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Beat the Heat, Conquer Congress

2011-07-22T15:11:00-04:00

If you listen to the news for more than a few moments, there are only two big stories today. A nationwide heat wave is sending temperatures in the triple digits and Washington is an immense budget battle. Importantly, one of the things congress is discussing is eliminating or reducing the charitable income tax deduction.

While smart fundraisers know tax savings are rarely the incentive for giving, they are at least part of the equation and at worst, the lack of tax savings can be reason not to give. Yikes!

The broiling temperatures, however, have given all charities an opportunity to not only reach out to donors and build awareness, but to also show their relevancy to congress and the nation.

In your town RIGHT NOW news assignment editors are scrambling for stories to illustrate the heat. What will you give them? They need you. You need them. Don’t you? Call them and tell them what you are doing to help beat the heat.

If your organization has a parking lot off a major road, have you thought about giving bottled water to commuters this afternoon? Make a quick sign and buy a few bottles of water. Have a donation bucket at one end of the parking lot and cool drinks and a hose to cool off cars (not even washing them) to show you care.

If you have a pool or just a large room (like a gym) with air conditioning, have you considered opening it to the public (or subset, like seniors or the poor) for the afternoon?

Are you doing something fun, like having an ice cream social for your guests or residents? If you are a zoo are you giving your animals something special to cool off?

If you are a gift officer, simply grab some water and take it to your donors. No one will turn away a cool drink today!

Do anything, anything, cool and you will get free publicity. And your congressional representative will get a true and accurate taste of your relevancy and need for continued income tax deductions for your donors. You are only limited by your imagination. The media needs to tell your story TODAY. Will you let them? Think like a donor.

Four Words I Never Use

2011-08-03T15:10:00-04:00

There are four words I never use. You should consider not using them too. They are offensive and often have the EXACT opposite meaning to the person who hears them than what is intended when spoken. Yet, I hear these words all the time.

Allow me to explain with a recent example.

As a trustee of my grandparents estate, I am charged with selling the family homestead. I grew up there. Mowed my first yard there. Learned to swim, waterski, and camp there. It is my home. It is sad, but appropriate and reasoned that we have to sell the house. It’s time.

However, what to us is a long-time meeting place and symbol of our family, is old and outdated to the new, younger buyer. Our realtor regularly reports that the house is outdated, needs great renovation or is a “complete tear down.”

After one too many times of hearing that the house is best valued as rubble and someone would prefer the dirt underneath it, I asked our realtor to simply tell me that “the house won’t work for the buyers we saw today.” While I do need to know about details we can fix or any offers or lack of offers, I don’t need to have a transcript of all the purported reasons why they don’t make an offer. If they don’t like it, they don’t.

His reply amazed me.

He said I should not take it personally. He failed to appreciate that among other things, we hired him to filter information and interpret it for us. I thought about his words, “Don’t take it personally.” When anyone says “don’t take it personally,” what they are really saying is, “whatever I am about to say will be deeply personal and is also going to be highly offensive or upsetting.” To human beings everything is personal. Everything.

In donor relations or in sales, remember that to the donor or customer everything is personal. If there is something we need to say that would be prefaced with “don’t take it personally,” then perhaps it should not be said, or said maybe in a better way.

Fios Fumble

2011-09-01T15:06:42-04:00

I had earlier posted this blog, but wanted to live through the rest of the story before editing and reposting.

Recently, my computer service with Verizon Fios died.

Verizon told me a technician would come the next day between 1:00 and 5:00.

I stayed home. I cancelled appointments. I altered my life to set aside four hours for Verizon to come when they were able.

Verizon never came.

Verizon never called.

They rescheduled for Saturday morning. A day when I had planned to take my son canoeing. We canceled. Verizon never called. Verizon never came.

We called.

They came Saturday night between 1 and 5 which turned out to be 6:30.

