jen/Josh/Courtney for all you’ve shared today!

  Lisa Caddell:  Thanks everyone!

  Dena Barnwell (TowsonU):  Thank you!

  Crystal Bazarnic, NACCU:  https://naccu.org/events/event_list.asp

  Scott Brannan:  See everyone in April!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

  Kim Pfeffer [she|her]:  See You in St. Louis!!!!

  Erin Chezick:  Maybe not everyone (cries in Canadian)

  Katy Beall:  Thank you!

  Jörrun Liston:  Thanks to everyone for attending and participating.  Special thanks to our facilitators Jen McDonald, Josh Bodnar and Courtney Petrizzi!

As the only association that specializes in the campus identification and transaction industry serving the national and international campus card community, NACCU is dedicated to high quality educational programs, resources, services, and tools. The NACCU community offers its members networking, partnerships, leveraging technology, problem-solving, insight sharing, and professional development.

NACCU membership is open to all colleges, universities, secondary institutions and companies that are involved with the campus card market. Learn more and join the community at https://www.naccu.org 

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