The Brief

We've all been there: A store cashier asks if you'd like to donate money to the local food bank. Or the PIN pad at the checkout counter prompts you to round up your payment for charity — spare a little change for a worthy cause.

Those "round-up" campaigns have become ubiquitous in recent years — at grocery chains, gas stations, retail stores and online merchants — and they rake in millions of dollars annually for everything from scholarships to cancer research.

In 2022 alone, charities raised $749 million nationwide through so-called point-of-sale donations, a 24% jump from 2020, according to Engage for Good, which tracks this type of charitable giving. And that was just from campaigns that brought in $1 million or more. Although that figure was tiny compared to the nearly $500 billion in estimated charitable giving in 2022, total giving actually dropped that year.

But it's the round-up fundraising strategy, which was first introduced about 15 years ago, that has really taken off in recent years, according to Michelle McCarthy, executive director of Round It Up America.

"Especially since the pandemic, we've seen a big increase," says McCarthy, whose nonprofit provides legal and financial guidance for for-profit businesses that collect donations for charities.

Much of that growth is fueled by customer generosity, but those who study consumer behavior point to other factors, too, including how we think about money and even our unconscious feelings of guilt.

It makes sense (and dollars) to ask for less

Michael Rindos says he "almost always" taps the donate button on the credit/debit card reader, or PIN pad. But lately, that's been changing. "I don't do it as much as I used to," Rindos says, as he juggles an armful of groceries outside a Giant Food supermarket in Severna Park, Md., near Washington, D.C.

Rindos said he's noticed a sharp uptick in the number of requests popping up in places he shops, and it's become a bit tiresome. "Every place that you go to — Taco Bell, 7-Eleven. They're all doing it."

Data suggests that despite being bombarded by such requests, Rindos and others like him are giving more each year at cash registers, self-checkouts and online. And it has resulted in a huge boost for charities on the receiving end. Consider the Taco Bell Foundation, a nonprofit that operates independently from the fast food chain. It brought in $42 million last year on round-ups collected from the company's more than 7,500 restaurants across the U.S. The average donation: just 44 cents.

Previously, the foundation's fundraising strategy asked customers to donate $1 to a scholarship program in campaigns that lasted a few weeks or months. "For many years we did that," says Jennifer Bradbury, the foundation's executive director. "We had our scholarship program and we had our community grants program, which funds nonprofits like the Boys & Girls Clubs and Junior Achievement."

But in 2019, the foundation decided to try a different approach. Bradbury says it realized, somewhat counterintuitively, that less is more. "The data we had at that point was that customers were three times more likely to round up than to donate a dollar," she says.

The results after the switch were "mind-blowing" she says: The foundation roughly doubled what it had been raising, which averaged between $11 million and $14 million annually, but hit more than $20 million in 2019. The change was so successful, the foundation decided to permanently adopt the new strategy. "The number of regular customers who donate every time and round up every time — it's really inspiring," Bradbury says.

Children's Miracle Network Hospitals, which raises money for pediatric hospitals, partners with such retail giants as Costco and Walmart, as well as Ace Hardware, Panda Express, 7-Eleven and DQ. In 2022, the network, with the help of its partners, raised $138 million through 78 point-of-sale fundraising campaigns, including round-ups, it says. These campaigns made up a third of the CMNH's total fundraising for that year. An online survey conducted by the network in 2022 polled some 4,000 customers. It showed that of the 88% of respondents who reported being asked to donate at checkout in the previous year, more than half said yes at least once.

How you perceive "pain" may influence how much you donate

Why have round up for charity campaigns proven so successful? Katie Kelting, an associate professor of marketing at Saint Louis University, suggests that there's some powerful psychology at work.

In 2018, Kelting and her colleagues enlisted the St. Louis Zoo in a field study. Instead of asking food court patrons for the usual $1 donation for a wild animal conservation effort, the zoo temporarily tried the round-up approach. Fundraising jumped 21% during the experiment, which ran for a few weeks. Kelting calculated that over a one-year period, the zoo would have brought in about $8,000 more by simply changing the way customers were asked to donate.

As Kelting explains, a lot of it has to do with the "pain" of parting with our hard-earned cash. "The perceived pain is less in the consumer's mind when that round-up request is presented," compared to a solicitation for a specific dollar amount, she says.

