Rescue Mission Blog

Non-profit leadership: Mission Impossible effort/minimum payoff

  

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Fans of Mission Impossible, Thomas Crown and other heist movies will remember with fondness the scenes of daring thieves rapelling down into a art museum to steal millions of dollars of paintings.  The idea of dashing art thief has been around for a while, and it sounds romantic.  

Only this week in Olympia a pair of art thieves got it wrong, and in doing so illustrated a little problem many of us have: going to a lot of effort, eliciting a bunch of drama, for very little benefit. (Story in News Tribune)  Apparently the thieves broke into an Olympia art gallery, rappelled down into the museum, and after great effort....stole two paintings worth a combined $1400.  $1400.?  Aren't they supposed to make off with millions?  Not in this case.

Going to great dramatic effort for very little payoff is common in many areas of life, not the least of which is the non-profit world.  How many times have you seen huge fundraising pushes to raise a few thousand dollars?  Or entire organizations developed, overhead taken on, offices rented, and letterhead printed...only to open a non-profit with limited scope of work, open a few days a weeks, to help a handful of people.  Such a waste.  

Here's a few ways you can check to make sure the effort of your charitable work will be wisely invested:

Is the work critical?  Some problems are not critical, life threatening or pressing.  If you find yourself gearing up in a huge way, make sure it's in service to a critical issue.  Why is this important? Because many efforts struggle because potential supporters sense that the cause isn't critical and so they don't engage.  Then you have a situation, which is common in the non-profit world, where an organization exists, but continually struggles because it's scope is too limited to gain interest of a wide range of support.

Is the work essential?  Some work is critical, but organizations don't scale it up to seem essential, thus the effort suffers.  Hunger is a critical issue, but often organizations don't approach it as essential, for example: only feeding once a day or once a week.  Either it's criticial or it's not, but donors will not respond to half measures.

Does it scale?  Some ideas need to be done on a large scale to be effective, and other ideas are exposed as weak or timid when you imagined them scaled up.  What would your program look like if it was national or internationa?  Would the overhead needed to make that possible be worth the payoff?  Often times governments get services wrong because they can take any program national without much effort, so you end up with programs that are not rightsized for the dollars needed to make it happen.  Some ideas don't scale, and asking yourself the question at the beginning will help you make good decisions in evaluating what to do, and what to do big.

Am I wrong to question the efficacy of charitable programs? Push back and let me know if you think my reasoning is wrong.  I'd love to hear your feedback.

David Curry

Black Friday Shopping list for the homeless

  

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When you're out shopping for your Christmas presents today on Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, you'll run across great deals on stuff that we could use at the Rescue Mission to make sure no one is cold this winter.  Put these on your list as you go throughout your day:

• Socks
• Warm hats
• Mens underwear
• Towels
• warm gloves
• coats
• Blankets
• children's coats
• diapers

All of these things are much needed every day at the Rescue Mission and we'll be sure to get them into the hands of people who desperately need them.

Drop off all donations at The Rescue Mission Downtown Tacoma Campus at 425 S. Tacoma Way, Tacoma, WA.  Or at our Adams St. Campus in Tacoma at 2911 S. Adams.  

Thank You

David Curry

Last minute ways to give at Christmas

  

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You meant to send in a turkey, or sign up to volunteer, but time just got away from you. Fortunately, there's still ways to give so that you know you are part of blessing the poor and hungry this Christmas.  

Donate online to buy food.  By donating online you are giving today, so that we can buy food to feed the hungry this Thanksgiving week.  We are feeding over 10,000 meals this week alone, so your help is needed.

Text to give.  For some people, texting is just so much easier.  You can text  "GIVEBACK" to 85944 to donate $10.  It's easy and a great way to help.  

Sign up to volunteer.  It's memorable to volunteer at Thanksgiving, but it's equally valuable other days as well.  sign up to volunteer and you'll be contacted by our volunteer coordinator to make sure you have a great experience feeding the hungry.  You won't be sorry you did it.

Merry Christmas and God bless.

David Curry

Thanksgiving rule: Happy people give

  

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Bunches of studies have been done on happiness and there are some common findings that we know for sure.  Happy people are busy, they keep active, they live in the present - enjoying the days and moments they have in front of them.  And...they are givers.

You can't be happy hoarding, withholding, and isolating.  You need others and you need to include others in what you're doing and enjoying.  

