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President to Eliminate Charitable Donation Deduction, but $250,000 still Given to Charity

Courtesy of ABC NewsOne of the big talking points this week in national news was about Pres. Obama's idea to eliminate, or greatly reduce, the charitable donation deduction from income tax. If this elimination does occur, then philanthropic team building events will likely become more and more popular for companies and organizations.

Well, we have good news! In early 2009, The Leader's Institute® topped the $250,000 mark in charitable donations over the last five years from team building events like Build-A-Bike®, Rescue Bear®, Guys-N-Dolls®, and Hero QuestTM.

Build-A-Bike(R) Team Building EventAlmost a decade ago, The Leader's Institute® invented the philanthropic team building concept on a national level when we created the first Build-A-Bike Team Building Event®. "We wanted to provide a fun, high energy, event that combined both solid team building activities and also give back to the community," said Doug Staneart, President of The Leader's Institute®. "The popularity of Build-A-Bike® was so dramatic, that in the past few years, it has revolutionized the team building industry. Now, if you're NOT giving back to the community, you're on the outside looking in."

Doug Fox with the YMCA has partnered with The Leader's Institute® on a number of programs. After a recent event in Irving, Texas, he talked about how important the donations are to the kids who receive them. "A couple of the kids who received bikes today are twins who just celebrated a birthday last week. Their father recently got laid off, and their mom is a stay-at-home mom, so they didn't receive any presents for their birthday. I guarantee, those bikes mean the world to them."

According to Staneart, "We would often get requests to work with charities like Make-A-Wish® and other organizations where a bicycle donation just wouldn't be appropriate, so in 2007, we created the Guys-N-Dolls program that donates four foot doll houses to organizations like these. Then, before the "surge" in Iraq, our instructors wanted to show their support for the troops, so we created the Hero Quest Team Building Event that donates care packages to the USO for soldiers who are in the field. Our most recent success is the Rescue Bear® program that donates Teddy Bears dressed in firefighter outfits to local fire departments to be given away to kids who have lost everything in a fire or who have been involved in a traumatic car accident."

In addition to the gift donations, a lot of organizations who conduct one of these team building programs actually donate cash to the charities as well. "One of the organizations that we are currently working with to create a 1200 person Build-A-Bike® has decided to donate over $25,000 in cash to the charity as well. They had a series of "blue jean" days where employees could wear jeans to work if they donated money to charity, and they decided to donate the money at the conclusion of the event.

Since 2005, over 2700 bicycles have been donated to local charities and hundreds of thousands of dollars in toys, gift bags, and cash donations have been donated children's charities, hospitals and fire departments, and the USO.
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· Apr 9-10 Seattle
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· Apr 20-21 Vegas
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· Apr 23-24 Chicago
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Presentation Tips
Get Rid of Your Notes!

One of the first tips that we give to participants who go through Fearless Presentations® or the Public Speaking Secrets® program is to Get Rid of Your Notes. Most people believe that having notes in front of you will help you speak more confidently or help you remember all of the fantastic details that your audience really wants to hear. Both of these conclusions are false. In fact, making notes either on paper or in your PowerPoint slideshow is one of the fastest ways to make you more nervous!

Here's what happens. When you design a presentation that has too much data, all of those points can get confusing and difficult to deliver. You are also likely to sound boring and have a difficult time connecting with the audience. When all of those things happen at one time, nervousness will shoot through the roof.

So, what can you do about it? First, change the way that you design your presentations. Most people sit down with paper or PowerPoint and begin to catalogue everything that they know about the subject. Next, we alter the slides or notes by cutting out all the stuff that doesn't fit the particular time frame. The less time that we have to speak, the more that we cut. What happens when we use this technique is that we end up with a Swiss cheese presentation that is difficult to remember and more difficult to deliver.

Instead, start with just a few key points to cover and add stories, examples, analogies, and other proof of your key points instead of just adding more data.

Now when you speak, you only have to remember a few key points. Everything else in your presentation is just evidence of your previous statements. If you forget a little of your evidence, no big deal, because you will have still been able to prove the point. Also, no one really knew exactly what you were going to say anyway. However, if you are delivering a long list of data points and you forget something, everyone will know.

Design your presentations a little differently, and you'll be able to reduce your nervousness and not have to refer to notes!

For more information or to schedule a team building program like this for your group, visit our website at Half-Day Team Building Programs or call us toll free at 1-800-872-7830.
High Impact Leaders: 28 Days to Influence People
Day #1: Avoid Criticizing and Complaining

Step one of being a more influential person is to avoid doing things that turn people off and shut down cooperation. Most people believe that criticizing people lets the person realize the mistake so that corrective action can be made. However, when we criticize people, even constructively, they tend to resent the advice and are less likely to do what you suggest.

My fourth grade teacher, Mrs. Lofton, used to say, "Misery loves company." I didn't really understand her wisdom until I was a manager. A manger who complains or nitpicks employees might gain temporary compliance, but in the long run, morale will drop. Employees will complain about you behind your back. Why not? That is what you taught them to do.

Increase Sales and Get Customers to Call You in a Down Economy

Even in a good economy, cold calling is not much fun and is rarely effective at generating additional income. In a down economy it's pretty much impossible to call someone and get the person to buy from you.

In today's world, people look to the internet for solutions to their problems. So people, sales people, who set themselves up as experts on the internet and who can solve problems for potential customers will have people calling or emailing these "experts" when they need their services. Here are some simple things that you can do to get people to call you.
  1. Write about Your Industry: You don't have to be a super star writer to catalogue a few tips that can help people who have a problem that you can solve. All you really have to do is think about some of the challenges that people who hire you or buy from you have and write a quick 400 to 600 word article helping people solve that problem.
  2. Post Your Article in Places that Your Customers will Read It: Post the article on your website. Post it in trade journals. Post it in Newsletters and eZines on the web. Do a Google search for a keyword related to your industry and add the word "newsletter" or "ezine" (instead of a magazine, it's electronic, so it's called an "EEE-Zeeen". You'll get a list of newsletters related to your industry. Most are starving for content every week or day, so they will publish just about anything. If you provide them with good content, they will love you.
  3. Pay Per Click in a Smart Way: Buy Google Adwords or Business.com pay per click ads that are very specific to what you sell. The more specific that you make the ads, the cheaper that they become and the better the leads are that are generated from the ads. For instance, "public speaking" will generate a lot of expensive clicks, but probably won't generate a lot of income. However, if I write an article about how to deliver better C-Level boardroom presentations, I can buy the term "better c-level boardroom presentations" pretty inexpensively. I won't get a lot of clicks (which saves advertising fees), but the few that I do get will likely buy from me if the click takes them to the article that I wrote that is published on my website.
  4. Keep Writing and Posting: You might not see a lot of activity at first, but if you just write one article per week and post that article to just a few other websites, within eight weeks, you'll have a total of 25 new FREE billboards out on the web. All of these billboard articles will have your contact information and a link back to your website. This boosts your rankings in search engines and also begins to promote you as the expert in your industry who can help people solve problems. Post your article to more websites each week and see your results grow exponentially.
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High Impact Leaders is published by The Leader's Institute®
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