There are likely other factors in play, says Ike Silver, an assistant professor at Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management. Humans, for instance, appear to have a fairly strong preference for round numbers, or figures ending with a zero. A 2013 study looked at purchases at self-serve gas pumps and found that 56% of them ended on a round dollar figure — far exceeding mere chance. The same study noted that at restaurants, many people prefer to leave tips that bring the final bill to a round number.

"It's like an effort-reduction strategy whereby people are better at and intuitively prefer to deal with round numbers," Silver says. "That manifests in how much you want to pay and how much you want to buy."

Arguably more important is that point-of-sale charitable requests can transform an ordinary purchase into a moral quandary, he says. "It becomes an opportunity to signal to yourself and others that you care," Silver says. In the case of the round-up request, it becomes something of a moral test, he says. "It's such a low-cost ask that to say no starts to induce slight feelings of guilt."

Kelting, citing a body of research by others, says that customers might also change their behavior and perceptions in public versus private settings. In this case, the self-checkout is analogous to a private setting where it is easier to decline, but the same decision in front of a cashier — especially one who adds a verbal prompt for the donation — is something different. "When you're in the long checkout with the cashier, with everyone around you, that's more like this public setting," she says.

Round It Up America's McCarthy says the data supports this thinking. "Customers do appreciate being asked, so that prompt at the checkout does make a difference."

But Cait Lamberton, a professor of marketing at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School, cautions that there's a potential downside to all of this. Customers, she says, may feel manipulated and could end up "feeling resentful toward the source of the manipulation" — the retailer doing the collecting.

Shoppers want to know where their money is going

Paula Nichols says she never taps "Yes" on the PIN pad when it prompts her to round up her bill. "Does that make me a bad person?" she laughs, as she loads groceries into the back of her SUV at the Giant Food supermarket in Maryland.

It's not that Nichols minds giving to charity. She says she supports a local nonprofit food bank and is friends with its president. "We do a lot with them."

But when it comes to giving in the checkout line, she's wary. "How do I know where that money is going? And the price of food? I just spent almost $200 on this," she says, nodding to the groceries in the trunk.

In 2022, a CVS customer filed a lawsuit against the pharmaceutical chain claiming that it wrongly used money collected through point-of-sale donations to honor a pledge to the American Diabetes Association. In a statement to NPR, the pharmaceutical giant says the suit was dismissed in September 2023, which "allowed CVS to complete its in-store National Diabetes Month Campaign, which collected more than $10 million in donations for the benefit of the American Diabetes Association."

Round It Up America says its agreements are designed to ensure that charities receive more than 90% of the money collected, and charities can spend no more than a quarter of donations on administrative costs. McCarthy says her organization receives up to 7% "to cover our legal and financial costs" and stores can take up to 2% to cover credit card transaction fees.

"Consumers deserve — and state attorneys general require — transparency and assurance that the donations go where they are advertised and intended," McCarthy says.

Save the Children is one organization that has made extensive use of point-of-sale campaigns, including requests to round up. "We can try to influence [the message] put on that PIN pad or what the store associate says," according to Dan Peirce, who is in charge of the nonprofit's corporate partnerships. "But ... operationally they have to make sure that it works for them. And so they do have the final say."

The ride-share company Lyft runs a campaign that helps customers take a more considered approach to giving. Riders can select from a list of charities on the company's app. Then each time they ride, their bill is automatically rounded up to the nearest dollar to benefit their charity of choice.

"If you go to your profile in the app, it'll say something like, 'You know, you've given X number of times' to kind of remind people that this is a good thing, even though ... it was 50 cents here, 20 cents there," says Jeremy Bird, the company's chief policy officer. "It's been a massive success for us."

How much is too much?

Despite the burgeoning success of point-of-sale fundraising, including round-up solicitations, there's the risk that customers could become overwhelmed with these pervasive campaigns. "I think you have to be very careful because so many people do find these annoying because they're not relevant to what they're doing at the moment," which is making a purchase, says Lamberton, the Wharton professor.

Kelting, too, says this could be a problem worth studying. "You might have donated yesterday [but] you forgot to buy milk." So, what happens, she wonders, if you go back the next day for that carton of milk. Are you less likely to round up your bill the second time?

