The true philanthropic nature of our fellow Americans can never be overestimated.  This quick bit from “Philanthropy Journal’s” website shows the intersection of holiday gift giving and fundraising from a survey by Harris Interactive for World Vision:

Though the economic slump has prompted many would-be holiday shoppers to scale back, it also has encouraged them to make their gifts more meaningful, says a new survey.

More than seven in 10 people surveyed said they plan to spend less on holiday presents this year, while about half said they were more likely to give a charitable gift as a holiday present.

On the receiving end, more than eight in 10 adults said they preferred to get a gift that could help someone in need, as opposed to a traditional gift like clothing or electronics.

“These results underscore our altruistic American culture of giving back,”

Justin Greeves, senior vice president of public affairs and policy research at Harris Interactive, says in a statement. “This generosity may surprise some, but shows why it truly ‘tis better to give than to receive.’”

(Read on …)

Delays to deliver mail are ongoing and the USPS is acknowledging the problems. CBA has already shared news about budget cuts resulting in fewer work hours at the USPS but more stories continue to surface illustrating just how bad the situation is.

In this story, postal workers at northeast Albuquerues’s Steve Schiff Post Office are starting to reveal the actual conditions at that facility.

Full story can be found here:
http://www.krqe.com/dpp/news/business/business_krqe_albuquerque_usps_acknowledges_mail_meltdown_200812130008_rev1

Another career opportunity has been sent our way. This time from Michal Heiplik down in Houston.  Here are the details.  Good luck!

Job Title: Technical Services Specialist 2 (Database Administrator)

Description: The University of Houston is currently seeking a Technical Services Specialist 2 with the department of KUHT-TV (HoustonPBS) & KUHF-FM (Houston Public Radio).  The Technical Services Specialist 2 provides technical support for operating systems interfaces, database management, development languages, and software packages and departmental computing equipment.

Responsibilities:

• Assists in establishing and maintaining databases, related structures, and the environmental infrastructure to support growth, improve performance, and implement enhancements.
• Assists in providing technical support, consultation to developers for database usage, database file design, data dictionary usage, application design and tuning, usage of in-house and vendor supplied utilities, and other technical assistance.
• Codes and supports in-house software to provide the interface between the database, applications, and layered products; to provide the environmental infrastructure; to implement security; and, to automate internal tasks.
• Assists in the installation, upgrade, and maintenance of database and related software products.
• Performs database backups and recovery, as well as offsite disaster recovery.
• Collects statistics to support database and application tuning, and capacity planning.
• Assists in trouble shooting and resolving database and related software problems.
• Provides work station and PC support for internal staff.

Pay: $2,676 – $3,700 Per Month

To apply to this position, please go online to our website http://jobs.uh.edu and reference posting number 063909.

Companies we partner with often send us interesting articles and reports to read. We recently received a link to an article published on Knowledge@Wharton, the online business journal for the Wharton School, from Dennis Lacognata from Prompt Mailers. The article is published here. Thanks Dennis.

The article discusses advertising during recessions. Here’s an exerpt:

Research shows that companies that consistently advertise even during recessions perform better in the long run. A McGraw-Hill Research study looking at 600 companies from 1980 to 1985 found that those businesses which chose to maintain or raise their level of advertising expenditures during the 1981 and 1982 recession had significantly higher sales after the economy recovered. Specifically, companies that advertised aggressively during the recession had sales 256% higher than those that did not continue to advertise.

For companies that do stay the course and continue to advertise into a recession or increase their promotional activities, the key is to craft messages that reflect the times and describe how their product or service benefits the consumer. For example, companies might be tempted to emphasize price in a recession, but that only works for companies like Costco and Walmart that are built around a core strategy of providing low prices year after year, says Lodish. He points to the current Walmart campaign, “Save Money. Live Better,” as a successful approach to the recession.

Dean Jarrett, senior vice president of marketing at The Martin Agency in Richmond, Va., which developed the Walmart ads, acknowledges the campaign began in 2007 before it was clear a harsh recession was building. “We can’t claim we knew a recession was coming, but “Save Money. Live Better” is dead on-point with who they are and what they want to be.”

The article echoes our stance on fundraising during the economic downturn. If organizations cut spending when it comes to acquisition, they’ll have a harder time making up for that later on down the line.

Stay the course.

We were pleased to be mentioned in a recent e-newsletter and blog from Denny Hatch.

Denny puts out a regular e-newsletter presented by Target Marketing Group entitled, Denny Hatch’s Business Common Sense.

In this particular article, he discusses what The Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) in Los Angeles should do to get itself out of it’s own financial crisis.

The full article can be found here.

Be sure to read Carl’s comment.

About Denny Hatch:

Author, direct marketing guru, and always entertaining Denny Hatch focuses on a major story in the news and shows how businesses can take advantage of–or avoid the pitfalls from–the lessons to be learned in terms of marketing, sales, PR and communications.

When the new presidential administration sweeps into town, bringing its agenda of change, public broadcasting won’t be immune as some major changes are in store in the world of PBS, NPR and the CPB.

An article published late last month by Steve Behrens and Dru Sefton in Current, considers those changes, many of which are laid out in a chapter from the New Democracy Project’s book “Change for America.”  This chapter — and the entire book — should be taken very seriously because Obama has used the services of 15 of the book’s authors on his transition team. (Read on …)

In less than a month, we will all be committing to lose weight, quit smoking or become more organized.  But what about those New Year’s resolutions you could be making in your professional life?  As you start putting your list together, consider the Internet.  Most organizations — and I do mean the vast majority — haven’t even begun to realize their potential in raising money online. (Read on …)

We just received this piece of troubling news from Tony Conway, the Executive Director of the Alliance of Nonprofit Mailers (of which CBA is a member).

Mail service issues have developed at various places across the country.  This is due generally to postal budget cuts that affect the amount of workhours available for local managers.  In one location, Philadelphia, the problems have received substantial press coverage. (Read on …)

As an industry we nonprofits have never asked the Feds to bail us out like the nation’s super banks or auto companies have, although we have a lot of food banks and soup kitchens that could do with an infusion of money and food to feed those in need.  The shelves are getting bare.  On the contrary, because of the need for billions to help industry, we’ll probably lose some or all of what we were receiving from the government.

A lot of not-for profit organizations have numerous clients who are without jobs or a roof over their heads after being enticed to buy a house for more than they could afford with a subprime mortgage.  They took a stab at moving up the ladder, but they missed their footing and quickly fell back down to earth.

“Subprime” — how the meaning of a word can change.  It used to mean that you were buying a lesser-quality steak.  Now we’re told that we all have to take a stake in bailing out the banks and mortgage companies who gave out the subprime loans to begin with. (Read on …)

There’s an interesting story in this month’s “Working Life” column in Texas Monthly magazine.  Galveston letter carrier Anthony Mack tells his story: how he became a mailman (he “needed a good-paying job with benefits” after serving in the U.S. Army), what his day-to-day job is like (“I really know the neighborhoods. I know the routines. I’m practically a one-man neighborhood-watch program.”) and what it’s been like post-Hurricane Ike (“I’d estimate that half of those on my route are able to live in their homes. The other folks’ houses were either completely or partially destroyed.”)

What stands out is the individual, one-to-one nature of the job: (Read on …)