Super Secret Plan Part 2: Percent API

"We started Percent to make it easy to do good… to bring to life our vision of a world where good is built into every financial transaction. " - Super Secret Plan Part 1, 2017.

A review of Super Secret Plan Part 1:

When we wrote the Super Secret Plan Part 1 in 2017, Percent was little more than our vision of a world where good is built into every financial transaction. Fast forward three years to January 2020, and we’d built a UK wide-ecosystem, in which over 50,000 users across 23 cities could spend (using their card as normal) at many of the UK’s top retailers- Nando’s, Deliveroo & Franco Manca, to name a few. With every spend, a % of their bill is sent to a cause of the users' choice. Over 500,000 transactions with good built into them were created, building towards a world in which every financial transaction has good built into it.

Then Covid hit. The high street shut down. And for the first time in 2.5 years, we took the time to pause for thought. Though 500,000 'good' transactions was impactful, it was far too slow. If, in our lifetime, we were to achieve our vision of building good into every transaction worldwide we needed to be much quicker… but how?

We needed to be quicker, but how?

The onset of the Covid-19 crisis had acted as a catalyst driving the trend for businesses to put purpose at the heart of what they do. Today, 94% consumers say purpose is important. This trend has led many, such as Index partner Stephane Kurgen, to declare the 2020’s the Decade of Purpose.

However, very few consumers are aware of any form of purpose in the businesses they use. This 94% to the 16% of consumers who are actually aware of purpose in the businesses they spend with is the purpose awareness gap. The best way for businesses to drive awareness of their purpose is to build it into their digital propositions and engage as many stakeholders as they can.

Rather than being its own app, Percent needed to be a platform to power good in all businesses worldwide. In doing so we could achieve our vision of a world in which good was built into every financial transaction much more quickly.

We had already been doing this with the Percent app, driving business results to retailers for being purposeful… however it was limited to retail and the user-experience trapped within the confines of our own app, reducing the halo-effect for our partner brands.

We needed to open Percent to all industries and let them own the experience whilst still making it easier to build good, connect with causes and drive great business results. Rather than being its own app, Percent needed to be a platform to power good in all businesses worldwide. In doing so we could achieve our vision of a world in which good was built into every financial transaction much more quickly.

Percent is an API-first platform that allows partners to quickly and efficiently build bespoke giving experiences that fit their businesses; donations can be monetary, equity or in-kind donations of product.

A Platform For Building Good Into What You Do

The Percent Platform makes it easy to build good into what you do. It is an API-first platform that allows partners to quickly and efficiently build bespoke giving experiences that fit their businesses; donations can be monetary, equity or in-kind donations of product.

It retains the benefits of the app: It’s cost-effective, you can easily connect with over 7 million nonprofits worldwide and it is set up to help drive business results as a direct result of doing good. In the 2020’s profit and purpose really will go hand in hand.

Since launching the Percent Platform this year, we have had 20 partners sign up: from major banks to crypto wallets, ticketing platforms to streaming services. Partners are using it both to facilitate monetary and product donations. From the ashes of 2020, the demand for doing good has become ubiquitous…