Another potential downside? Quick point-of-sale donations might not do much to create any meaningful connection with charities, Lamberton says. Donating your virtual pocket change to a cause might elicit a sugar high for the ego — but one that quickly fades.

It's harder to stand outside a store, ringing a bell to ask for donations, "but what you are getting is a lot of exposure," she says. "So you're building familiarity."

In a face-to-face solicitation, she says, "people who do engage with you are probably very positively disposed towards the charity already."

Master escape artist and world-famous entertainer Harry Houdini had been dead for decades by the time teenager Kevin Connolly sat down with his dad in their New Jersey home in the late 1960s to watch Houdini, the biopic with actor Tony Curtis in the title role.

“I'm so engrossed in the movie that I'm crying that he passed away. And my dad looks down at me and says, 'What's the matter, son?' I said, 'Houdini died,'" Connolly said.

His father then comforted him.

That experience with the movie and with his father sparked a five-decade-plus collector’s obsession in the teen that led him to amass thousands of items from Harry Houdini’s life and career.

The collection includes handcuffs owned by Houdini, a signed life-size portrait of Houdini in chains, a linen bag his wife, Bess Houdini, made him and a pocket watch she gifted him on his birthday in 1910, at the height of his career.

Signed Cabinet Card Photograph of Houdini in Chains.

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Connolly Collection courtesy Potter & Potter Auctions.

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“Engraved inside the cover is a very personal note from her to him that also contains a little hidden code in the inscription,” said Gabe Fajuri, president and principal auctioneer at Potter & Potter Auctions. The watch has the highest valuation of the items, with an estimate between $20,000 and $40,000.

The auction house has been displaying these 100 items at its Chicago offices and will transport them to the Magic Castle in Hollywood for display on Oct. 30 and the final auction the day after.

“ These are things that potentially have his DNA on them. These are things that Houdini himself owned, handled, used, treasured,” Fajuri said.

The auction marks two milestones: 100 years since Houdini's death and the winding down of 71-year-old Connolly's collecting efforts, which enriched his and his family’s life.

“It broadened our world, and it was nice to be recognized for your collecting abilities,” he said.

Connolly’s collection has turned him into a Houdini authority, attracting the attention of Houdini biographers, film documentarians, as well as museums and galleries.

Houdini was born in Hungary in 1874. He came to the U.S. as a young child and moved to New York with his father, a rabbi, at 13. He began performing as a magician four years later and shot to stardom on the vaudeville circuit with bold escape acts. There wasn’t a straitjacket, chains or ropes that he couldn’t escape.

Connolly admires how Houdini inspired a generation of immigrants with these stunning feats.

A photo of an escape stunt by Harry Houdini. It's the first Houdini item Kevin Connolly bought as a teen during his 50-plus years of collecting Houdini memorabilia.

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Courtesy Kevin Connolly

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One of those acts is captured in the very first Houdini item Connolly bought after watching that Houdini movie. It’s a photo of Houdini hanging upside down from a rope in front of a building, two stories up. His arms are bound to his body. Crowds look up from the street, staring at Houdini as he attempts to escape. “TORONTO OCT. 18/’16” is written along the bottom edge of the photo.

“That one is not in the auction,” he said. Oct. 18 is Connolly’s father’s birthday, which makes it special. Plus, “That would be probably the last one I'd let go, because that's the one that started it all.”

With Halloween approaching, a women’s walking group is helping Angelenos explore the city’s spooky and historic landmarks. Their next outing is Angelino Heights — home to century-old Victorian homes and an iconic piece of pop culture history.

Los Angelistas organizes weekly walks throughout Los Angeles. October draws some of its biggest crowds, according to the group. Earlier this month, the group visited the Spadena House in Beverly Hills for a witch-themed walk and explored Los Feliz for a murder-themed tour.

Members of Los Angelistas stand in front of the "Spadena House" in Beverly Hills in 2025.

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(Jillian Goodman/Los Angelistas)

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Exploring LA’s spooky side

On Nov. 1, the group heads to Angelino Heights, a tiny neighborhood next to Echo Park known for its Victorian homes.

