Community Support and the Bottom Line

Gina Six Kudo is the general manager for Cochrane Self Storage in Morgan Hill, Calif. She is one of four recipients of the Inside Self-Storage 2009 Humanitarian Service Award.

Like everyone, we seem to be continually approached to donate or sponsor organizations and their projects. As much as we’d love to help everyone, we can’t do it all. Over the years countless groups have benefited from donations of funds or storage space.

One such local group, the Rotary Club, has been a real pleasure to work with. Besides their many normal philanthropic programs as Rotarians, this group has taken on many other projects in our community.

Of course when they came by requesting a donation of storage space years ago, we agreed. Little did we know at the time, how much the Rotarians would take on project-wise over the coming years, nor did we know how wonderful this group would be for our business.

Each group pays a nominal "reminder" rent rate, and the rate is renewable in one year if both parties agree. We’ve found it is better than out right donating a space for a non-profit as their boards and membership change. It also encourages members to utilize the space.

Our Rotarians requested a 10-by-20 unit for storing their party gear. Our Rotary does so much. They host a senior appreciation dinner, golf tournament, fashion show, BBQ fundraisers for other organizations and a dozen more projects.

As each team comes to the unit to retrieve items for the latest project, we meet more  members. The Rotary Club has resulted in so many rentals and referrals over the years we’ve lost track of the exact numbers. It is not uncommon for someone to come in to rent, and we learn they came to us in a roundabout way via the Rotary Club. We have garnered many business rentals from Rotary members as well.
 
Although a donated space may seem like a loss to the bottom line, if you really take a look at the goodwill you extend and watch, you also may find that a donated space has actually increased your bottom line exponentially.
 
We’re grateful for the opportunity to help out a good group or cause when it crosses our path. We’re also grateful for the support of the Rotarians and many other outstanding "free unit" customers we have.

So the next time a donation request comes your way, before saying a quick no, think about the potential and rethink your standard response. You may be as pleasantly surprised as we have been each time a new customer comes to you via the donated unit.