So this Thanksgiving, share, give, volunteer, and spend as much time as you can with people you love.

What can you give?

1.  Your time

2.  Your love

3.  Your attention

4.  Your words of encouragement

David Curry

Does charitable giving matter?

  

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What difference does it make if you give a dollar or two to feed the hungry or care for the weak and infirmed?  How important is charitable giving?

Some time ago I did a funeral for a man named John who had been a prisoner of war during WWII.  At the time he was a young boy, from Poland, and was separated from his family and sent to a camp by himself.  Afraid and alone, winter set in and many in the concentration camp began to die of exposure.  He survived due to the kindness of one man, a man he didn't know and who didn't know him.  In the concentration camp there was only one barrel that had fire burning in it to keep the prisoners warm, and those that were young, weak and infirmed didn't' have the strength to push through the crowd to warm themselves for the precious few moments necessary to stay alive.  It was a matter of life of death for everyone.  

John, then only 9 years old, survived because each day an unnamed man would come to the back of the crowd, and help him come to the front to stand by the fire for a few moments.  

John credited that man with saving his life.

In much the same way, when you are giving to feed the poor, or any act of service to someone you never know and will never see, you are providing a way for them to survive - so that one day they might thrive. 

Never underestimate the importance of one small act of kindness.

David Curry

Non-Profits & Environmental Responsibility

  

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Isn't it enough to just do something noble and meaningful as a profession? Must we also be environmentally responsible too?

Stewardship doesn't have categories for application that can be ignored and some accepted. Organizations that tout their good deeds on one hand and knowingly scoff at good stewardship on the other are regularly called out for their inconsistent and hypocritical behavior.  The recent BP disaster in the gulf comes to mind. As such, non-profits should lead the way in environmental stewardship. We have not reached the point where it's becoming possible to be on the cutting edge environmentally, and be saving resources financially at the same time, which maximizes our donors investment.  The more we save, the more we can put into direct services.  We can do good and do right at the same time.

Here at the Rescue Mission we're launching our GO GREEN initiative, which is our most aggressive movement yet to be the best possible steward of resources from an environmental perspective. The excitement has been building, with lots of great folks from our team getting into the spirit and coming up with some fantastic ways we can save environmental resources and save precious financial resources at the same time. 

Here are a few ideas that we're launching today:

Composting: With essentially two restaurants that are open three meals a day, every day of the year, we turn out a huge amount of compostable product. Now we're asking everyone to take part in making sure that we are putting composted product in the landfill, but instead using it to improve our gardens and soil.  In addition, we are selling the remaining food that isn't composted to a local farm to feed to their animals.  This takes a couple extra steps, but it's worth the work to make a difference.

Recycling: While this isn't a new concept, we're setting the goal of cutting our garbage output in half at ALL of our six locations. This means making sure all of our apartments, offices, and bathrooms, kitchens, and workspaces are trained and encouraged to recycle absolutely everything you possibly can.  There's a tremendous amount of training and reinforcement necessary, as we are so used to just tossing product into the garage instead of separating and recycling.  

Video Conferencing: We're all going to use Skype, phone conferencing and our new video conferencing system to do as many of our team meetings and classes as possible, thus cutting down on our usage of gas and our environmental impact. 

Temperature Range: As we've upgraded our facilities over the years we've become used to having the temperature at a steady 70 degrees, but with our new focus on environment responsibility we're setting a goal to save 5% on our use of electricity and natural resources. This goal is achievable if we all re-set our temperature to a range of 68-74 degrees. That's not outside the comfort zone, but will allow for a dead-spot in the system where the equipment isn't running 24/7. It's a great, easy way to be responsible.  As a test I've totally turned off my system in my office except when I needed the temperature adjusted and noticed that I only need it working for a max of 15 minutes, to warm my office at the beginning of the day. And that's between January and May!

Paper Towel Usage: One of our teams pointed out that we spend thousands of dollars each year on paper towels, just at our Downtown Tacoma Campus. By switching over to hand-dryers at our high-usage area we will save financial and environmental resources. A double benefit! In addition, those campuses that still use paper towels in the bathroom will be encouraged to recycle those instead of throwing them away.  

Let's encourage each other in taking the lead in environmental responsibility. We have a stewardship responsibility to our donors, clients and most importantly, to God. The faith-based community shouldn't be absent from the discussion of environment, as we unfortunately have been, but taking the lead in responsible management. 

David Curry