Testing the Goodwill of My Community
May 11th, 2009 by Jon Posted in Spirit of Hope | No Comments
At the Spirit of Hope photo exhibit, Kathy and I will be selling our photos to help raise funds for both Empowerment International and Samaritan’s Purse Canada. In order to maximize the amount of money we can raise for these charities, we need to keep our expenses VERY low. So this afternoon I made a trip out to local businesses to seek a donation of either monetary or materials / products for the event.
The first store I went to was a major arts and crafts supply store who operates 1,018 stores throughout North America. Without any prior contact with my local store, I went in armed with two example framed photos and a poster of the event. Quickly I was connected with the store manager who regrettably informed me that the headquarters in Texas deals with all charitable donations and that they already dealt with donations nationwide — so basically nothing left for charitable endeavors like ours.
Somewhat sympathetically, the manager gave me an in-store coupon for 25% off a purchase which was part of their chain-wide marketing for that week. I thanked her and she wished me luck.
After this meeting I dropped into two other major retailers and received phone numbers for their store managers and marketing managers. I will be drafting a letter and making a visit to these stores again this week - I hope my luck is better with them.
Currently our needs for the event are:
- Photo printing for 100 8×10″ photos.
- 100 black 11×14″ frames with white mattes.
- Bottled water and cookies for guests (not a necessity, but would help encourage a charitable mood)
Kathy and I have accepted the fact that Spirit of Hope will be largely an awareness and outreach event, but it helps to be able to generate some donations to help the poor in Nicaragua.