“It has so much history, but also really beautiful, stunning Victorian architecture,” said Jillian Goodman, one of the group’s three co-founders. “It’s such a cool place that I don’t think many people know about.”

Some of the homes have been backdrops for films and TV shows, including Michael Jackson’s 1983 “Thriller” video — which will be a stop on the tour.

Los Angelistas visit the "Charmed" house while on a walk through Angelino Heights in 2024.

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(Jillian Goodman/Los Angelistas)

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Building friendship beyond the walks

Los Angelistas began in April 2023, when Goodman and a few women who met through another social club decided to continue spending time together through walks.

The group has since grown to more than 7,000 members, Goodman said. Its organizers live across L.A., allowing them to host events in neighborhoods like Brentwood, Mid-City and Glendale.

Goodman said the walks encourage women to discover parts of L.A. they might pass by without stopping.

“Everyone thinks of L.A. as a driving city. No one ever really stops and takes a breath,” Goodman said.

For Goodman, watching members build friendships that extend beyond the walks has been one of the most rewarding parts of the group’s growth.

“They go to each other’s weddings. They go to concerts. Seeing people connect, not just in the group, but then having that extend outside has been amazing to watch,” she said.

The group has also helped members support one another during devastating times. Amid last year’s Eaton and Palisades wildfires, some members helped others find places to stay, despite having only met on walks.

“I thought that was so beautiful and wonderful that without us they wouldn’t have known each other,” Goodman said.

A slew of Medicare Advantage plans are disappearing for next year, leaving seniors in many areas with fewer options. In 193 counties across the country, no plans are offered at all.

Medicare's annual open enrollment period kicked off October 15 and runs until December 7, and seniors enrolled in those privatized Medicare plans that are closing in certain markets should carefully review their options.

Medicare Advantage means private insurers run Medicare for older Americans who choose it over traditional Medicare, where the federal government itself administers the program. More than half of the 70 million Americans in Medicare choose Medicare Advantage. It's popular because it covers services like vision and dental, often with lower premiums than traditional Medicare. It also often folds in the "Part D" drug benefit, simplifying that decision.

But a downside of Medicare Advantage is that companies can pick and choose where they offer plans. If a certain community is not profitable, a company can leave that market. And that has been happening on an increasingly large scale the last three years, according to research published in JAMA.

Who is affected

Big swaths of rural America are losing Medicare Advantage choices and so are some major metro areas.

Last year, 2.9 million seniors were in Medicare Advantage plans that closed up shop, according to JAMA. This year, an analysis of insurance company announcements by An Arm and A Leg podcast, shows at least 2 million people will be affected. Other preliminary estimates range from 3.2 million to 5 million seniors. About 35 million people are enrolled in Medicare Advantage.

According to an analysis of federal data by the health policy research organization KFF, the 193 counties that will have zero Medicare Advantage plans are mostly rural. Last year that number was about 120 counties without a plan offered.

KFF's numbers also show that there will be far fewer plans offered in some metro areas. Dallas, Minneapolis, Seattle, Houston and Portland all have between a quarter and a third fewer Medicare Advantage plans for seniors.

What happens next

If your plan is ending, and you don't choose another, the insurance company will assign you to another Medicare Advantage plan or the government will enroll you in traditional Medicare — but without a supplemental or drug plan.

If you want to switch from Medicare Advantage to traditional Medicare and your plan is ending, you can enroll in a Medicare supplemental plan — also known as Medigap — without the same restrictions that you would normally have. If you have a pre-existing condition that has prevented you from enrolling in Medigap before, that could be good news.

Another wrinkle this year is that insurance companies can cap enrollments on some of the Medicare Advantage plans that they do offer.

Which means: If you wait to sign up, a plan you want might already be full.

The companies are supposed to enroll people on a first-come, first-serve basis — and not cherry-pick customers based on health conditions, age, or demographics.

Another reason not to delay is that with so many people on the hunt for new plans, it may take longer than usual to get help.

How and where to find help

Here are some tips for navigating Medicare open enrollment this year:

• Find out if your plan is still offered: First, check your mail. Medicare Advantage plans that are closing should have sent letters the first week in October. You can also log in to your account on Medicare.gov to check your plan's status for next year.
  
