What is the name of the character who is the cocky, reigning Special Olympics champion who everybody wants to beat in The Ringer? Be one of the first five people to submit the correct answer by clicking here to be entered in the drawing for this month’s prize—the Cheesecake Sampler!
Not every call Heritage makes for a client results in a cash donation—but some of them produce some very
tasty dividends! A great gift-in-kind (GIK) was donated to the
Special Olympics Wyoming 2006 Winter Games by a Jackson Subway shop—50% of a full lunch for 500 people. This generous gift was prompted by a call from a Heritage agent, proving once again the power of the phone in charitable solicitations. This happy outcome was the product of having a great effort by the Wyoming organization in chasing down the lead that Heritage passed along and doing something incredible with it—a big payoff that never reaches the balance sheet.
When someone provides a sales lead to a professional salesperson, she cherishes that potential lead and
cultivates it with all her passion, heart and energy. The same thing is true in
fundraising, and we contact hundreds of leads that are later passed on to Special Olympics offices that turn from a lead into major in-kind contributions. These gifts could be for auctions, facilities, gyms, meeting places, and so much more…thanks to the great follow up in Wyoming, a six foot sub got converted and bumped to lunch for 500! TAKE THAT ITEM OFF THE EXPENSE SIDE OF THE LEDGER! So follow up on those golden leads…
Of course, everyone involved in Special Olympics thinks their athletes are the best (as well they should!). We know that they’re all great, and wanted to pass along a few pictures of some of the Virginia snow skiers strutting their stuff in their recent Winter Games. What an inspiration they are, in so many ways!
A bill has been dropped in the US House of Representatives that would remove some of the onerous burdens on telefundraising. The bill, HR 4425, has bipartisan support, but would certainly benefit from outside support from the nonprofit community. For more information, you can click here for a summary of the bill. Interested in getting involved? Please send us an email by clicking here and we can help!
We believe that it is important to not just constantly learn in order to improve professionally, but that we have an obligation to contribute to the body of knowledge in the nonprofit realm where possible. To that end, we were gratified to
have an article written by one of our team members published in the December 1 issue of The Nonprofit Times. This article was on the anniversary of a Supreme Court case that recognized the special protected nature of nonprofits' speech in the arena of fundraising—something obviously near and dear to our hearts. To view it, you may click here.
In December, we had a number of client organizations who called or emailed us to let our fundraising teams know how much they were appreciated. Those messages came from many groups, including several Special Olympics organizations as well as the Multiple Sclerosis Association
of America. The kind words of encouragement meant a lot to our fundraisers, and we appreciate it very much!
As anyone from North Carolina knows, there is something special about famous “Carolina Blue” (with apologies to all you Blue Devils, Wolfpack, and assorted other fans out there).
Something that the University of North Carolina men’s basketball team has done in recent years is to put on a clinic for over Special Olympics athletes from around the state. In this year’s event, over 100 athletes got to be a part of the clinic.
As much as they were impressed with getting to play in the Dean Smith Center with the then #20 Tarheels, the team was even more impressed with their visitors! As Tyler Hanbrough, the Tarheels’
freshman forward put it, “I saw some guys that could really stroke the shot and some that were really fast. It was fun to watch!"
Those of us fortunate enough not to have been directly affected by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita witnessed their destruction and aftermath on television. Of course, those images cannot fully explain what it was like to really be a part of those disasters. One of the brave men (and women) of the Air Force who commanded a shelter on the Gulf Coast of Mississippi provided an amazing narrative of his experiences, which you may view by clicking here.
