Making some noise...Week of July 4th, 2014

Hey... it's time to celebrate... the best of summer 2014 is upon us!  Happy week of July 4th!   I say it this way since many of you are off for summer vacation and a well deserved break.  We to are looking forward to some time away from work for some fun in the sun.  There are over 514 fireworks displays scheduled in Michigan this year... so says MichiganFireworks.com (see link below).

http://michiganfireworks.com/events/detroit-fireworks/

So to carry the celebration further I'd like to take a moment to report to you that 2014 has turned into a break out year for Greenfundraiserstore.com .   April of 2014 was a record sales month since we changed over to our e commerce platform and partnership with Amazon.com .  This was planned and expected since I have always said our Christmas is in April.  The month we celebrate Earth Day, the arrival of spring (on the calender at least) and Arbor Day.  So naturally with the focus on our Mother Earth we expected our customers to click and shop for "Earth-minded" products.  Our mission has always been and will be to promote education, awareness and advocacy for "Green Shifts" in the course of daily living.  Our product offerings give you that choice over items that you might find in big box stores that are likely not focused on "ecological/healthy" alternatives.    During this time we were able to provide financial assistance to the Michigan Green Schools Awards and Celebration for Oakland County Michigan.   Additionally we supported the event with a display table and prizes for some of the lucky guests.

http://www.oakland.k12.mi.us/Departments/CapitalBuildingProjectsandFacilityOperation/MichiganGreenSchools/tabid/2638/Default.aspx



If the past is any predictor of the future then May and June should have been a calming period for us.  Again... happy to report that May was our best month ever... and then now June has exceeded May. 
All of this is good news since the word is spreading across the country about our unique mission of providing alternatives in the course of daily living and providing a portion of our profits to support green education.  So it is truly a grass roots initiative that our customers are sharing with others and leading to our green shoots of growth.

Another event we were able to provide a donation of goods to was the United States Green Building Council (USGBC) Detroit Chapter Green Schools Committee Art/Coloring Contest.   Students were encouraged to enter their creation and top selections were recognized at a luncheon. 

http://usgbcdetroit.org/index.php/committees/24-green-schools

One final thought for June 2014... get outside... do something different... enjoy the best of what nature provides to us in the summer.   My favorite place to visit is the small Northern Michigan town of Glen Arbor.  This town was recently recognized as the most beautiful place in the United States by Good Morning America.  That kind of recognition can be a double edged sword since the sleepy little town is now being flooded with new adventure seekers looking to see what the news is all about. My favorite little shop has in town is "Cherry Republic".   The founder had a vision to create all things cherry with a list too long to get into in this short venue.  I love the vision so much that we now carry a select sampling of Cherry Republic products in our store.

My favorite so far is the Cherry Salsa which is a winner in my household.  It never stays around long.  My point here is that if you have time... get up their and visit... and if you don't... visit greenfundraiserstore.com for our product offerings and we will deliver it right to your door.  Either way... it will be a treat!

Enjoy summer... !

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CdvITn5cAVc&feature=kp

Regards,

Don Sherman
President and Founder of Greenfundraiserstore.com     
greenfundraiserstore.com



 

  

Earth Week 2014

You'll notice by this months title that after careful consideration it has been determined that drawing attention to the condition and care of the earth for just one day isn't cutting it.   As such.... we begin the movement toward "Earth Week" 2014.    I find it interesting that like any other action in life that we focus on for a short term (day) that it is soon forgotten if not the very next day.   Therefore... the push for a week... to keep the ball moving or to push the needle on the meter just a little longer we have Earth Week.  Maybe next year we'll go for Earth month?

How is April 2014 finding you?  Remember... it seems like a distant memory now... the lovely spring of 2012... the winter that wasn't?   Mother nature showed off her display so early that there were no tulips for the tulip festival.  They had done their thing to soon... fooled out of the cover of the earth by mild temperatures.   I remember thinking then... well... if this is what global warming is about... then what is the harm in mild winters?   Gone are the days of the bitter cold, snow, and all that comes with it.  Wrong again! 

