Know the Results

Recently there was a conversation between some of our “staff” and our intern while we were setting up the new Patreon site, www.patreon.com/CardzforKidz. The baseline for this discussion was how can we start to increase donations without scaring away current participants. 

This conversation was primarily sparked as we now have international shipping fees based on our partnerships with special locations in Canada and Mexico (Dr Sonrisas, St Joseph’s Health Center, and Reseau Selecion).

We’re trying to think of creative ways to raise funds besides our Donate page and our GoFund Me page. Also, as we point out on ALL of our videos Cardz for Kidz! is completely free for everyone…..but us. So, yes, thanks to some people (e.g. David and Shante), some groups have been able to provide the best of both worlds – cash & cards, but as expected that’s been rare.

Since we’ve received a bunch of cards from Central America, we decided to do a test package to Honduras! After our test shipment of cards to that country, we realized that although those smiles are priceless, it’s VERY expensive and hard to do! Therefore, we’ll likely have to revert to our original plan and hope that people are willing to Carry a Bit More.

As you can see, now that we’re shipping cards to our northern and southern neighbors, as well as increasing the number of destinations in the USA, our shipping costs are continually increasing. Finally, we have our promise that we’ll make sure that every destination we work with has at least one DVD player and the Lion King and we agreed we’d help another hospital make sure they always have enough Beanie Babies to fill Noah’s Ark.

Now, even with all of that talk about how essential monetary donations are, we still think cards are better are both ends. So here we go with more of our “100% open and honest” talk. We’ll give you a glimpse into our backend analysis for Q2 2016 as of 6/29/16.

• $520 for shipping fees
• $222 Cardz for Kidz! stickers for the back of cards
• $14 transportation to and from the children’s hospital

Unfortunately, as of June 29^th we had received only $65 in donations in Q2 2016. Now the distinct benefit of delivering a card is, you know, the results! Every hospital, shelter and/or home that we partner with understands that they need to deliver all the cards room to room. 

With that official pinky promise in mind, you know that as long as you don’t write ‘Get Well Soon’, your card is going to impact and reach a disheartened child.

In summary, we’d love it if some of the corporations and groups we partner with added financial support, (please note how we used added not replaced) but we still think creating quality cards is what’s most rewarding for everyone involved. With those card donations, you KNOW THE RESULTS of your labor will be a smile.

#KnowTheResults #UpliftingSpirits

To see more pictures and stories please check out our website www.cardzforkidz.org, like us on Facebook page, follow us on Twitter, visit our Google+ page, or visit our LinkedIn page! Also, check out some of our videos on YouTube or pictures on Instagram!

Streets of Chicago

Now this is something that’s going to be obvious for A LOT of people, but did you know that just because a company’s logo is on the outside of a building, it doesn’t mean that the company owns the entire building?!?! :)

For some folks who grew up in small towns, when arriving in big cities, like Chicago, you are amazed by the skylines. There are SO many tall buildings. Some with names/logos that you see ALL over TV and others that you’ve never heard of before. One thing that’s interesting is that those companies often only have a certain number of floors in the building and sign agreements with the real estate companies that if they rent/buy a certain amount, that  their logo will go up on the outside of the building as additional advertising/marketing.

Here’s how it connects with Cardz for Kidz! in two manners. First, you can now note, although there are nearly 50 logos up on our site, more than 50 groups have joined in to help make over 20,000 cards! Also, while walking around downtown Chicago it’s fun to see some of the logos that are on the sides of buildings up on our site. Here are just a couple examples.

• Huron Consulting Group

•  USG

• Morningstar

Now while you’re walking through the STREETS OF CHICAGO or other big cities, you’ll notice a bunch of logos on the side of buildings, but please note, similar to our Participants tab, there are many other vital contributors who help keep the building up and running.

#StreetsOfChicago #UpliftingSpirits

To see more pictures and stories please check out our website www.cardzforkidz.org, like us on Facebook page, follow us on Twitter , visit our Google+ page, or visit our LinkedIn page! Also, check out some of our videos on YouTube!

Love Our Neighbors

Since Cardz for Kidz! started in Chicago, as expected, the majority of our cards have been sent to hospitals in the Midwest (as of April 2016 – 53% of cards were delivered within the Midwest). Recently, we’ve been striving to get more hospitals in an array of locations. In order to make that evident, we worked with the developers of our website to make sure that people can drag the map around so you can see ALL of our locations. For example, when you draaggggg the map, you can see our 4 destinations in Africa.

It’s actually interesting that we’ve shipped a total of 1,210 cards to children or seniors outside our 50 states. Thankfully, we know this number will consistently grow since we have lasting partnerships with our bordering neighbors - Mexico and Canada.

• Canada – St Joseph Health Center – an overall hospital in Canada with a pediatric department that requests approximately 25 cards a quarter.
• Canada – Reseau Selection – a senior retirement home in Quebec that strictly wants cards in French.
• Mexico – Dr. Sonrisas – an organization that works to change children across Mexico’s pain and suffering to moments of hope and happiness.

No matter what, we’ll continue to find ways to work with individuals to carry a bit more so we can send cards to some distinct destinations. Here are some examples:

Bernard Mevs                Dagbe                                          One Village

       

While we do have those special deliveries, thankfully we’ve been able to LOVE OUR NEIGHBORS and consistently send cards to Canada and Mexico. Pictures coming soon.

#LoveOurNeighbors #UpliftingSpirits

To see more pictures and stories please check out our website www.cardzforkidz.org, like us on Facebook page, follow us on Twitter , visit our Google+ page, or visit our LinkedIn page! Also, check out some of our videos on YouTube!

