Now, with that as a base for this entry I am compelled to note that I’m not “mad” at the events below. Not at all. In fact, if anything I pity the people who are in charge of increasing the fundraising outcomes of the institution involved in the story. Read on and find out what I’m talking about…

A few weeks ago I was invited to attend a special reception for a local organization where I choose to donate a few dollars each year. The reception was organized and hosted by a select fundraising team within that organization (which is separate and apart from the full fundraising team that raises money for this institution). I’m blessed to be fortunate enough where I can donate a few bucks each year to several of my favorite charitable causes so I know the deal at these receptions – you go there, the hosting organization does what it needs to do to make you feel welcome and like you’re one of the team, eventually a professional fundraiser comes around and makes either a hard or a soft ask (i.e. they ask for a donation), and then you reciprocate their kindness for hosting the event with a check or commitment for a future check.

Any professional fundraiser out there can tell you that this is the standard sequence of interactions (boiled down to a very simplistic nature) at one of these events. The donors know it going into it, the fundraising team at the organization plans for it, and everyone representing the organization should be prepared to play their part.

Well, apparently this sequence wasn’t so standard at the event that I attend a few weeks ago. One of the first things that I noticed when I arrived was that there were a great deal of people who worked for the organization at the event. At first glance, one might wonder what’s going on, but this is also part of the basics of fundraising. If you’re hosting a fundraising event on your home turf, then you bring out the entire team to meet and mingle with the donors. This organization had a big number of its staff available to talk to the donors when they arrived. Speaking of the donors (and guests of donors, which is another common tactic to grow a donor base – inviting the friends of donors), I noticed that there were probably 15 – 20 donors milling around mostly talking to one another. I didn’t think anything of it since I was just walking in the door.

After getting a table for my buddy and I to sit down at, we went and got a drink and some food to pick at while we sat down. Some five or ten minutes went by and I started talking to my buddy about the fact that it was weird no one had come up and spoken to us yet. In reality, we hadn’t been made to feel welcome since we arrived. Not only were the front doors of this particular building locked (weird), but the young hostess who was supposed to say hello to the people who were walking into the event was busy tapping away on her cell phone when we walked in. Then after we put our jackets down and all through the time we got some food and a drink, no one spoke to us. So after those ten minutes went by, I began looking around with a more critical, fundraiser’s eye.

The first thing that I noticed was the same first thing that I noticed when I walked in – there were a lot of employees for this organization milling around. However, now that some time had gone by, most of the organization’s employees had gotten themselves some food and sat down to eat – with one another. The donors were sitting by themselves (having a good time, by the way) just like my buddy and I were while the organization’s employees (who outnumbered the donors perhaps 2-to-1) were sitting by themselves (equally having a good time). On the surface, the event looked like a lot of fun! People were hanging out, having a drink, chit chatting, etc. But looking at this event through a fundraiser’s eye was scary.

Another five or so minutes went by and one of the organization’s newer employees walked over to the table where my buddy and I were sitting. Without getting too much into the conversation (since I’m obviously trying to hide the nature of the organization as well as the type of event that this was), this employee made a very good impression on my buddy and I. The employee was well-spoken and when they asked for our (non-monetary) support, my buddy and I knew that it was an earnest ask. After this employee moved on, I thought that maybe I was wrong in beginning to judge the inability of this organization to operate a proper, special event fundraiser because this person gave the perfect set up for one of the professional fundraisers to come over and talk to me about giving to the cause.

But that personal, one-on-one follow-up never came.

Oh sure, I saw the head of the fundraising department walking around as well as the head of this special unit walking around – neither of them talking to most of the 15 to 20 donors (and about as many friends and relatives) who attended the event. It was shocking, really. Again, without going into too much detail believe me when I say that this is an organization that has a great deal of experience in fundraising and I’ve seen them throw phenomenal special events in the past. But this event a few weeks ago did not put their best foot forward at all.

My takeaways from this special event were: 1) the organization’s employees must have seen this as an opportunity to get free food and drink without having to work (i.e. socialize and sell the product) for it, 2) the organization didn’t really care enough for me to continue increasing my donation each year since I wasn’t spoken to by anyone whose job it was to raise money, and 3) the new employee who talked to my buddy and I showed just how out of touch the organization’s long-time employees are with the hard work of raising money and building support.