I don't want to spend much time talking about the return of "real winter".   I know we are still very sensitive to the subject.  In fact this morning we woke to find an additional 3 inches of snow that put us over the record for snow fall in the Detroit Michigan area going back as far as records are kept.  I think the record was set in the late 1890's.  Now we can say "Woohoo... we won... we set the record".
Not really the one I was hoping to be part of!

So the debate rages on about this controversial issue and the two camps are more divided then ever over the issue of "global warming".  One side says... it's  a cycle and human activity has little or nothing to do with it at all.  While the other side show's facts and statistics about carbon emmisions from the industrialization of the world in the past 100 years and sounds a warning alarm.

I find myself kind of caught up in the middle of two camps... almost like political parties that cannot agree.  As time goes on I have gravitated toward a place of putting the "global warming" label aside for one that I believe is more accurate and difficult to contradict.  Is there anyone who has not been effected by the mood swings of Mother Earth?   Like a person experiencing mid life changes our Mother Earth seems to be going through "The Change".   I guess the term in the main stream is climate change.  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-8US6_yWHNE

This week in our own region in South Eastern Michigan we went from a slow creep out of winter.  Finally seeing the mounds of snow piled up at last recede into the ground.  I have never seen people more enthusiastic about getting out of the house and into cleaning up around the yard.   The spell was broken and we could not be held back.   Shorts and flip flops replaced flannel and boots.  Then with almost no warning.... we witnessed something we never see much around here in early April.  A front passed over and bringing with it hail, wind, and rain like we have never seen in our lifetime.  It left most of us amazed and dazed.  It left others with power outages,  tree's uprooted, and property damaged.    And just when we thought it was all behind us... our temperamental Mother dropped the temps and some more snow.

I want to thank the hundreds of customers who have supported our efforts and given Greenfundraiserstore.com solid footing and a new direction in leading the green ecommerce marketplace.  Our goal is to provide high quaility green product offerings at a resonable price backed up with convenient to the door shipping all done through an effective e commerc platform.  At this time we have built a strong relationship with the millions of customers who click on the premier platform of Amazon.com.   They have responsed in kind by asking for our products to be delivered to their doors throughout the United States.   Specifically we have a strong following on the west coast and are pleased that those in the hot-beds of green living are choosing us as their provider of choice.  We also get a strong audience on the east coast as well. 

Our battery buckets have made it into the Philidelphia Museum of Art.

https://www.philamuseum.org/

And into the award-winning industrial design and branding firm
Fuseproject in San Franciso.

 http://www.fuseproject.com/

And in Quora, Inc. which was founded by two former Facebook employees.  They are located in Mountain View California.  They are a question and answer website where questions are created, answered, edited and organized by its community of users

http://www.quora.com/Mountain-View-CA

 Am I banging the drum?? Hey... why not... it is better than reading about your obituary.          


On the fund raising side of the company we have been able to provide contributions of cash, donations of goods and contributions of time to many local organizations.  This past year we were able to provide a financial contribtution for the victims of typhoon Yolanda (Haiyan) in the Visayas regions of the Philippines.  Climate change?  Maybe?

http://www.filipinostarnews.net/featured-post/donations-filamcco-fund-drive-now-100000.html


We were able to provide a contribution to a very active climate change group in Interfaith Power and Light.

 http://www.interfaithpowerandlight.org/


On a local level we continue to reach out to Michigan Green Schools and plan to continue to provide our ability to engage in alternative fund raising for those who are ready to engage.

http://www.michigangreenschools.us/

Last but certainly not least... I want to thank our product partners for providing high quality, unique green products not found in the big box store.  I hope it stays that way.

Soy Clean Products-  Brooklyn, IA

Wash Safe Industries - Harwich, MA

Busch Systems-  Barrie, Ontario, Canada

BioBag USA-  Palm Harbor, FL

Trellis Earth-  Wilsonville, OR

Mirror Lake Organics-  Almont, MI

Cherry Republic-  Glenn Arbor, MI

Maxi Container-  Romulus-  MI

Higher Grounds Trading Company- Traverse City, MI

Eco Bag- Ossining, NY

Without innovative and creative thinking minds who bring us these offerings of green and health alternatives to our course of daily living... we'd just take what were given from the big boxes like "Stuff Mart".

http://storyofstuff.org/

Happy Earth Week... take some time this week to pay special attention to our beautiful garden gift in Mother Earth.... ;)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SsGDiYlMFuk

Winter 2014... Deep Freeze and the Polar Vortex...

