Relief for Cyclone Victims

I think it is alway very interesting to see how everyone reacts on a natural disaster or crisis when it comes to fund raising, giving, and non-profits overall.  A lot of people complain and think that people need a natural disaster to give back and do something for another country.  And then after it “looks” as if things are getting cleaned up the charties stop and it hurts the country even more. I think that no matter the reason if people are willing to give that let them.

No one wants to have to deal with this stuff, or wants people to go through this disaster but, it happens and if people are will to step in whether it’s for five days or five years let them do it. A hard thing about natural disasters is people are constantly waiting for the government to step in and help with relief. A quote from an article on philanthropy.com says, “

A growing number of charities have sent supplies to Southeast Asia to help victims of the recent cyclone in Myanmar, but many aid workers continued to express concern that red tape and foot-dragging on the part of government officials were delaying their ability to provide assistance.

“It’s frustrating not to be able to respond immediately and provide on-the-ground assistance,” said Rabih Torbay, vice president of international operations with the International Medical Corps.”

This specific natural disaster sounds like charities are really stepping in, which is great! Some of the top according to the same article were:

• Save the Children had raised more than $1.4-million as of Thursday. The charity hopes to raise $10-million.

• AmeriCares had received $200,000, most of it online. The organization was preparing to send out a direct-mail appeal later this week.

• Direct Relief International had received $150,000, in large part because Google, which has given grants to the charity in the past, listed the charity’s name on its home page as one of two organizations to which it suggested donors contribute.

• Donations to Mercy Corps totaled $100,000.

Grants and fundraising increasing

I found an article on philanthropy.com talking about how foundations should expect a giving increase, which is great! The study was put on by the Foundation Center this week. I thought it was really interesting because I have been reading and hearing a lot that giving and fund raising is going to go down, and has already been decreasing.  I also thought it was interesting that they said the “biggest foundations are the ones that are the most likely to increase, which could be good or bad.  The report also found that a strong growth in foundation assets, along with the establishment of new foundations, was the reason for the increase.

Lets hope this is true!

Here is the article: http://philanthropy.com/news/updates/index.php?id=4568

using facebook/myspace with organizations

After discussing setting up a facebook and myspace account for FHCC with Meghan this week, I have thought about whether this is a good or bad idea. I think that since they have a lot of volunteers it might be a good way for them to communicate with each other, and be updated all at once. As far as the privacy issues go, I think this would not be a good idea because patients might “stalk” the FHCC volunteers and this could be dangerous. I would also say that the majority of FHCC is not technologically advanced.  Also, Meghan will have one more thing to up keep and maintain.

I know that there is some type of online scheduling that some fastfood places use, and I need to look into that for Meghan, but I think for the most part overall myspace and facebook are not a good idea for FHCC right now.

I am really looking forward to writing the article for FHCC, it will be great publicity and good experience.

Political Giving

I recently read an article today that talked about how they released  John McCains his tax returns for the past two years, including details about the money he donated to charitable causes.  Although, most any other time I would think either 1. who cares. 2. stay out of their business BUT… I think this is a GREAT idea. Why not release this information, politicians are making bank. This is an awesome way to tell 1. what they are interested in and 2. whether they are a giving person.  It would look really bad if some future president is make 500,000 dollars and year  and donated 200 bucks.

Why not do it with celebrities to….maybe it will make them give more money.

 

In the end John McCain sounds like a pretty decent guy, “In 2007, the Arizona senator reported $405,409 in total income and contributed $105,467, or 26 percent of his total income, to charity.”

Communication project

While brainstorming about our class discussion and thinking about different communication tactics, I decided it would be best to blog about it and get my ideas out there.

There are so many great different ways to get your clients involved in the company. I loved the example that Harvey gave with the Nike shoe example and letting people design there own shoe.  They feel like they have control over a huge corporation.

I wish there was something this easy to use with Flint Hills Community Health Clinic but, there is not for several reasons. 1. a Health org. is limited on what it can involve people with b/c of privacy and health code reasons. 2. FHCC does not have all the money in the world to come up with cool, new, creative ideas.

