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Synopsis

Dr. Misner is joined by his wife Beth to talk abut the new BNI Misner Foundation Monthly Heroes program, started in September 2008. Because of the large number of donations it makes around the world, the BNI Foundation needs to increase the donations it collects.

The Monthly Heroes program recognizes those who support the Foundation’s general fund, which provides mini-grants of about $1000 to charities that support children and education.

Chapters can also make directed contributions, which go to the chapter represented by the charity. 100% of donations go to the charity. Non-profit groups that are members of local chapters can benefit from these directed contributions.

The BNI Misner Foundation can provide additional publicity for a chapter’s charitable contributions.

Visit the new BNI Misner Foundation Website at www.bnifoundation.org or send e-mail to foundation [at] bni [dot] com.

Brought to you by Networking Now.

Complete Transcription of BNI Podcast Episode 079 -

Priscilla:
Hello everyone, and welcome back to The Official BNI Podcast brought to you by NetworkingNow.com, which is the leading site on the Net for networking downloadables.

I am Priscilla Rice, and I’m coming to you from Live Oak Recording Studio in Berkley, California , and I am joined on the phone today by the founder and the chairman of BNI, Dr. Ivan Misner.

Hello, Ivan. How are you?

Ivan:
I am doing great, Priscilla. Thank you very much.

I’ve got with us today my lovely bride, Elizabeth Misner. Beth is the administrator for the BNI Foundation and the co-founder of the BNI Foundation. And with this podcast, we thought we’d talk a little bit about the Monthly Heroes Program. Last month, October, was our first ever BNI Foundation Awareness Month, and so I thought it would be good to have Beth come on and talk a little bit about that and the Monthly Hero Program.

Beth, welcome to the podcast.

Beth:
Thank you very much, Ivan, and thanks for giving me the chance to come in and talk about what I love the most, the BNI Misner Foundation. And I am happy to be able to talk about the BNI Monthly Heroes. This is a program that we started in January of 2008. It has been so successful, and I am so excited about it that I want to really open it up to the rest of the membership of BNI.

What we did was we took a look at all of the great mini grants that we were gifting all over the world, because our mini grants truly are gifted internationally; we don’t just give gifts in one country above another. And we were looking at how much we are giving out and recognizing that we need to do something to increase what was coming into the general fund. The year 2007, we actually donated more than was coming into the fund.

Ivan:
Eventually, that’s a bit of a problem.

Beth:
Yes, that’s going to create an issue. We’re going to stop being able to be giver’s gain of players here. So, the membership hasn’t really been made aware of the BNI Monthly Hero Program yet, because we only experimented in the beginning with the BNI directors being involved in that, and it has been tremendous.

I have to tell you, Ivan, the stories that I am getting from the BNI directors who have been involved now at this level. They are having so much fun with this. They are really enjoying BNI being able to be part of what we’re doing in the BNI Misner Foundation, so that has been gratifying for me.

Ivan:
So the Heroes Program I want you to explain, but before we do, can we talk very briefly about what kind of grants are given and the difference between our general fund and directed donations? It’s really important, I think, for members to understand the difference between the general fund and directed donations, because we do both.

Beth:
Absolutely. I’d be happy to delineate that.

The BNI Monthly Hero contribution, which is a minimum of $50 per month to participate, is supporting our general fund, and our general fund is being used to give mini grants to charitable organizations that benefit children’s educational programs. In the BNI Foundation, we really believe that we can improve the business of tomorrow through education today. So that’s our focus with all the general fund donations that are coming in.

We do, however, have a vehicle by which chapters and members can specify to whom their mini grant would go. So if you have a local charity that has nothing do to with children and education, let’s say it’s benefiting animals like a humane society, you may still make your donation through the BNI Misner Foundation and direct it back out to the local humane society. Now, that type of a directed donation wouldn’t qualify as part of the BNI Monthly Heroes Program, because the Monthly Heroes Program is going in to bolster up our general fund.

Ivan:
Let’s differentiate here for people so that it’s really clear.

The Monthly Heroes Program supports the general fund, and the general fund contributes for mini grants to children and educational programs. That’s the focus. And the mini grants are around $1,000, but that’s likely to be going up in the next year or so. We average a $40- to $50,000 a year in mini grants. That doesn’t count the big programs that we do.

But now what you’ve just gone through and you’re talking about is that if a chapter has its own pet project and they want to do a directed fund for something specific to their local community, they can also do that, which is not part of the general fund, not part of the Monthly Heroes, but a directed contribution. And they would give that to the Foundation, and the Foundation would direct that to the charity of that chapter’s choice.

And what percentage of that money goes to the charity?

Beth:
I’m glad you asked, because I think it’s important for members to know that 100% of the donation goes right back out to their charity. And you know, the great thing is what if they have a BNI chapter member who’s in the chapter representing a charity.

Ivan:
Yeah, that’s important.

Beth:
That is a double whammy, because you’re able to make a BNI Misner Foundation donation, a minimum has to be $250, and you’re able to direct that right back out to your chapter member. So we think that’s pretty tremendous.

