A Contributor vendor in 2013
Nashville's longtime street newspaper The Contributor will now be available to you whether you're carrying cash or not. The paper's vendors — folks who are currently experiencing homelessness or have in the past — have started accepting payment through the Venmo app.
“Customers and potential customers, especially young and middle-aged customers, rarely carry cash anymore, but instead rely on electronic payments like Venmo to pay for daily expenses,” Contributor executive director Cathy Jennings says in a release. “Vendors now take Venmo, so they are able to attract this expanding market of customers in Nashville to help them achieve their sales goals.”
Here's how you do it:
Within the Venmo app, customers can scan the ContributorQR Code or type in @The-Contributor into the search people tab and enter the vendor name and ID in the “What is it for?” field. The QR code is located on the cover of the paper next to the price and on vendor badges. If you choose to support a vendor while stopped in traffic, you can take the paper and pay when you have arrived safely to your destination.
The paper says 25 vendors are already using the app and "seeing a positive impact on weekly sales."
"Venmo is great for me,” says Contributor vendor, Maurice B. in a statement included with the paper's announcement. “Venmo allows me to sell more papers, and I know I can go to the office the next day to pick up the money I earned from paper sales to use it to purchase more papers or pay my bills.”
The paper previously rolled out a Contributor-branded app but struggled to get customers to download an app solely for the purpose of buying a paper as opposed to using an app that is already widely popular like Venmo.