I think something small they can do is get a website, so that people can interact.  Also something simple like filling out a survey when people come in can make them feel like they have a change.  Unless people are coming into the clinic it is hard to get them involved because you don’t know EXACTLY who your clients are on a consistent basis.

http://www.philanthropy.com/premium/articles/v20/i12/12004305.htm

That is all the ideas I have for now, hopefully I can do some more on line research and maybe add more to my blog later.

Final Product

We FINALLY are all done with our branding image and public assignment.  It turned out well. I have really learned a lot through this process including:

1. Research is so important.-We did well because we researched the employees, company etc. to get a feel for what they would like. We researched other health clinics and trends.

2. The presentation matters. It was fun to present our project to Meghan and talk to her about what we had discovered.  I think it is hard for her because something that she likes the board might not like. 

3. Try to use something that is going to work well, long term.  You do not want this company to re-vamp who they are in two years.

4. Don’t just make an image-make a BRAND. That little 10 inch picture/saying has to go a long way.  Creating a brand can be a very long term project. 

 

Projects

We just finished our logo project, and are about to finish our public’s project. I think that both are coming really well. The logo looks like something that FHCC can really use in the future.  It has been interesting to talk to all of the board members of FHCC and get their opinions on what needs to be done and how things are going. 

I recently read a VERY interesting article on the web about a fund-raising tactic that a bunch of UK women used, to raise money for breast cancer.  About forty women ran 100 meters naked to raise money for breast cancer research. This got a lot of publicity, and a lot of people were pretty upset about this.  What does “being naked” have to do with cancer? Not the point…I think this was a great article to show the importance of pr.  If you tell the right people, and do the right things it will get you attention you want. They ended up raising about 25,000- Although this may have not been the most appropriate tactic, or classy….it worked for them. 

Maybe the board members of FHCC should try this tactic….    

Weekly Update

I have finally made contact with the board members this week, and this really helped to to understand FHCC better. I talked to the Pres. of the board and he helped get the clinic started, we discussed newsletters for awhile and I found out he had never gotten one. I think this newsletter is SO key!! We discussed what might be better between email and snail mail and there are several benefits to both.  Email would be very cost efficient especially being a free clinic, but, most of their public’s are older and do not use email. I would say BOTH! It is not going to cost anything to send an email too.

The chairman of the board was very friendly and really wanted the best for the clinic. I think he is very excited about the diabetes part of the clinic.  We got into fund-raising a little bit, and thinks they really need to have some type of an event.

I got the feeling that the board doesn’t have GREAT communication with the rest of the clinic including donors and volunteers.

We have got our branding project done and I am excited to see the final result on paper along with everyone else’s.

Update

Our branding project came a long way this week, we have it pretty much done. We need to work on getting it mated and displayed nicely. I think that our slogan and logo will work nicely with the “health clinic” world.

We have also been interviewing some of the board members with FHCC, this has been very interesting.  They are very friendly and nice and have been cooperating with us, great. I think that they may be “stuck” in their ways about a few things, but really want to help FHCC. Meghan talked a little bit about some fund-raising ideas and she mentioned they were hard to get ideas past, since a lot of them our ministers. 

I think that we will have a better idea of where we need to go and what we need to do, after we get everyone interviewed.

Publics….

We discussed public’s last week in class, and I really started to realize how important it is to categorize your public’s.  I think this is especially true with FHCC. It’s hard because Meghan said they did not want to get more patients, but they really need more volunteers and donors.  It is very important to whom you put into what category because you want to give the most important people the most attention.

I think that Mercy Regional is def. a primary public, as are the people who donate money.  I think that the board, and the other workers are secondary publics.

I think the patients and everyone else would be the least important.

I think that it will help after talking to all the publics to really decide where they go, and see how involved some of the board members are.

We are still working on our Brand Image. I am having a hard time working with photo-shop, but I think that we have some good ideas that will work well with all of the publics.