Coming out of this event, I re-evaluated my budget for the rest of 2012. Back when I created my budget last year, I planned to donate a few additional dollars to this organization in 2012. However, I was so turned off by the way the organization’s huge number of employees preferred to socialize with one another while eating the food and drinking the drinks that were there for the donors, that I rolled back the amount of money I was going to donate to its 2011 level. In fact, the more that I think about how poorly operated the fundraising portion of the event was (especially since there were a variety of high-level people walking around also doing nothing but eating and socializing with each other), I’m considering rolling back my donation even further.

Like I wrote above, there are several organizations where I choose to donate my money. And look, I don’t expect to have an organization kiss my ass because I cut them a check – that’s not why I donate. However, I wouldn’t mind having a fundraiser come and shake my hand and “dance the dance” with me. I serve on the Board of several nonprofit organizations and – in my nonprofits – I would never tolerate the type of organizational gluttony and lack of focus that I saw a few weeks ago. Frankly, it was so off-putting that I would have fired a few people (yes, more than one) by now.

But, I’m not in charge of the organization who hosted the event nor do I want to be. I’m just an aware, cognizant donor who understands the value of the dollars that I choose to invest in nonprofit organizations. I have a variety of similar special events coming up in the next few months. It’ll be interesting to see which of those nonprofits can keep their house in order during the special events and play the game with the donors the way that it is supposed to be played. Sure, I don’t salivate over the prospect of someone asking me for money at one of these events, but I do expect that my prior contributions will be respected enough for someone to at least consider asking me for a future donation.

It’s Fundraising 101.

Aside from discovering organic food, I try to make my own breakfast, lunch, and dinner when I have a chance. On that note, I make a pretty delicious oatmeal and berry breakfast. The pictures below detail my making an oatmeal and berry breakfast a few weeks ago. Incidentally, the oatmeal used here is Bob’s Red Mill organic rolled oats mixed with two tablespoons each of Bob’s Red Mill organic ground flaxseed meal and Bob’s Red Mill organic wheat germ. I like Bob’s Red Mill products. The berries are also organic from the produce section of the local Wegmans grocery store.

This isn’t a step-by-step guide to how to make my delicious oatmeal and berry breakfast, but I thought I would take some pictures and show everyone what I do every once in a while to make this delicious meal. The picture above shows the berries mixed together in a large bowl. I just leave them in the bowl until I’m ready to pour the cooked oatmeal on top. In addition to the blueberries, blackberries, and raspberries that you see above, sometimes throw in sliced strawberries, too.

I actually went out and bought this small sauce pot because I didn’t want to make my oatmeal in the small T-Fal pots that I have in my kitchen. I hate when that T-Fal stuff starts to chip and get mixed in with the food. Gross. So I went to Wegmans and purchased that little stainless steel pot that you see in the picture above. Inside that pot is one cup of water (filtered through the PUR filter on my sink faucet), a half a cup of Bob’s Red Mill organic rolled oats, two tablespoons of Bob’s Red Mill organic ground flaxseed meal, two tablespoons of Bob’s Red Mill organic wheat germ, a teaspoon of organic cinnamon (I’ve been using Simply Organic cinnamon and it has a very good taste), and a few twists of freshly crushed sea salt from the container (nothing more than a teaspoon). Once the water boils, I pour the rest of the ingredients in at one time and then bring the temperature down to mid or low.

After the oatmeal is done cooking, I dump it on top of the berries (picture down below), but I’m a huge stickler for keeping a clean kitchen! So once the oatmeal is poured and, on occasion, scraped out of the stainless steel pot, the pot goes right into the sink with hot water in it!

And you’re wasting your time if you don’t put some dish soap in with that hot water. As you eat your breakfast, the hot water and dish soap will eat into any bit of the oatmeal that is clinging to your stainless steel pot like its life depending on it (which, in some ways, I guess it does).

You’re supposed to clean everything! Can you tell how anal I am about keeping a clean kitchen (especially when you cook breakfast)? Here you see my measuring cup and the measuring spoons that I use to measure out my ingredients.

Ahhh… then you have the coup de grâce of the entire effort. This is what the delicious finished product looks like after the berries are mixed into the oatmeal. I’m telling you – if you like berries, oatmeal, and cinnamon, then this is what you want to eat in the morning. Trust me.

