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William Lambert
5 years ago
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1 BUS : Foundations of Business Service Learning Project: Utah Food Bank With failure you learn everything with success not so much Meet The Robinsons, Disney Author: Steven Gregerson 11/15/2011

2 Service Project Description: Utah Food Bank Perform a Food Drive: My strategy was to tie a opportunity drawing to the food drive that would enlist a personal motivator to get citizens to contribute. I created a website where they could visit to see who won. Upon dropping off the food they would receive a stub with a unique winning code to be randomly chosen. I chose to place posters regarding the drop off site on street signs and at sponsoring business locations. I also circulated an to a list of neighbors. Relation of Service to Business: Multiple Angles Business Relation Angle 1: A citizen who has their most basic needs met (food, clothing, shelter) can therefore explore the job market or maintain their other financial obligations e.g. house, car, medical payments. They also may be able to inject the money that would have been used for food (or as a result of finding employment) back into the economy for other basic necessities. Business Relation Angle 2: Using smaller local businesses as sponsors was a strategic decision. They are usually more willing to try gorilla marketing alternatives. Local companies also tend to re-invest back to the community, hire locally and therefore keep dollars circulating locally. They also see the benefit of tying their names to local good causes.

3 Lessons Learned: I learned that it s hard to plan for everything, including bad weather which may have had some effect on my donation count. I also learned that I should have created greater awareness at more local business. I did in fact start to contact a few (rather too late), to drop off barrels at their own location, but they already had their own food drive going. This leads me to another lesson; perform the food drive perhaps at another time in the year, away from a saturated holiday season. This would allow the Food Bank to be replenished at multiple times of the year, beneficial given that often the food donated is near expiration. Insights Gained: In researching the needs met by the Utah Food Bank, I feel this is a cause I would like to continue supporting going forward. I am already thinking of other strategies to make the next drive more successful (including a door-to-door campaign to make dropoff/pick-up an easier decision) while still coupling it to benefit local businesses. I realized just how difficult it is for non-profits to achieve their cause and how disappointing it must be when goals are not met, so it really is mutually beneficial for citizens, businesses and charities to work for the common good. I am attempting one strategy this week to see if some local business offices would be willing to have a barrel placed in the office for staff members to donate to and again, attempt to win a prize and feel good at the same time.

Bibliographic References: Verbal Communication: Contacting Sponsors Casey@Iceberg Drive-Inn 2011.[Business Communication],November 11, Bountiful, UT Tyson@Orchard Bowling 2011.

4 Bibliographic References: Verbal Communication: Contacting Sponsors Drive-Inn 2011.[Business Communication],November 11, Bountiful, UT Bowling 2011.[Business Communication],November 11, Bountiful, UT Main Station 2011.[Business Communication],November 10, Bountiful, UT Buck Pizza 2011.[Business Communication],November 10, Bountiful, UT Award Web-site: Flyer Generated: Placed in windows of local businesses

5 Reflective Journal: Approximately Hours and counting Day 1 Researched and contacted Utah Food Bank to find out how to perform a food drive and who to coordinate with. Meditated on coming up with a unique angle, and felt a prize might generate extra donations. Initially thought two barrels would be all I could get. Approx. 15 minutes Day 2 I decided that a duel sticker sheet with a place a person could write an /phone on the sticker they attach to their donated food bag, however I decided I didn t want to collect personal contact information, so I changed it to a Weebly generated web-site where on a certain date they could find the winner announcement. I pinged the ideas with my spouse. Upon deciding this was the route I d take, I called the contact Brandond@utahfoodbank.org from Day 1. He explained to me the process and gave me some ideas. I registered and started looking at what supplies I can get from them (barrels, donation bags etc.), what foods are acceptable to donated, what prizes I could get donated, deciding the drop off location(s) and what marketing strategies I could undertake (flyers, posters etc). Also built prototype supporting weebly website: Approx. 1:45 Picked up barrels, bags and poster from Food Bank Approx. 30 minutes To secure some prizes for the raffle, I Called $5 Pizza to donate a pizza, Main Station to donate a haircut, Iceberg to donate shakes and Orchard Bowling for 6 free games Approx. 45 minutes I also procured their logos and incorporated them into promotional imagery to hang up at the drop off site, put up on the winner announcement web-site and as a reciprocal marketing gesture back to the businesses. Approx. 2:30 Contacted clergy to notice to local church members about drive Approx. 10 min Day 3: Picked up prizes and dropped off fliers. Approx. 1 hour On this day I realized that I do have the opportunity to also promote my own services as a real estate agent and letting people know I exist here in this area to help with real estate needs. Created Award Drawing Tickets, Updated website: Approx. 2 hr 30 min I had to find an old incremental numeric generator macro to make unique opportunity drawing codes. Then I printed those along with a stub that mentioned the web address where awards were being announced. After printing everything I stapled this to a flyer I created for my real estate services and a 15% discount card from Iceberg drive-inn they supplied. This I felt correlated three acts of business; support of Non-Profit Business that supports Social needs, in tandem with promotion of local retail businesses as well as my own realty services. Linking these business to an act of good will hopefully will not only benefit them with new business, but through that dynamic create a subconscious statement of I support this business because it supported a good cause. Other assessments are, I perhaps made this too complicated, but the entrepreneur in me wanted to do something unique that could possibly generate more donations. It has taken more time than expected or required by this project which made it a little difficult for my assignments due in my other classes. However, I consider this project as a mind changer for me. I will forever consider ways to incorporate business acts that can not only affect the bottom line, but that have a positive effect on the needs of the needy. Day 4: Received Foods and passed out ticket stub: Approx. 3 hr. 30 min - Rain and perhaps not enough lead time or signage contributed to a wash out. Technically only one donation. Pretty disappointed. Will contact UFB and let them know I d try again, but the next time will be a neighborhood drop off (bags) and pick up that usually seems to have some success.

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Welcome Kit. Contact us at (407) Funds2Orgs.com (407) Welcome Kit Contact us at asap@funds2orgs.com (407) 930-2979 asap@funds2orgs.com Funds2Orgs.com (407) 930-2979 030618-114 Welcome! THANK YOU for choosing Funds2Orgs for your fundraiser, we look forward