When Hurricane Katrina barreled down on the Gulf Coast last fall, Cho-Yeh Camp and Conference Center was called into action. During the two weeks following the devastation of the storm, Kim Brown and her team at Cho-Yeh fed and housed over 700 electricians, firefighters, and state troopers at their Livingston, Texas, facility.

Normally a Presbyterian summer camp and retreat center, Cho-Yeh Camp and Conference Center is a place that Kim Brown, vice president of development and marketing, and her husband Jason, camp president, refer to as somewhere that relationships are built and lives are impacted in a Christ-centered environment. In fact, the name Cho-Yeh is a Native American word that means "a place where tall pines grow."

"We've translated that into a place where people grow," says Brown of the camp's mission. At a time when the organization is usually wrapping up the busiest part of the camping year and moving into a heavy retreat season, she says there wasn't a question of what Cho-Yeh's role would be following Hurricane Katrina; it was already in their mission statement. "We weren't teaching bible study or doing things that we would normally do at camp, but we were having a huge impact on how people were being served and how their needs were being met," says Brown, who estimates that her team, which consisted of both staff and local volunteers, packed 1,300 sack lunches a day for about ten days.

The organization kept their donors informed about their involvement in the relief effort through one-on-one contact and by featuring the story in their newsletter. "It wasn't the normal business of things," says Brown. "We wanted to make sure everyone knew what Cho-Yeh's involvement in the relief effort had entailed."

After the storm passed and most of the relief workers returned home, Brown found that Cho-Yeh's involvement had already increased their visibility in the community. "There was this whole new level of awareness, and Cho-Yeh had become so integrated into the community with everything that was going on with the hurricane. People actually came up to me and said 'Wow, we had no idea you guys had this capability,'" she recalls.

Channeling Cho-Yeh's heightened awareness when it came time for their Point of Entry^® Events served Brown and her team well. "It's really fun to have your community see the value of your organization," she says. "And using the [Benevon] Model gave us an opportunity to tell a story in our community that we had not told before, not just with the hurricane, but about what we do."

Cho-Yeh's situation is unique, with a majority of their constituency located over sixty miles from their camp and conference center. Brown and her team were challenged by holding Point of Entry Events and eventually Ask Events^™ in both nearby Houston and in their small community of Livingston. Both Ask Events turned out to be highly successful, raising $214,000 in gifts and pledges in Houston from what were mostly first-time donors. Cho-Yeh also raised an incredible $114,000 in gifts and pledges from the one hundred guests at their Livingston event, which was also comprised primarily of new donors.

"I was blown away by the amount of new donors," Brown says. "Fundraising really is a work in progress. It's a continual process of building relationships because needs don't change. As your organization grows, the need for funding grows."

The real surprise, however, came in the form of significant gifts from several of the volunteers and relief workers who stayed at Cho-Yeh during the hurricane, proving that establishing relationships can be done in all sorts of ways.

"We were able to impact the people who were staying with us just by providing them a home away from home, a warm smile, and a hot meal," says Brown. "We were helping them to be successful in what they were called to do."

Now, in the middle of hurricane season a year later, Brown and the Cho-Yeh team are hopeful that their relief efforts are in the past. "It was a wonderful experience, and I am so glad that we were a part of it," she says. "But let's pray for a hurricane-free season."

Over the years, we've found that groups who carefully cultivate individual donors don't lose donations in times of natural disasters. In this podcast, Terry Axelrod, Benevon founder and CEO, discusses the importance of staying connected to your donors, even amidst a crisis.

(Note that this audio file is large and may take some time to download.)