Reed turned his passion for hand-written cards into a powerful platform for the unhoused community. With Roll by ADP, he ensures fair compensation for their creative talents while giving back to the organizations that support them.
By Roll Editorial Team on December 08, 2023
4 min readFollowing a temporary professional setback, Reed became more aware of the barriers to employment opportunities faced by the unhoused community. Drawing from his love for hand-written correspondence, he started a greeting card company inspired directly by the creative talents and voices of people who have experienced homelessness — compensating them with a percentage of each sale while also giving back to the organizations that have helped that community overcome the challenges they've experienced. Learn how Roll by ADP has provided him peace of mind by assuring his community of contributors gets paid correctly and timely.
Overcoming payroll challenges
Before Roll, I was managing 1099s with my accountant, which was all very manual. I was dealing with Excel spreadsheets, payment logs or physical copies of receipts from people using financial platforms like Cash App, PayPal and Venmo. I didn’t have a reliable system set up to keep track of what I needed. Roll was a very approachable solution for a small and growing business like ours. And being a part of ADP, I knew it was reputable and could help solve our payroll challenges. Now, I have one portal where I'm doing all of our payments. It simplified our process and works very well for us.
Efficient and effective
Another motivation for adopting Roll was that most of our payments are 1099s distributed to our community of people who've been or are currently unhoused. In the past, we used to make cash payments, which required us asking people to sign a receipt, make a record of it, etc. Very manual, time-consuming and inefficient. Now, Roll is critical in us being able to pay people efficiently and have a record of it from a tax and compliance perspective.
An easy experience
Roll makes it very easy for me to go on my phone, select who’s getting paid, enter the information, and it’s done! They receive a payment notification, and I rest assured that everyone is receiving their money on time — when needed! The ease of use and peace of mind provide a lot of benefit to me and our people. I can't say enough how important it is to our team to have the assurance they will get paid on time and be available to their account of choice.
At Second Story Cards, every card has a special meaning. Behind each card is a story of someone trying to get back on their feet and create a new story.
The card makers receive 15% of each sale. Additionally, Second Story Cards donate 10% to a nonprofit of their choice to give back to the organizations that have helped them overcome the challenges they've experienced.