Last Friday I went to a Fund Raising Seminar for Non-Profits in Manchester, NH. The Executive Director of PIC and I went to get some "tips" on how to (hopefully) increase Charitable Donations and Philanthropy.
We were also looking for guidance on how often to solicit, what form should the solicitations take and how should they be acknowledged?
What does this have to do with Green???You may ask???
Well oddly enough, when talking about solicitations and mailings....the conversation evolved into talking about Paper and Perception!
Now these were people from all kinds of non-profits: Social Services, Animal Rescue,Environmental, Education...but they all had a major concern about the Perception of using paper in their solicitations. Apparently all were getting negative feedback from donors about the glut of paper being generated by their solicitations. Enough feedback that to a one they were all in the process of changing their Marketing and Solicitation methods to using Email and the Internet. They want to be perceived as Environmentally conscientious.
This is being driven by the general public. Not a Seperate Your Trash campaign or a Plant a Tree Ceremony etc. just the trickle down effect of regular people concerned about waste. And their concerns are starting to affect how many Agency's are doing business, how Agencys are Marketing and how Agency's are planning to do future (paperless)business.
I found the whole discussion to be Environmentally hopefull! People were thinking about the environment not to be "trendy" but because ....to them.... It Mattered
And for me when I saw Green 
concerns were definately affecting business, a light went on, and I realized that Green is a State of Mind !
Concord NH Realtor Energy and Energy Star
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Joan Mirantz - Joni is a Realtor® with Keeler Family Realtors, a locally owned, Customer Service oriented Firm.
Joan Publishes a monthly Newsletter "Food For Thought" under the pen name Realtor Sherpa.
(Joan also answers to Miz Maven and Miss Joni.)
Joan works in Buyer and Seller Representation with concentrations in the Merrimack Valley Area and towns surrounding Concord NH - the Capital City.
"I love what I do, and it shows in how I do it"
Hi Joan, the paper generated in this country drives me crazy. Its not just the trees used to make the paper its also the terrible pollution spewed into our water ways by the paper producers. When I first got into the computer business as a programmer/analyst years ago, the computer age was touted as guiding the world toward using less paper. That didn't happen, in face more paper is used in this computer age than ever before. I make sure if I get an unsolicited solicitation with a pre-stamped envelope to send it back and tell them to remove me from their mailing list. But I get piles of mail from animal rights groups which I support. I wish they would just take my check and leave it at that. Its really getting out of hand and doing the environment a terrible disservice. Thanks for the information.
Terry Haugen - STAGE it RIGHT!