by Jason Savage | Jun 11, 2011 | Blog, General
I am in the process of planning a 5K road race that could be used as a prototype event for a national series; much like the Stroh’s Run For Liberty back in the mid 80’s. I am going to make a survey available to runners to gauge their interest in the event. If you are a runner or one who might like to support the memorial through a running event, I welcome you to take the survey. Visit my running site at www.YourRunningMemories.com and click on the link. A successful series would generate much needed publicity about the memorial project throughout the running community. That may lead to some media coverage as news of the events spread. This road race would be very special. It will honor the participants as the Very Important People (VIP) they are for helping to raise funds for the memorial. It will be an event a runner would not want to...
by Jason Savage | Jun 1, 2011 | Blog, General
We designed a Tribute Sponsorship Program and launched it in January, 2011. The focus was corporate support for local fallen heroes. Basically we divided the projected cost of the memorial by the number of fallen heroes and assigned that dollar figure to a personal tribute destined for display on the memorial. That rounded figure was $3,500. I spent three months earlier this year contacting major corporations. None of them would sponsor a single tribute to honor a local fallen soldier. Several responded with, “It just doesn’t fit with our marketing campaigns.” Every corporation I contacted was flush with cash. A representative from the Wal-Mart Foundation told me they were not interested in sponsoring a tribute for the fallen soldier from Fayetteville, AK., hometown to their headquarters. The corporation had $7.4 billion in cash on hand at the time. A vice president at a local corporate headquarters (Raleigh, NC) told me they simply did not have enough money to sponsor a $3,500 tribute. They had $647 million in cash on hand. I got similar responses from many representatives. A substantial number would not respond to our messages or phone calls. It appears that they decided to use the ‘plausible deniability’ option. We decided to abandon the program. I am now making an assumption, but I believe the failure to attract corporate support may have something to do with our status as an unknown entity. Maybe they simply will not risk supporting an organization they never heard of. We’ll never know because representatives either would not respond or would not respond honestly. I wonder if the representatives would have responded differently...
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