THE POWER OF ‘ONE’:

Cho vs. Skip

The power of ‘one’ is astonishing.  On Monday, April 16^th, a lone gunman killed thirty-two people on the Virginia Tech campus and managed to take the eyes of our nation, and, indeed, the entire world, off ‘the ball’ for an entire week.  Cho Seung-hui destroyed thirty-two productive lives along with all the good works they each would have put in motion after their respective matriculations’ educational empowerments.  How many Albert Einsteins and Bill Gates were among them, we can only guess.  God only knows the vast influence they could have had on our world, compared to the influence Cho will have had when all is said and done.

On Memorial Day, 1975, in Las Vegas, Glen Goss, a 49-year-old Tremonton, Utah truck driver was shot and killed when he went to the aid of a Nevada Highway Patrolman attacked by a Minnesota fugitive who had been stopped in a stolen car. Skip Pierro, the chairman of the Las Vegas Jaycees’ Grantsmanship Sub-Committee, researched donors that assisted fallen heroes and discovered the Carnegie Hero Fund Commission that required an established nonprofit and a major news medium to act as co-sponsors – vouching for the accuracy of the alleged act of heroism and helping promote efforts to marshal local and regional assistance for the family of the deceased. The Carnegie Hero Fund Commission immediately awarded a grant of $9,500 for immediate family subsistence, funeral, and burial matters; they began striking and embossing a Carnegie Hero Medal with Goss’s likeness; plus they provided a coordinator from the Carnegie Hero Fund who flew to Las Vegas to assist in the collaboration-building efforts to raise money and resources for Goss’s widow and seven young children. This coordinator was a veritable ring master in terms of mobilizing the then fledgling Las Vegas Jaycees’ Funding Development Committee with its four sub-committees.

Each day, the Las Vegas REVIEW JOURNAL’s articles described the outpouring of assistance for cash donations, and gifts in-kind, including an anonymously-donated new truck, clothing, and food, as the Carnegie coordinator ‘stirred things up’ (G=Grantsmanship Sub-Committee; FR=Fundraising Sub-Committee; PG=Planned Gifts Sub-Committee; CS=Corporate Sponsorship Sub-Committee):

§   G originally contacted the Carnegie Hero Fund and the Las Vegas REVIEW JOURNAL (to be the co-sponsor)

§   The Carnegie coordinator contacted the Nevada Highway Patrol Association to help them establish a local trust fund for Lucille Goss and her seven children

§   FR contacted the Sahara Hotel to secure a donated venue for a large benefit

§   The Carnegie coordinator contacted the Fraternal Order of Police and Associates Lodge to assist them in setting up the Glen Goss Memorial Fund. Total contributions to these two funds exceeded $50,000 in six days. The Lodge met with members of FR to plan and conduct the Glen Goss Memorial Night of Stars & Dance at the Sahara Hotel (the benefit included numerous local youth bands and singing groups, Wayne Newton, Johnny Tillotson, Glen Campbell, Tex Williams, Wynn Stewart and several other country and western singers). Money raised from the trust funds were presented at that benefit by then Lieutenant Governor Robert Rose. Interestingly, when Wayne Newton learned that he was one of Lucille Goss’s favorite performers, he arranged for an extended, personalized visit to his Las Vegas ranch for her and her children before returning to Tremonton.

§   G contacted the Clark County Commission for approval to erect an historical marker, then contacted the International Footprint Association to actually erect it.

§   CS contacted the Latins of Las Vegas Club that sponsored a benefit movie showing

§   FR contacted the Utah Police Chief of Ogden, Utah, Leroy Jacobsen, who coordinated a benefit football game at Ogden with proceeds earmarked for the Goss family.

§   The Carnegie coordinator contacted the Nevada Board of Examiners that awarded $5,000 under a state law providing compensation for victims of certain criminal acts.

§   PG contacted the Clark County Traffic Survival School and acquired a $1,000 scholarship in honor of Goss for a student in Tremonton, Utah to attend the University of Nevada, Las Vegas

§   The Carnegie coordinator met with the University Board of Regents, then contacted the Nevada University System, which eventually provided free tuitions and registration costs to all seven children at any division of the System.

§   FR contacted then Las Vegas mayor, Bill Briare, who arranged an awards ceremony and testimonial for the Carnegie Hero Medal presentations at the Las Vegas City Hall.

§   FR contacted the chain of McDonalds Restaurants in Las Vegas, which conducted a fund drive via sales of Big Mac hamburgers at eleven area restaurants with ten cents from the sale of each Big Mac being contributed to the Goss family trust fund (they handled their proceeds separately since they wanted to present to Lucille Goss personally as soon as she arrived in Las Vegas).

§   CS contacted Fletcher Jones Car Sales and was allowed to conduct a company-wide appeal to their employees directly, securing $1,500.

