Charitable Giving?

[dirkdiggler]

Am I the only one that gets bombarded with requests for this?  We want 200 shirts, but we also need a $200 donation for our program.  We need you to buy a sign on our baseball field for 4 grand.  We need you to bid the lowest out of every printer in town and then give us a $1000 donation for our business.  We are gonna buy 2500 shirts, but we need you to donate 500.  The list goes on and on........  I do want to help my community, and I do, ALOT.  But how do you stop or control it?

[Frog]

Am I the only one that gets bombarded with requests for this?  We want 200 shirts, but we also need a $200 donation for our program.  We need you to buy a sign on our baseball field for 4 grand.  We need you to bid the lowest out of every printer in town and then give us a $1000 donation for our business.  We are gonna buy 2500 shirts, but we need you to donate 500.  The list goes on and on........  I do want to help my community, and I do, ALOT.  But how do you stop or control it?

To answer your qurestion, we all get it!

On the home front, we rarely pick up the phone, and the solicitors rarely leave a message.


At work, i Politiely decline almost all solicitations.(I've also never been approached by a group for whom I've printed)

I suggest that you give to a few favorites if so inclined.
Don't get a reputation of being a soft touch.
Perhaps not so much with small local groups, but charities often work through third party professional fund raisers, and they have their lists of who's given what to whom.

[Maxie]

We give to a few but the rest we tell them that we get approached all the time, we offer a discount and recommend that they find a sponsor.

[GKitson]

Over the years we have 'Given Back' to our community hundreds of times and it is both a personal decision and an Biz decision at the same time.

I deal with 'support' requests with the following policy explained to each request,

Minds Eye has chosen to significantly support 2 charities every year, currently the American Red Cross and our local Community Foundation, rather than honoring every request for a monetary or product donation.  However, we recognize the value of your organization/effort and would be happy to show support by granting next quantity pricing on a single order.  For instance, if you buy 25 we will support your efforts with 50 piece pricing.  This typically represents a 3-15% discount.  Our PROFIT structure provides 12-30% gross PROFIT so we still make money and don't have to say no.

If your group would like to be considered to be one of our annual significant support organizations please submit your request with all information regarding your programming goals no later than Sept 30 of each year for consideration. Most never make the effort however some of our best partnerships have started with this policy.  A good partner is one the 'pays back' with local & social media coverage that they do the legwork for.

Regarding requests for event sponsorship we will offer to 'trade' a sponsorship fee for logo placement on event shirts.  For instance if the event has a bronze, silver, gold sponsor structure we will trade the fee for logo placement as long as the total value of the trade amount does not exceed 10% of the project cost.  Again if you price matrix structure is correct you will still make money and support the cause.

Now some of you are thinking that the list of logos on the back of an event shirt becomes a shopping list for future people to ask you for money/support.  You are correct! 

This is a matter of is the glass half full or half empty.  I think of it more as a matter of getting them to drink from the glass, if they drink I can add value to the relationship for both parties.  Think do you want fries with that,

If you business model is based entirely on having the absolute lowest published price in the market place this won't work for you, but we can argue about that all day with no agreement.

My 2 cents on the subject,

~Kitson

[dirkdiggler]

Over the years we have 'Given Back' to our community hundreds of times and it is both a personal decision and an Biz decision at the same time.

I deal with 'support' requests with the following policy explained to each request,

Minds Eye has chosen to significantly support 2 charities every year, currently the American Red Cross and our local Community Foundation, rather than honoring every request for a monetary or product donation.  However, we recognize the value of your organization/effort and would be happy to show support by granting next quantity pricing on a single order.  For instance, if you buy 25 we will support your efforts with 50 piece pricing.  This typically represents a 3-15% discount.  Our PROFIT structure provides 12-30% gross PROFIT so we still make money and don't have to say no.

If your group would like to be considered to be one of our annual significant support organizations please submit your request with all information regarding your programming goals no later than Sept 30 of each year for consideration. Most never make the effort however some of our best partnerships have started with this policy.  A good partner is one the 'pays back' with local & social media coverage that they do the legwork for.

Regarding requests for event sponsorship we will offer to 'trade' a sponsorship fee for logo placement on event shirts.  For instance if the event has a bronze, silver, gold sponsor structure we will trade the fee for logo placement as long as the total value of the trade amount does not exceed 10% of the project cost.  Again if you price matrix structure is correct you will still make money and support the cause.

Now some of you are thinking that the list of logos on the back of an event shirt becomes a shopping list for future people to ask you for money/support.  You are correct! 

This is a matter of is the glass half full or half empty.  I think of it more as a matter of getting them to drink from the glass, if they drink I can add value to the relationship for both parties.  Think do you want fries with that,

If you business model is based entirely on having the absolute lowest published price in the market place this won't work for you, but we can argue about that all day with no agreement.

My 2 cents on the subject,

~Kitson

Nice, I can take something from this.

[GraphicDisorder]

We picked Shop with a Cop, give money to them, and that's it.  Anything else I pretty much say no to with small exception. 

Your logo on a shirt, ha! Please tell me the last time you walked up to someones shirt with a 1-3 inch logo on it buried with 300 others and you said ya I will call this guy and spend money with him. It's rare and that's at best. Logo on a shirt (with piles of others), its nothing more than a feel good thing in most cases.  Are their exceptions sure, just like everything else.  Over all 500 shirts with your logo in a mass of others is going to mean crap for you in most cases.  You'd be more likely to get word of month referral for the quality print.  "Who printed these, so and so". 

I like Greg's idea.  After all most of these people just want to "feel like" they are getting either a deal or something free.  Who ever is in control just has to feel warm and fuzzy in a lot of cases.  If you can make money or break even and help a few charities I see no harm in that assuming your business is healthy elsewhere and I would say that's a win win in that case.

[Command-Z]

Some of my best-paying regular clients are annual charity fundraisers. The ones who do it right aren't looking for freebies, they understand how business works and they want quality and they have a budget for promotional goods. Remember, some of the bigger non-profits, charities and megachurches have CEOs making six-digit salaries.

A lot of times, I get the ones who really don't have a lot of budget, so I give them my stock-art for reduced price deals, but they understand they won't get anything for free. Services to charity, unlike donated goods, are not tax deductions.

There's usually a budget for shirts. I also happen to be on the Board of Directors of a non-profit organization and we have a budget for shirts for our annual conference and we don't ask for freebies or special deals, ever. I donate my time for art, but we pay the quoted price to local printers.

If you really have a strong desire to volunteer time or product to a certain cause that you feel a connection to, that's awesome, but don't fall for guilt trips to anyone who comes along and no, "exposure" is not compensation. Guilting you into donating is just a way for the promoter to either pocket the money budgeted for that purpose or go back to their boss and say "look what I did!" Just tell them that your business is not a charity, it's for-profit and thank you very much.

[3Deep]

We tell people and we get a lot asking for donations (hand outs) that we put money aside each month for one charitable cause and it's first come first serve.  We never tell them how much money, but I get sick of people that come to us for donations and never ask us to do shirts for them, so I ask them how many shirts have we done for you this year or in the pass year, they pretty much get where it's going and say thanks while they are backing out the door LOL.

darryl

[Screened Gear]

This is what I do and I am yet to have a "nonprofit" even do it.

When they call I tell them that we donate to many causes (we do} but they have to qualified. The qualifying is they have to submit their legal paper work and also a one page letter on how our charity will help their organization. The letter has to be from the person that holds the nonprofit or what ever license.

To this day I have never had anyone do it. I have had a bunch of people act like I am a dick for asking them to do anything for a donation.