st. jude

I have my appointment set to discuss specifics on philanthropy with an employee from St. Jude tomorrow, and in the mean time I have been doing lots of research.  It is amazing at how many events and fund raisers are going on across the country every week for this one organization.  St. Jude has so many ways to give, that a donor can so easily personalize their gift to make it feel more than average.  I am really interested to get behind where all of these ideas come from, and how St. Jude has found a happy medium with what works well and what doesn’t work.  I think many nonprofits could learn a thing or two based on the success that St. Jude seems to have had. 

grant writing

As I begin writing my grant application with my  group, I remember this summer at Central Kansas Medical Center where I began this enduring tactic. I applied to six different pharmaceutical companies. Believe me, this was not just one generic app for all six companies. It took so much time just to find the application online. Some companies didn’t even offer an online application, so they had to mail it to me directly. From mission statements, goals, objectives, to money estimates, budgets and even the number of people–it was the longest job I had last summer. However, this is going to come handy when we are out in the real world. Even just a little experience will put us above the rest. Heck, we may just have to show off our own grant apps from this class for a little “show and tell”. Even though this rigorous project may seem tedious and long, it is in our best interest to get ahead of the game!

Fundraising Class For All

I recently recieved a comment for one of my posts. It was a fellow fundraiser/philanthropist commenting in disbelief that there was an actual class such as the one that we are currently take a part of. I really did not give it much though at first but then I realized that I have never heard of any other program giving such a class. SO I was wondering whether or not this is a class that will catch on for other journalism mass comm programs or if other universities will take it on as part of their leadership programs. I think this would be a great for the new and upcoming Non-Profit Leadership Studies Minor through Kansas State.  Just a thought.

No Mail List

The no mail list sounds like a great idea to me.  I have mail that I throw away everyday without even opening it.  This is wasteful on my part as much as whomever is sending it.  So I think this law would be great to cut  down on waste.  As it applies to philanthropy, I believe the law could only help.  Nonprofits would only send information to people who had expressed interest in their goals.

No mail list security

I for one love the idea of a no mail list. I think that it is great for many reasons ranging from saving paper products which helps the environment, and it also saves me space in my trashcan. When things like this come about I always try to make sure that I stay ahead of the game, I like to think, how can people exploit this concept. Let me just clear this up and say, i do not want to exploit this, I just want to stay ahead of the game. Face it, in this day and age, if something can be exploited, people will do it. So i think that this will be something that people will have to watch out for. I think the main way is pop-ups, my roommate got caught in one of these when it came to the no call list. He saw a link, added his phone number, and has received 3 calls a week for the last month and a half. I think that this will be a huge problem, all it takes is putting your address in and clicking one wrong box and its 2lbs of junk mail until you move and change addresses.

So i think that in the future this is something that will be perfected, eventually. But until then, we need to watch out.

GRANT WRITING

This post is concerning grant writing. As our group has met we have had a few questions. It seems that it is difficult to write a grant requesting money for an organization that wants volunteer hours instead of money. So the solution we have found will be to assume that there is the possibility that the space that will be used and the food that will be donated may not be provided or donated. So we are going to figure in the cost of what it would take rent out the space or to feed those in attendance for the fundraiser that Big Brother Big Sisters is going to be putting on.  In the end it seems the most likely solution for this minor problem.

No-mail-list

So, funny thing happened to me- no more than a few hours after Wednesday’s class, I went to see “Forgetting Sarah Marshall” at the theatre. Of course the movie itself has nothing to do with anything we talked about in class…but they have those new pre-preview shows called Screenvision. This “episode” was on going green, and the first topic they talked about was ForestEthics and its work on preventing junk mail. They interviewed a few people on how many trees are being destroyed in vain, because no one actually reads the mail, let alone recycle it. Interestingly enough, this seemingly easy task has met it’s share of challenges, with companies defending their right to market themselves and how they “rely” on this form in particular. ForestEthics is trying to work with everyone involved to find a happy medium, but unfortunately even a mediate amount of junk mail equals trees dying. All together, though, this organization has managed to be successful and have a positive outlook for the future. I am wishing them the best of luck, and if there is anywhere I can…sign me up!!!

No-Mail-List

I personally would be all for being on the no-mail-list because I throw away a bunch of junk mail every week.  And because most of my mail goes through my sisters hands it gets lost in the junk.  Which causes problems when I didn’t know it was due at certain times.  It also ends up killing a ridiculous number of trees for things no one looks at.

No-Mail-List

After our class discussion about the no-mail-list, I have been giving the issue a lot of thought. My conclusions?  I can’t believe this hasn’t taken been done yet!

Even if some people believe going green is just a fad to join, at least people are enticed to join in.  Whether we recycle to be cool or to save the planet, at least people are trying to save the planet.  So why don’t companies jump on the band-wagon?  Why are we still killing so many trees?

I know there are a lot of issues with the no-mail-list, like will it take us off lists we like, can non-profits still mail… there are issues, but they are worth working through.  I think as my generation matures more things will move to electronic-only messages because we have all had e-mail addresses since middle school (or younger!)  But as the baby-boomers are still one of the most targeted audiences and many of them don’t own a computer I’m sure paper mailings will still be the “best route.”

It makes me wonder what else we can move to digital for our generation though – all online text books?  Only turning in assignments online?  How much electricity would this use versus saving paper?

There just seems like there’s more we can be doing.

waste of paper

I loved the new twist put on our current event issue presentations on Wednesday.  Being Earth Day, it was appropriate to say the least.  The ironic thing is that in class we have talked quite a bit about how direct mailers get used the most by companies, nonprofits, etc., yet they are the least effective.  If these companies, etc. sending out these mailers so frequently just saved themselves time and manpower, they would also be saving a lot more.  They would be saving my time because I throw them out before looking at them anyway.  I was blown away by how many trees are gone each year because of these ineffective mailers.  Quitting the mailer send-off would save the environment more than anything.  It seems like now the priorities of American citizens have shifted a bit from using to trying to find ways to reuse or just not use at all.  It’s good to see “green” awareness blowing up, and even better to see it spread into philanthropy and fundraising.