§   FR contacted each elementary school and received numerous ‘Goss Buckets’ of coins, such as from the Twin Lakes Elementary School’s pupils. The buckets had labels stating that Glen Goss was the sole provider for his seven children, and where will their daily lunch allowances come from until his widow can get back on her feet. I now wish that I had kept a more diligent account of this particular aspect because it was very touching how many lunch allowances were not spent during that two-weeks time period when the ‘bucket brigade’ was in ‘emotion’.

What kind of ‘grant’ was the utilization of the Carnegie coordinator? He was a gift in-kind as a loaned executive/loaned employee from the Carnegie Hero Fund. How critical was ‘this piece’ in the project’s success. He was absolutely critical doling out assignments and ideas to our sub-committees like a black jack dealer dealing out cards, getting ‘hit’ or ‘stand’ messages, and tallying the payoffs. For example, who thought to contact the Nevada University System?  Right, it was the Carnegie coordinator. That single contact far exceeded all the others put together when you calculate two semesters’ times four years times seven children, with each subsequent child costing more each year.

But what started this avalanche of help, support, and philanthropy?  Skip did, and in so doing, demonstrated again the power of ‘one’.  Never underestimate the enormous power for good, and bad, you have as an individual who can…and does.

"I am only one, but still I am one. I cannot do everything, but still I can do something; and because I cannot do everything I will not refuse to do the something that I can do."     - Helen Keller, American author and lecturer (1880–1968)

     This week will surely be your lucky week if you can check off the following to do's:

Web Site: look at your Web site's home page and confirm that you have your best key words and phrases prominently present.  I say "best" because your really need to go to www.GoodKeyWords.com, select one search engine at a time, and bring up the key words and phrases you think are your best key words and phrases.  When you do, the free software will show you a listing of where your selected key word/phrase showed up in a ranking list.  If you have not already done this exercise, I'll bet you will be very surprised at the actual key words and phrases that the surfers are using to try to find you -- in many cases unsuccessfully or on page 233 of 310 pages full of  'competitors'.
     In many cases, you are likely to discover that your 'presumed' key word/phrase only had 3,240 hits this week, and a close version of it had 210,567 hits.  No wonder you may be coming in on page 233 instead of page 1.  Likewise, you may not be using the power meta tags.  Here is how Good Key Words describes their software:
    "Good Keywords is a free Windows software for finding the perfect set of keywords for your web pages. Knowing the right keywords to target is very important because your site should provide what people are searching for."

That Grant Proposal in Progress: Any grant seeker would be wise to take note of the 'hundredth monkey' momentum that is sweeping American philanthropy.  Old private sector paradigms are falling away due to the critical mass from two major influences: baby boomers taking over the reins of their respective families' foundations, and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (a power to reckon with that is dynamically lead by two of those baby boomers).  Baby boomer grant givers want:

• preventative projects that eliminate problems rather than manage or treat manifestations/symptoms of problems (that is why I constantly emphasize the importance of your proposal's 'Needs Assessment' section -- it must isolate and identify problems, not symptoms of problems, and then create a Method that attacks the problems, not the symtoms).
• immediate gratification in terms of measurable results
• sustainability (grant givers are viewing favored programs much as they now view alternative energy sources -- 'most favored programs' must have built-in sustainability, and not rely solely upon funding plans that live or die with that next grant)
• collaboration (grant givers want 'next level' scopes of meaningful programming -- programs that changes lives and persistent inequities, not mere 'first-aiding' from solo empire-builders unwilling to band with partners for synergy and force multiplication).

     Let's look at those last three influences and their imminent impact on your proposal in progress.  While you've been crafting that proposal, things changed.  You'd better re-think your 'Future Funding' section because it had better include sustainability.  Your 'Objectives' section better have realistic, measurable, readily-achievable objectives.  Your 'Evaluation' section better include more than proposing an 'end-of-the-year report' so today's funding source will know you're awake and one of the hundred monkeys.  Your 'Methods' section better be able to change problems, not deaden the pain.  Your 'Introduction' and 'Methods' sections better talk about collaborating and leveraging support from multiple sources.  'Lone Ranger nonprofits' had better start finding numerous Tonto's, sheriffs, marshals, and posse's because there's a new Governor in the territory.

That Film Project in Progress: January 1st might mark the moment that Section 181 and Section 199 of the American Jobs Creation Act go away, in terms of not being continued because of 'lack of interest'.  Regrettably these seemingly best-kept secrets for seriously decreasing the costs of a film project may not be continued by Congress, so you'd better get into pre-production by December 31st, 2007; 'Google' those two AJC Act sections this week, and contact Hal "Corky" Kessler this month (he's in Chicago and is probably the leading authority on this area of law that got buried in the AJC Dead Sea Scrolls -- 312.925.2110 or ckessler@fvldlaw.com).

Nonprofit Mentoring:  All these topics will be discussed in detail at the upcoming April WAMO Workshops to be held in Reno, April 14-15 and 21-22, and the less imminent workshops throughout the year (see Calendar' navigation button in my Home Page's horizontal navigation bar).