Take Off

“Wonder what will happen this time!” That’s what our founder thought as he boarded his EXTREMELY delayed flight back to Michigan. This was sparked because during a recent flight from Toronto the airline was having problems with a lot of their flights. They ALL were delayed hours. During this wait, he sparked a conversation with a couple consultants from Duke University. When he responded “I started a non-profit” after their standard “What do you do?” question, they immediately desired to learn more. Soon after, one of the two ladies had already started planning out when and where they’d start to introduce Cardz for Kidz!.

Now what makes this a bit more exciting is another story about Minnesota State University. They first heard about Cardz for Kidz! during a prior trip to the airport. The founder stepped into a conversation after he heard they worked with students. They began talking about how their students had made cards in the past and would like to make some again. As of April 6, 2016, Minnesota State has made a total of 438 cards; of the 80+ participants they’re one of the Top 10 groups.

Now, if he could just make conversations on the train or bus lead to mass amounts of cards then we wouldn’t have any shortages in Q3!! J …so if you meet someone who might be interested in Cardz for Kidz!, don’t hesitate to let them know. We appreciate all the help we can get! It’s been through word-of-mouth marketing that our organization has been able to TAKE OFF.

#UpliftingSpirits #TakeOff

To see more pictures and stories please check out our website www.cardzforkidz.org, like us on Facebook page, follow us on Twitter , visit our Google+ page, or visit our LinkedIn page! Also, check out some of our videos on YouTube!

We Plan On It

“hmmmm….that’s a good question.”

Have you ever heard that response before? We have, and, unfortunately, it seems like we’ve been hearing it a bunch more recently. We’ve been trying to figure out why some groups have stopped making cards and/or why some made cards, but never shipped them.

In terms of the first set – made some, but stopped making more – we’re still thankful for their contributions and hope they will be able to contribute again in the future. Plus, we chatted with some folks on our board and they currently said that no matter what, we should not remove any logos from our site, you’re safe here! 

Screenshot of our Silver Participants as of April 2016

“You should try it! It’s a LOT of fun!” That’s something we often discuss with other groups. We try to let groups know how hosting events is A LOT of fun AND very easy. Here are some of the main points we usually use:

• Besides shipping, it’s 100% free to make or receive cards

• It’s a great way to bring together fellow members/coworkers

• You’re putting smiles on kids’ faces!

We’re hoping as word starts to spread, people will become even more interested in participating. Then when we ask why groups can’t host another event for a while, they’re response will switch to, no WE PLAN ON IT.

If you have any insights, we’d love to hear from you. Please contact us at: info@cardzforkidz.org

#UpliftingSpirits #WePlanOnIt

To see more pictures and stories please check out our website www.cardzforkidz.org, like us on Facebook page, follow us on Twitter , visit our Google+ page, or visit our LinkedIn page! Also, check out some of our videos on YouTube!

Cold in the Summer

We’re trying to get this message our quickly since we still have a couple weeks left, right?

If you look at the chart at the bottom of our donation page, you’ll see why we’re getting so desperate right now - every year, we see a decline in the amount of cards made in Q3 (July-September).

We’re trying to prepare for the summer. The number one reason we see such a decline is that we don’t get cards from the majority of our schools since they are on summer break and/or trying to get acclimated to returning to classes. Overall, nearly 1/3 of our cards are from students or staff members at various schools.

Now, the one tricky part is this summer, we’re going to need a bit more cards than usual. We agreed to partner with Gift of Life to send cards to children who recently got transplants as they’re at a special summer camp. We don’t know EXACTLY when or how many cards we’ll send, but we’ll need more than the standard bare minimum of 1,540 we strive for on a quarterly basis.

Therefore, our goal is to continue to search to find new ways to get more groups to participate over the summer, BUT also work to make sure that we get as MANY cards as possible in Q2 just in case participation gets a little COLD IN THE SUMMER. Please let us know if you have any ideas on how we can increase participation over the summer.

#ColdInTheSummer #UpliftingSpirits

To see more pictures and stories please check out our website www.cardzforkidz.org, like us on Facebook page, follow us on Twitter , visit our Google+ page, or visit our LinkedIn page! Also, check out some of our videos on YouTube!

Organization of Our Word

Not sure if you saw some of our prior posts, but we made several promises about how we’d work to improve Cardz for Kidz overall impact. We agreed that we would first stop by updating our How To page, then the next time we wrote a personal story on our blog. Finally, we said if we didn’t meet our goal we’d start reaching out to different news sources. Here’s proof:

Tweet to the Ann Arbor News

Tweet to a newscaster in Cleveland, OH

Please let us know if you have any recommendations on how we can spread the word. Currently we haven’t heard back from any of those news channels, but we’ll keep trying. To this day, not many people have heard of us. Even some of the people who have participated in our organization, don’t know our name. In addition to contacting newspapers, we tried adding #cardsforkids just in case there were people who were using that in order to increase awareness. So much of our time now is looking into the future and thinking about how we can grow, but we’re thankful for the groups who were proud enough to support us, even before a newspaper or news channel responded.

We are an ORGANIZATION OF OUR WORD and we are continually trying to find ways to increase awareness. These next few months we’ll continue to do EVERYTHING possible to get MORE cardz to MORE kidz (e.g. call and/or simply stop by a news station).

#OrganizationOfOurWord #UpliftingSpirits

To see more pictures and stories please check out our website www.cardzforkidz.org, like us on Facebook page, follow us on Twitter , visit our Google+ page, or visit our LinkedIn page! Also, check out some of our videos on YouTube!