This past Thursday, Trio Solutions Inc. launched our latest service to the nonprofit world at the 11th annual SCANPO conference - The Nonprofit Nook. We signed up an enthusiastic group of nonprofit professionals to help serve as our launch focus group. We look forward to receiving their feedback and making this site the best resource it can be. Our goal is that The Nonprofit Nook will offer a special section on the World Wide Web for nonprofits to gather free information, resources and support for their marketing needs. A place for nonprofits to make the most of their marketing, event and Web efforts. We have lofty plans for The Nonprofit Nook and look forward to providing quality, useful and innovative services for our nonprofit members. Check it out!

During my years at Trio I have had the fun and challenging task of organizing silent auctions for many of our clients. It has become a running joke around the office that I am the queen of silent auctions. And oh how they all know how much I love being a “queen”! And I truly enjoy doing them. That being said, I feel that is ok for me to share one of my biggest pet peeves. Here it is…why do people find it necessary to donate junk to a silent auction? Is it because they feel bad they aren’t giving money and feel that they must give something? Or perhaps they use it as a good excuse to get rid of unsold merchandise? Regardless, you know the saying “if you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all?” Well today I am coining a new saying, “if you can’t donate anything nice, then don’t donate anything at all”. This may sound harsh, but a silent auction is not a garage sale. This is not an instance where one man’s junk is another man’s treasure. Essentially your junk becomes our junk. And we have the fun task of finding a way to flavorfully describe it AND put a value on it. So, in response to my question, when it comes to silent auctions, beggars can and should be choosers. You should work toward collecting a good mix of items. These can range from high dollar items such as a vacation, as well as gift baskets from local stores and other fun packages. You want all of your guests to feel like there is something they can bid on should they choose. And I don’t think you should ever feel bad turning away a someones donation. There are plenty of organizations that would love to have the donated item, just not plenty of attendees that would want to buy it.

Jen and I are at “The Special Event” in Atlanta, Georgia, the event industry’s largest trade show and conference. More than 9000 professionals within the event industry from around the world are here sharing ideas and trends. It’s been a great experience so far. I actually presented on planning events for nonprofits on Tuesday morning. There were close to 200 people in my session. Pretty amazing. The coolest thing that we have gotten out of the conference so far is the committment to create a green office at Trio Solutions and to start creating green events for our clients. Our first step is to develop a sustainable plan for our office. This isn’t going to happen overnight but there is no reason why we shouldn’t put our best foot forward now and there are countless reasons why we shouldn’t do anything at all. I’ll keep you posted on our progress.

Check out our STATUS REPORT

A special thank you to the Createathon team:
Krista Robertson
Jeanine Szczesniak
Jennifer Cherock
Jessica Munday
Jessica Kersey
Brian Cendrowski
Nicole Cendrowski
Roxanne Hicks
Brian Dadin
Cultigraphic girls

Trio Solutions was selected as the official CreateAthon® agency for the Lowcountry. Although CreateAthon is in its tenth year nationally, this will be the first year this event has been available to Lowcountry nonprofits. For 24 hours, from 8 a.m. on Thursday, September 13 until 8 a.m. on Friday, September 14, every member of our staff will work on pro-bono projects for several nonprofit organizations in our area. During that time, we will complete 15 projects for five organizations. All of our time will be donated.

Congratulations to this year’s CreateAthon recipients:

LOVE Inc.
My Sister’s House
Teacher’s Supply Closet
Lowcountry Earth Force
Berkeley County Foundation of Volunteers for the SC Guardian Ad Litem Program

Working on the fund-raising event for Carolina Autism was so rewarding. I had the opportunity to help with everything from hand delivering invitations to setting up the evening of. This was definitely the highlight of my internship with Trio. Here are some pictures from the event.

This past weekend Trio Solutions Inc. had the privilege of working with MedExpress Clinics on opening their first retail health care clinic. A fairly new concept within the health care industry, retail health care is an approach that is more consumer-focused and here’s the magic word, affordable! MedExpress opened their first clinic in Evans, Georgia, a suburb of Augusta. It is their hope that the concept will take off in Evans and they will be able to expand across the Southeast.

Their facility isn’t an urgent care facility and it’s not meant to replace a relationship with a primary care provider. The purpose is to complement the health care continuum and open up an opportunity for individuals with little or no insurance. Pricing is known before you step foot in the door and you are sure to be seen quickly.

Trio Solutions Inc. specializes in health care and has been excited to be involved with a new approach to a seriously injured industry. Because MedExpress is a new business we were able to help with everything from logo design to advertising to a Web site, allowing every member of our team an opportunity to get involved.

We wish MedExpress much success and have enjoyed working with such a great group of people.

Check out this story that ran in the Augusta Chronicle on July 13, 2007.