NOTE: Please do NOT contact these organizations directly with your questions about the Benevon Model. They, just like all nonprofits, are busy fulfilling their missions, and have generously contributed their stories with the understanding that readers of our Web site will not contact them directly. Instead, please direct any questions about Benevon to info@benevon.com or (206) 709-9400. Thank you for your consideration.

The following letter was sent by Debra O'Molesky, the Development Director at Family Intervention Services in South Orange, New Jersey, to her Benevon Coach after her Ask Event^™.

I am still floating from the amazing success of our Ask Event and just had to jot down some of my thoughts to let you know just how much of a difference you and the [Benevon] Model have made to our organization.

I remember sitting in the workshop and when you talked about how, if an organization had 100 people at an event and 20% were “ripened fruit,” we could expect to raise $50,000. I remember laughing. “Yeah, right,” I thought, “There's NO WAY we'll do that. We have no 'ripened fruit.' Maybe next year.” My teammates were similarly skeptical.

But we came back to the office after our training in Philadelphia and worked on putting together our Point of Entry^® Events, FIS 101, we called them. We did Treasure Maps^® with our board and invited people and shared our story, and something amazing happened. People were inspired by what they heard. They wanted to get involved. We set the date for our breakfast (in May) after fighting tooth and nail that we wanted it to be in November (to give us more time to invite people; nobody will come in May! we said). As our coach, you refused to accept our excuses, so we committed to the 16th of May. We involved people who wanted to be Table Captains and I made sure they felt taken care of and I made myself available to them whenever they had questions or needed anything. The week before the event, I looked at our guest list and saw 150 people. I thought, “Oooo! 150 people will come and learn about us! Hooray.” Notice there was no thought that we would actually raise any money.

The night before the breakfast came. We had all worked so hard. I had helped write, edit, refine, and coach all our speakers, I prepared and printed the programs, made sure the CD-ROM video was done, and that we had “snapshot” stories of some of the kids and families in our programs. When I left that evening, all I had was a laptop and some papers. “This is all I need for an event?” I thought.

The next morning, I woke up bright and early to get everything set up. As I was doing this, I felt this amazing calm come over me—a peace, actually. Before anyone had arrived, as I was looking around the room, I found a penny on the floor by the podium. I put it in my shoe. Then I found another one by the door. I put it in my other shoe and went on my merry way.

I met guests and Table Captains, smiled, and welcomed everyone. We then had staff members help check everyone in and make sure everyone was seated. We started five minutes late. We had our Board President welcome everyone, announce our corporate sponsors, and introduce Jasmine, a freshman high school student in one of our programs, to sing Over the Rainbow. When I looked around the room, I realized that people were in awe. We had their complete attention, and the program took off from there. Our founder and CEO gave an amazing Visionary Leader^™ talk. Our Pitch Person, a long-time board member and vice president at a large bank, also gave his scripted speech, but the part that he interjected at the beginning was not scripted. He said, “I love this organization and I want to tell you why: it is the staff. They are so committed to these families and kids. They keep them safe and protected and make sure they can stay with their families.” The staff members in the room, hardened social workers who see some of the worst kinds of things there are, were moved to tears. They told me later how appreciated they felt, and expressed a renewed interest in their own work, because someone deeply acknowledged them. The Pitch Person then talked about how fortunate he felt to have his health, his good job, and his happy family, and that he couldn't think of a better investment that people could make than supporting FIS because it would not only support us, but the entire community. He totally spoke from his heart. We finished two minutes early.

After the event was over, nobody wanted to leave! I thought people would be high-tailing it out of there, on to other things. But they hung around, they chatted with their tablemates, they talked to the staff, they shook our hands, they hugged me with my pennies in my shoes.

We had staff collect the Table Captain packets at the door. I couldn't help myself in the car—before I started back to the office, I had to peek at just one envelope. I opened it up and found $14,000 inside. Seriously, I never, never, never expected that. After all of our counting back at the office, and after we have all of the matching gifts, we'll have raised close to $100,000. And it could even go up from there.

Of the 86 “new” people that came to the breakfast, 68 turned in pledge cards and we heard that the rest were taking them home, to the office, or to their family foundation. I keep thinking we had nothing before—no volunteers, no donor base, no prior gifts, NOTHING! And now, well, in short, our staff gets their much-deserved raise this year and our kids can go to summer camp and take ballet classes. None of this would have been possible without you and the [Benevon] Model. I am so deeply, deeply grateful. Thank you so much for your support and encouragement. We would never have done all of this without you. And maybe those two lucky pennies I found and put in my shoes.