Global Coin Solutions was started in 2015 after the previous company I had been working for was shut down. This left me in a very difficult position: what do I do next, what happens to my employees, and what happens to the charity partners I had?
What happens now?
Me: Do I go try to find another job? I was almost 50 … who wants to hire someone at almost 50? Also, I really enjoyed what I had been doing; helping put money into charities pockets.
My employees: What happens to them? They were going to be out of a job and that didn’t sit very well with me!
My charity partners: They were involved in a very unique method of fundraising. Without someone to help them, there would be over $1 Million of donations that just disappeared.
Time for a change!
The answer: Create a new company that would not only solve all these challenges but also open new opportunities to help even more charities. This would also allow me to create a company built around the values I had instead of someone else’s.
February 10, 2015 was the day Global Coin Solutions came to life!
My vision from the start was simple: I wanted to help as many charities as possible and put people to work. The math on this is straightforward; the more charities we help, the more money gets raised, and the more people it takes to do that work.
My vision has grown over time.
It now includes employing people with Autism. They have an ability most of us don’t have; the ability to handle repetitive tasks … and not just the ability to do that, but the need to work on repetitive things.
Most recently I have had Global Coin Solutions Certified as a Living Wage Employer. This too is important to me because it is the simply the right thing to do … how can your employees focus on their work if they are worried about putting food on the table or paying for housing or other bills?
Sir Richard Branson has many views on business that I believe in, but one of his most important is taking care of your employees; take care of your employees and they will take care of the clients.
The pandemic changed everything.
Prior to the pandemic, Global Coin Solutions was doing very well. We worked with 4 different airlines in North America (and even 1 in Iceland), several airports in Canada, had different charity clients, and employed 10 staff. We were processing close to $3 Million worth of mixed currency weighing over 22,500 kgs per year!
Shortly after the pandemic hit, Global Coin Solutions became a company of 1: me. Having to layoff my staff was one of the hardest things I have ever had to do. But airlines in Canada stopped flying, international airlines were not allowed to cross borders, people were told to stay home … needless to say, there wasn’t much foreign currency being collected by anyone, anywhere.
My new job was to keep Global Coin Solutions alive; alive for my employees to come back to; alive for my charity partners to raise funds again; alive for all the charities I hadn’t yet started working with or people I hadn’t yet employed.
Global Coin Solutions is more than just “a business”.
In case it isn’t clear, Global Coin Solutions isn’t just a business for me. It is a way of life; it is a calling. And it isn’t going anywhere! There are too many charities that need help. There are too many people who need jobs. There is too much that needs to be done and with 8 years under our belt, Global Coin Solutions is just getting started!
2023 is shaping up to be a recovery year for Global Coin Solutions and foreign currency fundraising.
Currency for Kids was launched last year with 12 Children’s Aid Foundations across Ontario and it continues to pickup momentum. The program is successful because of the partnerships the Foundations are creating with local businesses. Collection points are needed in the community so that residents can easily drop off their donations. So while the focus of the program is to generate donations and create awareness for the Foundations, it also creates awareness, generates traffic, and builds goodwill for the businesses supporting the program.
We are also working on a new program (soon to be announced) with a national retailer who launched their own Foundation in March of 2020. The synergy between the retail operation, their Foundation, and leftover foreign currency will be obvious.
2023 brings a new website and blog to Global Coin Solutions. 2023 also celebrates our brand-new web site and this new blog. Please stay tuned as there will be much more to come and we’ll be covering all topics as they relate to leftover foreign currency, and not just from the fundraising point of view.
