Fall Ramblings

Here in the Heartland, fall is truly a maginificant season. The fall colors. The cool, crisp, fresh air. The upcoming holidays. I hear lots of people say "it's my favorite season."

Barb and I got to re-experience the tradition of big time college football as we returned to Columbus for an Ohio State game. In addition to seeing "old" college friends and family, we experienced the traditions and pageantry associated with college football. One of my joys for the fall! (Even though the game we watched was a pretty boring win.)

While in Columbus, we had a chance to have lunch with Jim Davis-Hicks (http://www.davisphotographer.com/), a very creatigve wedding photography who is co-founder of a wonderful organization called Thirst Relief International (TRI) (http://www.thirstrelief.org/). Did you know that 1.1 billion people in the world lack access to clean drinking water? Or, that every 15 seconds, someone dies from a waterborne illness. Jim established Thirst Relief to do something. For about $50, TRI can install a water filter in a house in developing nations. And, that family will have clean drinking water. Jim donates a portion of each wedding assignment to buying water filters. Something he calls Life in Art: capturing yours and saving another.

I'm committed to helping Jim raise the $200,000 to $250,000 that will permit TRI to switch from cement filters to plastic filters ... which greatly increases the efficiency of the sytems. We're looking for associations, churches or companies interested in helping. Interested? Please contact me (drake@drakeco.com) or TRI. Thanks.

And, I'm still gathering stories about cause marketing. In addition to "discovering" Jim, I've found that one of my association management company colleagues has founded an organziation called Solid Rock Carpenters (http://www.solidrockcarpenters.org/). Jeff Engle of the Association Management Center founded Solid Rock to help build houses for Habitat for Humanity. They have about 1,000 participants in Solid Rock. They build the housing frames on the AMC parking lot in suburban Chicago. And, they've recruited a trucking company to ship the frames to Louisiana where a work crew assembles them. What a really neat idea and organization.

If you know any great cause marketing stories, please email them to me. I'm working on a "Growing with a Cause" project to collect great stories and case studies and would love to hear your story. Send to drake@drakeco.com ... Thanks.

This has been a busy travel fall for me.

I've been leading sessions that I call "Bridging Generations: From Minnie Pearl and Pearl Harbor to Wiki and Wii." This deals with the four generations in the workforce issue. One of the neat features of this series is the results of audience surveys about their generation and their feelings about other generations. More than 80% of the sales force of Syngenta responded to the survey ... made a great session for their sales meeting.

I'm in the process of completing the survey to give the Briding Generations presentation to the Finishing Industry Forum in Las Vegas in early November. Looks like we'll have more than 150 finishing contractors and union trade members in the session.

I'm also working on early stages of Strategic Planning processes. I'm chairing the 2008-09 Strategic Planning Process for the AMC Institute, my trade association. In addition, I've been selected to facilitate the strategic planning workshop of the Asphalt Paving Association of Indiana. Will be doing that session in early March. And, I've been asked to submit a proposal for a planning workshop and consultanting assignment that would start in mid-February.

In late September I was honored to accept the ASAE Associations Advance America Summit Award for the Trees for Troops campaign (http://www.treesfortroops.org%29campaign/ of the Christmas SPIRIT Foundation (one of the organizations our company manages) (http://www.christmasspiritfoundation.org/). What a great thrill to be honored in front of your peers for doing great work that you love! And, ASAE produced a 4-minute video introducing Trees for Troops and the award. Click here to watch it: (http://www.youtube.com/user/RealTrees)

Speaking of Trees for Troops, we're rapidly approaching the 2008 program ... aimed at delivering fresh, farm-grown Christmas Trees (donated by about 800 tree farms and lots) to about 16,000 military families at more than 40 bases in the U.S. and around the world! Special thanks to FedEx Freight and FedEx team for their huge commitment to make this project possible. Last year, they donated about 51,000 truck miles to get the trees to military families. Talk about making memories!

We're looking for more support this year.

This year, FedEx Office (formerly Kinkos) is joining to support the effort. Watch for their details on where you can go to create a greeting card to go with the trees to military families.

Want to help provide holiday memories to troops? Here are some options: (1) buying a tree and donate to a military family; (2) send a greeting card; (3) donate funds. For details, go to http://www.treesfortroops.org/

Thanks for reading ... you can help us Make Dreams Fly!

Steve