Giving to the Foundation:
Forget Altruism! THINK GOOD BUSINESS!
In the coming months, The PCI Foundation will be resuming its Capital Campaign. Our goal is to reach $5,000,000.
The Foundation was founded in 2001 because it was recognized that there was a serious void in the precast/prestressed industry business model. Precious little attention was given to educating young people coming into the design community about the benefits of designing with precast. How could we as an industry expect the design community to lean our way if we were not willing to invest the time and treasure to influence them? It seemed logical to assume that ALL PCI members would support the Foundation’s efforts to fill this void. But this did NOT happen! Only 15-20% of us supported the effort. WHY? It became apparent that while our industry was begun by entrepreneurs, it is now, by a wide margin, run by very competent PROFESSIONAL MANAGERS. And while some of our greatest achievements were as a result of actions by those early risk-takers, it is the job of today’s manager to be just the opposite…risk-averse. So what is to be done? The answer is to make a case that it is simply good business to support the Foundation.
Before the advent of the Foundation, young people coming out of school had little or no exposure to precast. NOW…because of the studio program…there are more than 400 new people in the architectural/engineering workforce who not only have an understanding of precast…they are excited about it. And they are beginning to have influence in the design decisions of their firms. In a short time, there will be THOUSANDS of studio graduates in the design community to make that concept a reality. The point to be made here is that if we want to continue to have influence on the decision-making at architectural and engineering firms, it just makes good business sense to strongly support the upcoming people who will soon be making those decisions.
The vehicle for this very logical business decision is YOUR PCI Foundation!
The studio program has been extremely effective and most popular in every school which it has been introduced. Our goal is to have a studio at ALL architectural schools in time. The only reason we can’t do more..faster…is the limitation of funds. But this can be an easy fix with the support of ALL of us. Do the math. As an example, If every company in PCI could contribute just ¼ of 1% of their annual sales, we could far exceed our $5,000,000 goal in a very short time and positively influence our future opportunities for MORE BUSINESS. Seems like something we should have ALWAYS been doing. And the studios are but one of many good ideas that we COULD be doing if only we had broader financial support.
So when you are approached for a pledge or donation, make the right business decision and CONTRIBUTE! It will pay HUGE dividends down the road…and not too far down the road!