The old saying goes... "be careful what you wish for..."  you might just get it!  Many of us look forward to the beginning of a new year.   To many of us it represents a fresh start, a new chapter or perhaps a clean sheet of paper.   With the hustle and bustle of the Christmas season behind us we can finally get back into a new groove now that kids are back to school.  Right?  NOT in 2014! 

Nobody mentioned the words "Polar Vortex" before as far back as I can remember.  I even took a weather class back in the day at CMU and never heard anyone mention a "Polar Vortex".  Well it appears these things are for real since we are now recovering from the nations second one in this short year.   So what does this have to do with anything?  Let me tell you about the conversations in my household and place of business these past few weeks.   How many days can you miss school from a snow/ice event or below zero cold snap?  That seems to be up for debate.   At this point our district has had 11 days off and that my friends is a few too many days according to the rules we know.   All that being said it will be interesting to run up to the end of the school year to see what if anything is done to account for the excessive days.  FYI... I found this handy little link that calculates snow days in your zip code.  Try it!


http://www.snowdaycalculator.com/calculator.php

If we were to believe everything our parents/grandparents tell us... they for sure would NOT have missed most if any of these days.  Are today's generation too soft?  Is it all just an over reaction to the possibilities of what might happen if we venture out in the cold or snow?   I myself use a simple albeit a sad tool in trying to make the determination.   I recall a snowy morning not too many years ago that some might have questioned why school had not been called.  Yes the road were snowy but not excessively so.  Plow trucks were doing their desired best attempt to clear the way or motorists.  Unfortunately there was a horrific crash that led to fatalities of students being transported to school.  Hindsight is 20/20 and your darned if you do... and darned if you don't make the call.  I suppose changing the decision of that day would be easy with the new information.   Sometimes you just can't see it coming. 



I will use that to overlay into my main point for this beginning of the year report on Greenfundraiserstore.com and our progress in the beginning of our 4th year.  Many of you know from past reports that our focus point and business model has evolved into an e commerce strategy.  I am pleased to report to you that 2013 was a record year in growth of sales and new customers clicking/purchasing from our "Little Green Store...".

What we really didn't see coming is the interest on a much bigger national stage.  While most of our efforts and attended events have been right here in Metro Detroit Michigan we have found most of our buyers/shoppers coming from just about every where else.   That is good news in that the message and interest level is now proven and turning the wheels of growth.  Here is what we have seen in 2013 in the way of top region activity:



26 % West Coast-California, Washington, Oregon
15%  Southern States- Texas,  Florida, Georgia, North Carolina
20% East Coast-  New York, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Connecticut, Massachusetts
14% Midwest-  Michigan, Illinois, Minnesota, Indiana
25% All other

Final thing.... in the last quarter of 2013 we were happy to make a contribution to a cause that was very meaning to me on a personal level.  We chose to support "The Philippines American Foundation" in their fundraising efforts for the survivors of Typhoon Haiyan "Yolonda".   This had special meaning to me personally since a client and personal friend in Dennis Vista passed away suddenly around the time of this calamity.  Dennis introduced me to the kind and generous culture of the Philippine's.  I later discovered that he had been working on building a mango farm back in his birth place located in the Philippines.  He had created jobs in a green industry and in the end was doing what he loved.

http://www.filamccomichigan.org/

Spring time is just around the corner... right after the next "Polar Vortex".   Keep the faith!

Best Regards,

Don Sherman
President and Founder of Greenfundraiserstore.com

"Budding" young entrepreneur in the making....duct tape flower pens!

Since I wrote the business plan for Greenfundraiserstore.com in early 2010 there has been many turns in twists in the evolution of the project.  If you can measure success with the comparison of progress to the stated goal.... then I can say we have overreached our early vision of creating "education and awareness" of green shifts in the course of daily living.   When we started pushing out the word of GFS through the development of the web site, attending local events in South-Eastern Michigan, posting on social media sites, sponsorship of local green events, and blogging... the intended audience was Oakland County,  Metro-Detroit, South-Eastern Michigan, and perhaps Michigan along with some Mid Western attention.

