Food for Thought is our way of sharing interesting concepts on corporate leadership and management with others who might find it useful. The thoughts offered are intended to be controversial and thought provoking. They always follow our motto of helping develop logical leadership. We apologize for a two month lapse due to a change in our service provider and process for our mailings. We hope this new process is more user friendly.
This is third year that we are continuing the tradition of using an innovative pay forward approach to expressing holiday wishes. Back in December 2007 (see Food for Thought December 2007) we examined the appropriateness of hired corporate management making charitable contributions to their favorite charities using their shareholders’ money. In the same breath, we questioned whether holiday emails sent by corporations, indicating a donation to charity in lieu of holiday greeting cards, reap the “touch and contact” benefits intended by the traditional practice of greeting cards. With that as the backdrop, we offered a provocative proposal that we now repeat annually.
Imagine if corporations adopted the following approach. The company sends an email to its business colleagues inviting each recipient to make a personal charitable contribution to his or her favorite charitable cause upon which the company would make a matching contribution to that cause. This might motivate the recipient to take notice of the email greeting card from the company and achieve the intended purpose of the greeting card.
At LogiStyle, we have decided to adopt this approach, with this Food for Thought mailing serving as our proxy for the greeting card. You are invited, as a recipient of this mailing, to make a charitable contribution to your favorite cause – subject to the requirements below – and we will match up to $100 of your contribution, limiting this offer to a total of $1000 of matching contributions on a first-come, first-served basis. The charitable organization must be a non-profit organization under IRS Section 501(c)(3) and cannot be a religious organization. (Our apologies to our non-US recipients.) You must send us an email (balaji@logistyle.com) by December 15th with the following information:
• The name of the charitable organization and their contact info
• Your name and the amount of your intended contribution
• A pledge that you will make the indicated contribution by the end of the calendar year. This offer cannot be applied to past contributions you have already made.
• A statement from you indicating that “LogiStyle is permitted to publish your name, the amount and recipient of your contribution in next month’s Food for Thought mailing.”
We will make a matching contribution – limited to the constraints above – to your chosen cause and inform you immediately that we are doing so. We will also publish the names of the people that responded and received matching contributions in our next month’s Food for Thought mailing.
Our hope is that, with this provocative approach, both our intended purposes will be served. You will be caused to pause and ponder, possibly take us up on it, maybe even bring the topic up at your holiday cocktail party. And, we will, together, contribute to some worthy causes. Please do respond to this offer. In any case, have a Happy Holiday and a prosperous New Year.
We have received many responses to our Food for Thought mailings, asking if you can freely share and forward these thoughts. Indeed you can. All we ask is that a clear attribution to LogiStyle and our contact information are included. For the interested reader, we have archived some of our recent Food for Thought mailings at our website, and can be viewed at LogiStyle: Food for Thought Archive. As always, we welcome your comments. We hope your business is doing well. If we can be of any assistance please fell free to call – even, if just to chat.
Best Regards,
Balaji Krishnamurthy
LogiStyle, LLC
P.O. Box 91182
Portland , OR 97291
(503)789-1338
balaji@logistyle.com
www.logistyle.com
Used with permission from Balaji Krishnamurthy