Author Harry Beckwith said “service in this country is so bad you can offer above average service and still stink.” True. Verizon’s customers expect so little that they are willing to devote half a day to the convenience of the vendor’s schedule! And, apparently, even failing that, it so “normal,” to miss appointments, there is no appropriate response from Verizon. (Note: the employees who came were exceptionally friendly and helpful and cured the problem - thank you)

Some of the confusion can be explained by the strike at the time. Fair enough. But companies shouldn’t make appointments they can’t keep under any circumstances.

The bad news is customer expectations are so low that terrible wastes of time are apparently okay or are to be accepted as part of life. They don’t have to be. The good news is when we try even a little to care for the donor or customer we stand out as caring and compassionate.

When we go the extra mile, we are superstars.

Easy Lessons: Hard Hurricane

2011-09-01T15:04:00-04:00

We have electricity today for the first time in four days. Still there are others, many others, with problems far worse. I took the above photo of one of them, whose car was damaged in the storm.

Hurricanes hurt.

To make matters worse, our area is still recovering from a significant earthquake just days before. There have been 20 aftershocks so far.

People all over the state are in disaster or recovery mode. Ice and gasoline are in short supply. But life goes on. A Home Depot employee told me one local store sold $300,000 worth of generators in one day. Another sold $800,000 in generators in the same day. All the generators were covered in thick dust. They never ran out of stock.

All the generators had been sitting around in some warehouse well in advance of the storm, waiting for a moment such as this.

A grocery store chain was one of the few to have ice available - most of the time. They prepared, too.

However, during the recovery I heard very little from charities. Either in the “wants,” or “needs,” categories.

What if a charity had announced on the radio they were selling ice or even giving it away? Not only would they have been heroes to dozens or hundreds of future donors, they would have received valuable publicity for FREE - over and over again.

One grocery store was said to have dry ice. I went there. So did HUNDREDS of others within one hour of the announcement only to leave disappointed.

There’s another side to the storm, too. Even with all the problems, some donors (our neighbors) do not lower expectations. My wife works for a restaurant where a vast majority of the food is fresh (refrigerated). It lost everything in the storm, yet after four days of being closed it reopened within five hours of power coming back on. Minutes after that some customers were complaining there were no sweet potatoes ready! For those of you like me, that are not cooks, sweet potatoes take a while to cook, and with all the other food that needed to be prepared it was not a first priority for the restaurant’s oven.

Whether volunteering or working for a nonprofit, beware of the fundraising trap that a nonprofit is always in the need mode. Sometimes, nonprofits can give, even beyond their stated missions. Look for ways to reach out. Look for ways to be seen. We ask for donations from our neighbors, because we are neighbors. When we give, we receive. How did you handle the storms in your area? Post a comment below.

What did I do? I contacted a national radio show during the earthquake and within ten minutes I was on the show! It cost me nothing, but hopefully my comments were helpful, especially to those wondering what it was like with relatives in the area. Want to hear it? Listen by clicking here. Listen to hour 1 on August 23 broadcast of the Schnitt Show - about 19 minutes in.

What Secrets are in Your Freezer?

2011-09-13T15:04:00-04:00

Whether we love our job or hate our job, it shows. We should have a passion for what we do for a living. If we don’t we need to make a change. When we love what we do, no one can stop us. Recently, I had the opportunity to meet someone who clearly loves his job - and his job is to help people fix or repair their ice makers.

That’s right. Don at www.icemakerrepair.com specializes in fixing ice makers. Not ovens, not sinks, not even other parts of the fridge. Just ice makers. Nothing else.

Recently, my ice maker failed and I emailed Don. He responded at 11:00 pm at night and the part was shipped the next morning when the post office opened. The part arrived in two days.

I even called Don and asked for advice on installing it. He patiently and carefully helped me . As it turns out, the fridge had other problems and could not be fixed, but I enjoyed working with Don and was impressed by his enthusiasm, knowledge and unparalleled expertise in his one thing - ice makers.

Take a look at www.icemakerrepair.com. If you need your ice maker fixed, call Don. But whether you have ice problems or not, we can all be like Don. I will try. What is the one thing I do better than anyone else? Would people be as impressed with me as I was by Don? Not because I studied to be an expert, but because I love what I am doing so much it is only natural.