What the survey says based on our web sit statistics is that it has been something entirely different and unexpected.  Please don't take this reporting as boastful or bragitory but more of keeping the audience updated on our progress.  People ask me all the time... "How is it going? or tell me about your green company..." and therefore we want to keep you informed.  Besides we are measuring our success here based on "outreach" and not "sales".  Truth be told if we were measuring based on sales then I'd be calling this project a complete failure at this point and time.  Recall earlier this year I attended the "IDEA" conference held in Detroit Michigan that was hosted by Crains Detroit.

http://www.crainsdetroit.com/article/20110112/CRAINSEVENTS/110119926/idea-detroit-conference#

What I took away from that meeting was something new and exciting about the vision for creating and running a business.  The younger speakers shared their vision of business plans with a social cause at the core.  I began to think at that moment that in fact was what GFS is about.  It is really a social mission of creating "Education, Awareness, and the next steps of Action through unique fund raising opportunities".

Here is why I am likely never going to get attention from a venture capitalist organization who are in the business of loaning out billions of dollars to new businesses with great vision plans... I have refused to bring the focus to the profit side of the equation.   I understand that a venture capitalist is not loaning their funds for the greater good of man kind... in fact they are doing the opposite.  They are looking for ways to exploit the next big thing for a sizable profit.  That my friends is called capitalism.  In fact... we have learned that there is very little if any "human expense" considerations in the capitalism equation.  If it is discovered that a certain country is willing to produce a product at a lower labor cost, lower regulatory standard, lower taxation, lower environmental standard... then the company will move in a NEW YORK YANKEE minute.  By the way... and as a side note... my home town Detroit Tigers are about to put the beat down on the YANKEES.  In fact the series is tied up 1-1 coming home to Comerica Park in the D.

http://detnews.com/article/20111003/OPINION03/110030364/Tigers-come-home-with-series-even--setting-up-Sabathia-Verlander-rematch

 I am thinking it will go six and the Detroit Tigers will finish off the STANKEES in their home stadium in New York this weekend.  I love NEW YORK... Really?  Sorry NY fans....  I love DEETTRROOIITTT CITY and it is the year of the CAT... Tigers and Lions! FO SHORE!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QM7LR46zrQU

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0032138/quotes?qt=qt0409880 

Back to the story...

The "global" outreach has been nothing more than... amazing !    You have to take it back to beginning and measure from the intended target audience to realize where we are coming from.  Below you will find the stats on the September visits to GFS and it appears that the Chinese, Japanese, and  West Coast of the US are very interested in what were about.  Remember... they are curious visitors and not yet customers.  So... with that in mind... I am open to any suggestions you may have on how to make that happen!

http://soundfxnow.com/sound-fx/cash-register-cha-ching/

Countries Visits %
China 16,772 75.78 %
United States 3,716 16.79 %
Japan 1,315 5.94 %
Russia 164 0.74 %
France 32 0.15 %
Ukraine 21 0.09 %
Germany 16 0.07 %
Turkey 14 0.07 %
United Kingdom 14 0.06 %
Sweden 13 0.06 %
India 7 0.03 %
Netherlands 7 0.03 %
Israel 6 0.03 %
Brazil 5 0.02 %
Canada 4 0.02 %
Italy 3 0.01 %
Hong Kong 2 0.01 %
Romania 2 0.01 %
Moldova 2 0.01 %
S. Korea 2 0.01 %
Philippines 2 0.01 %
Colombia 2 0.01 %
PA 2 0.01 %
Other 10 0.04 %
Total 22,131 100.00 %

So... that is all I have to report for now in our progress.

One last thing... my right hand girl who has been with me at my side from the first day (please note the small freezing figure in photo 2 at the right side of the table.... ) has her own idea's about "re-purposing" and be rolling out her own line of specialty pens she call's "Duct tape flower pens".
Bet you didn't know you can find duct tape in all kinds of colors ranging from hot pink to zebra stripped.  Keep an eye out for this "budding" entrepreneur.... get it?  Flower pens....Budding.... OH NEVER MIND!
Look for more details coming soon...!