Just wanted to share how we have started handling donations.
Until about 6 months ago we were always being asked for a donation for something. More often than not we would give them a gift certificate for pretty much any fundraiser, or shin dig.
After a fall out with the school similar to the other thread we realized giving donations really hasn’t helped with our community involvement. Instead I think it had the opposite effect…people wanting to trade the value of the pizza we donated to get other menu items like wings etc then getting ticked cuz we would say no.
Donating 65 free pizzas to the football team lock in only to find out they order pizza every thursday they have a game, all season from our competitor. Donating several pizzas for a young girl with cancer only to find out she didn’t have it and they used this gig to get free stuff from restaurants. Or maybe it was the lady who came in and said her husband was dying and could they have a free meal…that night.
Anyway after some thought we made up a donation request form and now when someone asks for a donation we give them the form and they have to fill it out and bring it back…4 weeks in advance. Since then we have had zero donations.
When we get the most ridiculous requests it is nice to say oh well here all you have to do is fill this out and bring it back.
I’ve recently thought of “selling” these groups gift certificates for a pizza(s), for $5, and they can re-sell them or whatever…anything over their cost they keep…we cover food cost & a little extra…
I had someone call today wanting to do a christmas party with the school, the kids worked so hard to raise there scores and they wanted to treat them. They wanted me to DONATE 15 large pizzas. I was at least happy they called because i wanted to discuss our school program with them, I had left countless messeges with this lady. So I went through our whole program only to tell me they our only exclusive with Dominoes… REALLY your calling me for free pizza.
So I asked why she isnt doing this with there exclusive partner and her answer was they wanted to but corporate rules dictate they sell them for at least 6.00 each and since they have heard we are pretty active in the comunnity and thought we would like the CHANCE to feed the kids of MY community…she really could spin it
long story short I said I was going to pass.[/b]
Ole girl had a set of cahonees on her, sounds like.
Should have told her that your corporate allows you to sell them for $5.50.
Then ask how many she wanted to buy. This would let you know if she was willing to buy or not.
Stuff like this just tweaks my melons!!
bubba
I can’t help but to add a story…
I once owned a shop near a large, international aviation related manufacturer, Lockheed-Martin.
We never delivered there; not sure why, but we just never did. Anyway, I got a call one day wondering if we would donate 15 pizzas for George’s (can’t remember the name, not important) retirement party. I heard the schpeel about him having served the company for 35 years, and they’d like to recognize his hard work. WHAT? He serves you for 35 years, and I get to provide lunch!?
Needless to say, I passed…but the gawl of some people!
Several years ago I had returned from a pizza show with this idea from a postcard company to hand out “Share the Dough” cards to groups whenever they came for a handout. Basically the group hands out the cards to their people to use when they come in for pizza and then I would donate 10 percent of the sale or something to the group at the end of the time (such as a year). Sounded like a great idea to me until I gave the letter of explanation and some cards to a little league football team. They apparently didn’t understand that by coming in and actually buying food they could raise money for their group in a way that also keeps me in business. They just got mad that I didn’t fork over a $100 or whatever and held a boycott!!! (These same people also got further upset with me when I (as president of the local chamber of commerce that year) questioned the local power company’s offer for groups to hand out FREE food on opening day of fishing at their hydroelectric dam, for which they paid the groups $1,000, and effectively killed all restaurant sales in town that day just because they wanted to make the fishermen happy that the lake level was down. The power company had started this one year and kept doing it for several years, even if the lake level was high, until I posed my question, and used me as their excuse to stop the practice. GRRR!) In a small town these boycotts are hard to handle, but I’m just as stubborn if it’s a matter of principle. Makes you mad though…
that is a great idea. I never really got burnt by a school, I did work a deal with a local catholic school once, I couldn’t beat the competitor’s prices, but because I had better product and could get big orders done on time they went with me. Mostly when people ask for donations, I ask for some sort of verification of who they are and the organization they are working for. Usually, I’ll throw them some certificates for some free food.