Why a grant?

First question I get about the Capacity to Care Program is what is the catch. Second if there is a tax advantage for calling it a grant?

Well there is no catch, like any business and perhaps ours more than others is asked to support good causes with contributions of time, talent, product and money. It is very difficult to say no to some and yes to others.

Accountants may not think it is to smart because if you figure overhead and labor into the equation then selling something that is already competitively priced for half ... is not the way to run a business.

I believe that your overhead and labor are expenses that you are going to pay regardless of whether you have excess capacity or not .. so you might as well put that excess capacity to good use and do it in such a way that you generate enough income to cover materials and part of your costs.. and do a lot of good in the process... hey, nothing wrong, so long as there is capacity that would otherwise go to waste.

Speaking about process. I hope that this program will keep us all sharp, continuously looking for ways to improve on our process and look for ways to cut out steps in the process. That is what lean is all about.You find those improvements when you work towards capacity .. when you are working below capacity the motivation to focus on improving your process to increase your capacity is just not as strong.

I will keep you posted and please ask questions by posting a comment on this Blog, because it is probably a question that someone else has.

Capacity to Care

Like most industries, there are busiy seasons that when it rains it pours and other times when it is not as busiy was we would like. We are increasing our capacity to produce daily with improvement in our process. So what do we do with our excess capacity?

We decided to make good use of it by starting a matching grant program for non-profits.

In short, it provides them with a dollar for dollar match or in other words a 50% discount on our goods and services to qualifying non-profits who plan ahead.

Before starting a business I worked for the American Heart Association. For 17 years I worked with and for terrific people who were on a mission to reduce premature death and disability from heart disease.

Well there are many good causes in America and we are are going to see how much capacity we have to care about as many as possible.

I figure that given ample time to squeeze a job in, we should be able to do a lot of good. http://www.bellagraphics.com/capacitytocare.htm