Don't forget Strategic Philanthropy

1701 Views 9 Replies 6 Participants Last post by kevincook, Jan 9, 2018

GunnyJeeves

Discussion Starter · Dec 29, 2017

Strategic Philanthropy is a great tool that is free to use. The concept is simple, but the rewards are big. Find a worthy cause, and give a small percentage of your work for a time (year or so)

1. Find a fairly local charity. (Local school band booster, church, women's shelter, etc...)

2. Donate a portion of the profit (even if 10%) or maybe $1 per shirt to this charity...

3. They will market for you in a lot of cases.

Everyone wins.

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splathead

· #2 · Dec 29, 2017

And if you advertise the fact that a portion of your customer's sale goes to the charity, make sure you're legal with your state's Attorneys General office. Many states require a filing and strict accounts reporting.

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GunnyJeeves

Discussion Starter · #3 · Dec 30, 2017

This is true and is why you select a simple method.

$1 per shirt for 2018 to XXX Charity is easy... count shirt sales, cut check.

Vs

10% of profit... (complex accounting... then verify.) it's tougher to prove compliance because if you made $15,000 profit, and bought a new $10,000 machine... did you make $5000 or $15,000 legally?

But part of why you need to verify can be avoided if you don't want credit for it. If your kids school, like mine, has not done the filing for tax exemption for the clubs / booster program / etc... then you still get credit for your donation as a marketing expense. I mean that's what it really is anyway, and it's the same credit but less verification.

Besides the strategic part is this:
Either pick a potential frequent T-Shirt customer needing any financial help possible... (School band booster) and benefit from their merchandising, their pep rally's, their other clubs like FBLA, 4H, etc... county football team, and the host of other T-Shirt and banner opportunities you have from that county.

Or

Pick a well known and established local cause. Ideally something that touches the lives of a lot of people. The idea is to basically adopt them. Announce this at a highly populated event. They in turn go find you business as they know that a portion comes back to them.

In any case, be strategic. IBM coined that phrase, and used to invest in K-12 schools to hope to influence future candidates for IBM jobs. (Strategic)

For a Custom T-Shirt business, it's hard to beat aligning with a local school system to aid a struggling program (arts? Band? Etc) since the schools are such huge T-Shirt customers. If it just gets you that school's business, or that cluster's business, you got a profitable sustainable business line just from that.

Good luck!

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Signature Series

· #4 · Dec 30, 2017

What matters is the bottom line to non profits. What is the net cost of the "shirt". You can give back all you want but if you give back a dollar and your price is 3 dollars higher than a competitor than you will not gain the business. Why would you not just offer them a "non-profit" discount and forget all the nonsense and record keeping?

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NoXid

· #5 · Dec 30, 2017

Signature Series said:
What matters is the bottom line to non profits. What is the net cost of the "shirt". You can give back all you want but if you give back a dollar and your price is 3 dollars higher than a competitor than you will not gain the business. Why would you not just offer them a "non-profit" discount and forget all the nonsense and record keeping?

They were referring to donating a $1 to the non-profit from shirts sold to others, not shirts sold to the non-profit. Sometimes businesses target a certain shirt/design as supporting a specific charity, like an animal shelter. Sometimes it is a piece of the profit off of every item they sell.

Hey, based on my taxes, I'm a non-profit. Sending any love my way

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GunnyJeeves

Discussion Starter · #6 · Dec 30, 2017 (Edited)

Signature Series said:
What matters is the bottom line to non profits. What is the net cost of the "shirt". You can give back all you want but if you give back a dollar and your price is 3 dollars higher than a competitor than you will not gain the business. Why would you not just offer them a "non-profit" discount and forget all the nonsense and record keeping?

You could but that's just "getting a customer". Well, not even that... getting a "sale".

If you go the Strategic Philanthropy route, you create an ally. Thats the real difference. It's only important in the context of how you'd treat your allies.

You'd need to acknowledge the difference between:

A sale - Possibly one time.. no promises of future business.

A customer - A present and when possible, future customer. (Next time they want your service, they will come to you directly)

An ally - A customer who is in your corner, rooting for you, and actively spreading the word for you.

Plus, You can "experiment" with other offerings, and get honest feedback from them.

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GunnyJeeves

Discussion Starter · #7 · Dec 30, 2017

NoXid said:
They were referring to donating a $1 to the non-profit from shirts sold to others, not shirts sold to the non-profit. Sometimes businesses target a certain shirt/design as supporting a specific charity, like an animal shelter. Sometimes it is a piece of the profit off of every item they sell.

Hey, based on my taxes, I'm a non-profit. Sending any love my way

Non profit eh? I hope that changes for you!

Another way to approach this is to look at your own business. I read and I believe that it takes three things to succeed. Artistic, sales/business, and technical savvy. If you score yourself on those, one might need work.

Even pairing with a school, you can easily add to your "score" in any of these areas.

Art: Make a deal to give to the art class or club. Then send art requests to them and pay for what you use successfully. You give the art class a real world job scenarios, get art from a group of artists who you only need to pay if it's successful, and literally everyone is happy... (kids have parents... parents have jobs... and their jobs are potential customers too.)

Sales or Business: Adopt the local FBLA and give them the reigns to promote on social media. (With a buck per shirt coming back to the FBLA, they might just work your butt to death!)

Technical: if your tech savvy is lacking, the local AP computer science club could probably beef up your website, or help with software.

Be creative and structure something cool for everyone and it will work out.

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NoXid

· #8 · Dec 30, 2017

GunnyJeeves said:
Non profit eh? I hope that changes for you!

Another way to approach this is to look at your own business. I read and I believe that it takes three things to succeed. Artistic, sales/business, and technical savvy. If you score yourself on those, one might need work.

Even pairing with a school, you can easily add to your "score" in any of these areas.

Art: Make a deal to give to the art class or club. Then send art requests to them and pay for what you use successfully. You give the art class a real world job scenarios, get art from a group of artists who you only need to pay if it's successful, and literally everyone is happy... (kids have parents... parents have jobs... and their jobs are potential customers too.)

Sales or Business: Adopt the local FBLA and give them the reigns to promote on social media. (With a buck per shirt coming back to the FBLA, they might just work your butt to death!)

Technical: if your tech savvy is lacking, the local AP computer science club could probably beef up your website, or help with software.

Be creative and structure something cool for everyone and it will work out.

I've been direct retailing my own line of designs, not printing for others ... so that right there fails business savvy

I'm just now beginning to try wholesaling, which might eventually add enough revenue to overcome depreciation and put a gleam in the eye of the I R S.