2002 Partners Breakfast
2002 Partners Breakfast
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
FOR ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
CONTACT: Richard Polk
Pedestrian Shops 303-449-5260
Richard@pedestrianshops.com
Anyone who has given away money to support a cause they believe in knows that philanthropy is fun, makes you feel good, and is probably just the right thing to do.
My two minutes will be spent telling you that philanthropic campaigns have also been profitable for my small company; they are good for morale and have not always involved writing a big check
As an example, the Pedestrian Shops uses cooperative advertising funds earned from our suppliers as a percentage of purchases to cover the wholesale cost of shoes contributed to local fundraisers.
We were recently contacted by Bear Creek elementary school and were told that they had won a thousand dollar Jared Polis Foundation Teacher’s Appreciation Day essay contest. Their essay was a Dr. Seuss adaptation that included the following request: ‘If you buy the right Dansko Clog, we’ll buy the left’
Our response was to call Dansko and arrange to use our co-op balance to cover the wholesale cost of the clogs. The entire 23-teacher faculty visited our shop and enjoyed a totally free $3000 shopping spree.
Pedestrian’s semi-annual shoe drives for the homeless are other examples. Shoes collected locally have been supplemented by our suppliers desire to be a part of the story. During last Thanksgivings shoe drive, the Rieker Shoe Company sent us $25,000 worth of sample shoes. During a recent Earth Day shoe drive, the Naot shoe company sent a similar shipment.
My favorite example is a successful 1981 fundraiser for Memorial Hospital called “Tie Yours On.” This philanthropic opportunity resulted from an art collector friend showing me a giant shoe lace ball – It was over 30” in diameter, and had this wonderful story about a nervous shoe shine guy that started the ball with a pair of Al Capone’s shoe laces. The Tana Co. – A manufacturer of shoelaces and polishes provided advertising support and new shoelaces for every person who came into our shop, tied their old laces onto the ball, and made a donation to the campaign. The Pedestrian Shops gave each participant a numbered certificate as evidence that their laces were a part of the ball.
All of these examples of Pedestrian Shops campaigns were successful from the beneficiary’s perspective. While each campaign had some expense, the cost was more a matter of staff time than dollars. A great value when you consider employee ownership in the resulting goodwill. In each example a partner contributed as much as or more than we did, and was delighted with an outcome that included industry and local publicity.
In short, I believe that people do care and that a ‘culture of giving’ can be a significant factor in any businesses success.
THANK YOU