• Try calling your SHIP: There's a State Health Insurance Assistance Program — known as a "SHIP" — in every state to help seniors with Medicare. The name's not easy to remember or particularly descriptive, but it's free, mandated by the federal government, and the staff and volunteers are required to give you unbiased information on all available options. Find your state in the directory at shiphelp.org. Your county may have a specific number that you can find on your state's SHIP website.
  
• Look for local Medicare counseling services: Friends, family, leaders at your place of worship, and the constituent services of your local elected officials may have the scoop on where you can get one-on-one help. The nonprofit Medicare Rights Center also has a national helpline, and a well-organized library of online guides.
  
• Brokers can be helpful, but be savvy: You want a broker who's going to talk with you about all your options — including switching to traditional Medicare and a supplemental plan. Ask if they sell plans from all available insurance carriers. And ask if they answer questions about your plan year-round, because insurance never stops being confusing.
  
• Double check what you see on Medicare.gov: Medicare's Plan Finder allows you to search plans online. But lists of doctors and drugs that are covered can sometimes be wrong. To be safe, double check with your doctor's office or a SHIP counselor, broker, or other Medicare assistor.
  
• Don't share your personal information with services you find online: Be careful where you share your personal information like your phone number. Some online agencies will sell your information, leading to spam calls and potentially even scam artists.
  
• Be mindful of the deadlines: Open enrollment for Medicare runs October 15, 2026 through December 7, 2026. The coverage starts January 1, 2027. If your plan is ending, you qualify for a "special enrollment period" to give you a little more time — until February 28, 2027. (For coverage that starts January 1, 2027, enroll by December 31.)

Emily Pisacreta is the senior producer for An Arm and a Leg, a podcast about the cost of healthcare produced in partnership with KFF Health News and distributed by KUOW, Seattle's NPR member station. 

Copyright 2026 NPR

Federal prosecutors sent letters to county registrars across California on Friday demanding that local officials set aside and verify ballots that the Department of Justice said may belong to noncitizens, according to the Los Angeles County registrar and a letter obtained by The Associated Press.

The letters are the latest escalation in a legal battle between California and President Donald Trump’s Department of Justice, which has recently focused on the state in its efforts to root out noncitizen voting ahead of the midterm elections. Data shows illegal voting by people who aren’t U.S. citizens is incredibly rare, difficult to prove and has not been shown to change the outcome of races.

Earlier this month, the federal government targeted Los Angeles County and the California Secretary of State’s office in a lawsuit that aimed to block them from counting the votes of roughly 20,000 people who are “likely” noncitizen voters. A hearing on the case is scheduled for Tuesday.

The Trump administration asked the 9th Circuit court of appeals to rule on the lawsuit barring a decision from the district judge assigned to the case. They set a deadline for Saturday.

Now, according to the LA County registrar’s office, at least 18 counties across the state have received similar letters. They have been given a 48 hour deadline to provide identifying information corresponding with ballots that the federal government believes were sent to noncitizens illegally registered to vote. The letter requests that county officials also sequester any ballots where citizenship cannot be verified.

“Any election official who knowingly processes the ballot of a noncitizen is opening themselves to legal jeopardy,” said First Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli.

The Justice Department is asking counties to send information about the voters it suspects are noncitizens including social security numbers, ID information, a copy of their registration and more.

That information can help the government and state quickly assess each person suspected of illegally registering to vote, said the letter sent to San Bernardino County voting officials. The letter says the government’s list of suspected noncitizen voters includes 1,133 people from the inland Southern California county.

California’s secretary of state and the Los Angeles County registrar have opposed the federal government’s demands. In legal filings, lawyers for California say the request threatens to delay the certification of the vote and undermine the legitimacy of the November midterms. They have also argued that the federal government’s data is unreliable and that their demands risk disenfranchisement of citizens.

Voting is underway in California, with the state’s more than 23 million registered voters receiving ballots in the mail earlier this month. The state said in legal filings that over 330,000 mail-in ballots have already been counted.

The letters on Friday came on the heels of statewide sweep by federal authorities earlier in the week, where 28 people from the list of 20,000 were charged with illegally registering to vote. Some were also charged with illegally voting and lying on naturalization paperwork. Those charges could lead to years in prison.