Ivan:
So if there’s a non-profit who’s a member of a local chapter, the BNI Foundation doesn’t compete with that non-profit. If anything, we can support that non-profit by the local chapter giving a donation to the BNI Foundation and directing it to the member of that chapter who is a non-profit organization. And 100% of that money – no administrative fees are taken out; 100% of it goes to the chapter member.

So what we’re trying to do with the Foundation is, we know that there are chapters out there who really want to contribute in a community service kind of way to the communities that they come from, and we want to help provide a venue for them to do that or a mechanism for them to do that. BNI is not a charitable organization; we’re not a service club. But we also understand that there’s a need to contribute to the local communities, and so the BNI Foundation is sort of a mechanism to help chapters carry that out either through the general fund or through directed giving.

Beth:
That’s right.

Priscilla:
Could I ask a question?

Ivan:
Yeah, go ahead.

Beth:
Of course, you can.

Priscilla:
Can you explain to me, what would be the advantage both to the Foundation and also to the member if they wanted to give a donation, let’s say, to your local humane society, why would we go through the Foundation, who would then give it to the humane society rather than just giving it directly to the humane society? Is there some reason that it would be…

Ivan:
That is a great question. Beth, if you want to add on to this, feel free.

The BNI Foundation, as I mentioned, we give up to $50,000 a year in various mini grants, so from the local chapter’s perspective, it’s a more powerful PR mechanism for them, because let’s say you gave $500 to the humane society. A $500 contribution, you’re not going to get any recognition locally for that, but you could do a press release for the local chapter and say that the local BNI chapter contributed money to the humane society, and the BNI Foundation does over $50,000 a year in mini grants locally.

So the $50,000 is a bigger number than the $500. It kind of centralizes everything to give a greater ability for the local chapters to get recognition in the local communities for the overall good of the organization.

Is there anything you’d add to that, Beth?

Beth:
The only thing that I would have to add is that when it is a donation that is being directed back out from the BNI Misner Foundation, it gives the chapter the recognition, the chapter, the regional director, the local director, the executive director can be part of that and come out and do a big presentation with a check, have some PR that can be done around that, that gives a little mileage to the donation.

Ivan:
That’s a good point. Many directors work with the BNI and the BNI Foundation, and many of them have or can do a big check. It comes out, it’s from the BNI Foundation, it goes to the humane society. So you are using the BNI Foundation as a vehicle for distributing funds and getting better recognition.

Beth:
It’s great for PR.

Priscilla:
Does it also help the Foundation itself?

Beth:
Well, it helps our bottom line in that at the end of the year, we include those directed donations in the number that we say we gifted throughout the course of the year. So, absolutely, it does help us.

Ivan:
It does, because it enables us to say the BNI organization gave $40- or $50- or $60,000 instead of just $10- or $20- or $30,000. For example, when we had big, big things like Hurricane Katrina and 9/11, on those years, particularly Hurricane Katrina, BNI Foundation contributed over $120,000 to the various Hurricane Katrina funds like the Red Cross. And that’s powerful. An individual chapter may have only given a few hundred, but they’re part of an organization that gave $120,000, and that goes a lot further than saying, “I gave a $200 contribution.”

Priscilla:
Great.

Beth:
Well, in the time remaining, Ivan, I’d like to talk about the BNI Foundation Web site, because we do have a brand new Web site. I’d love to give the Web site address. That is: www.BNIFounation.org and we’ve got some great, new exciting stuff, interactives, some new technology on the Foundation Web site, and I’d love everyone to come on over there and check it out.

We recently did about a four hour Web-a-thon for BNI Foundation Awareness Month, and we’re going to have some of the segments of archived on the Web site. And any other Webcasts in the future that we do will be taking place right there on the Web site.

Ivan:
Well, excellent. Beth, I really appreciate you coming on to talk about the BNI Foundation, and I hope that members get some information, go to BNIFoundation.org, learn a little bit more about the BNI Foundation.

If you have some questions, where can people contact the Foundation, Beth?

Beth:
The e-mail address is: Foundation@BNI.com. You can e-mail directly to that e-mail address, or you can fill out a contact form at the Foundation Web site, which is BNIFoundation.org. There are those two great ways to get in touch with us.

Ivan:
Well, I talked about this in some previous podcasts, but I really believe, and I know Beth believes, that you may not be able to make a world of difference, but you can make a difference in the world. And I think that BNI Foundation is helping to do that. We certainly appreciate any BNI members that would like to use the Foundation to help do some good around the world.

I thank you very much for being on, Beth.

Priscilla, I’ll turn it back over to you.

Priscilla:
Okay, great. Thank you both for being a part of all that and for creating that for the rest of us.

Beth:
You are more than welcome. And thank you.

Ivan:
You know what? I’m going to add one more thing for the listeners.

When you go to BNIFoundation.org, you can see some great examples of contributions that have been done over the last year or two. As time goes on, we’ll put up some of that so you can see some of the kinds of things that the general fund money is going for.

Back to you, Priscilla.

Priscilla:
Okay, thanks.

Well, I want to just remind the listeners that this podcast has been brought to you by NetworkingNow.com, which is the leading site on the Net for networking downloadables. Thanks so much for listening. This is Priscilla Rice, and we hope you will join us next week for another exciting episode of The Official BNI Podcast.