Oh, and I usually drink a nice glass of organic milk with my oatmeal and berries. I like Organic Valley’s fat free milk. Very tasty.

And there you have it! This is what I try to eat at least once per week or more often if I have the time to make it. It’s energizing, healthy, and most importantly – it’s delicious!

Admittedly, I’ve been booked solid at my office and on the road for work over the last three months. That’s really nothing new, though I really do think that the last three months at my office have been busier than the three years leading into them. The truth is that being busy at the office is a good thing because if we weren’t busy, then we wouldn’t be in business, right? So part of the reason why I haven’t been able to attend to JerseySmarts.com with the type of focus that you may be used to is because I’m doing so much more at the office and, consequently, tiring myself out during those short periods of free time when I’m in my home office and I typically write up a few blog entries.

And on that point, my free time continues to be eaten up by a variety of items – most of which we’ve covered at length on this blog in the past so I will try not to rehash old information here. The most pertinent “new” time consumer is the fact that I was elected to be the Chairman of a local charter school foundation’s Board of Trustees. It’s pretty cool and I’m looking forward to helping to rebuild this foundation and lead it to new heights. The most exciting part about leading this foundation is that it really is a blank canvas. So… after we get an event out of the way this coming Monday night, I’m going to focus on the most primary of all goals for all foundations – raising money. More on that as it comes and it relevant to this blog.

On the entrepreneurial front, I’ve decided to go with my gut instinct and begin shedding my third party clients. In short, Usable Web Solutions, LLC brings in money from two primary sources: websites that I host and manage for third party clients and websites that I host and manage that I own. Year after year, the majority of the income generated by this company is from the websites that I own. If I’m going to spend some of the meager time that I have available on this company, then it just makes logical business sense for me to focus on increasing the capacity and reach of the income-generating websites that I own. About two months ago I began helping my third party clients find new web management services and everything has gone very well thus far.

The adjunct professoring/online mentoring is what it is, I guess. These days the local college doesn’t have enough demand in its core political science program to warrant bringing in an additional adjunct professor, so I’m out of the few bucks that I earned teaching over at the local institute of higher learning. On the other hand, the online college where I work as an online mentor has been scheduling me to teach a new class each beginning each month (they run their semesters differently with a new semester beginning each month). The number of total students in these classes is going down, but the number of classes where I’m serving as the mentor is going up, so it evens out over the course of a year.

There are any other number of time consuming items that keep me busy these days that I could probably write a good article around (i.e. online dating that has transitioned into face-to-face dating over the last few months, managing a crazy budget that was devastated with the down payment for my new car and the taxes that I had to pay this year, time dedicated to local volunteering efforts as well as selected national volunteering efforts, reading more whenever I can, working out whenever I can, etc). However, I urge you to stay tuned and you can read all about these events in my daily life – and so much more – in the coming days and weeks. Further, if you have Google Reader or another RSS aggregator, then I encourage you to subscribe to JerseySmarts.com so that way you’ll never miss out on what’s going on here! Our RSS feed may be found here: http://www.jerseysmarts.com/feed/

Down to $28 thousand

I do think that I’m in a somewhat “lost” category of taxpayers when it comes to my required payment, though. You see, I took out a ton of student loans to go to college, graduate school, and pay for living expenses. Well, in all of its wisdom the government created a student loan interest tax deduction so that if a taxpayer paid a bunch of money in student loan interest, then they could at least reduce the total amount of their taxable income to reflect the economic impact of having to pay that interest. In some ways, it’s very similar to the home mortgage interest tax deduction.

What’s interesting about my situation is that yes – I did earn a few more bucks in 2011 and thus had to pay more in taxes. Sure, no denying it at all and I’m not looking to deny it. However, unlike other folks who earned more money last year, I didn’t sock that money away into some account or invest it in the market. Nope. Instead, I gave all of that excess income to the government to pay down my student loans!

Do you get the ridiculous paradox that I’m caught in here?

I earned more money, gave that money to the government to pay down my student loans, but because I earned more money in the first place, the government wants more of my money in taxes (and that “more of my money” doesn’t exist… because I already gave it the government!). Do you see the absolutely outlandish situation that I’m caught in here?!

Anyway, since this is the only thing that has been on the student loan section of my mind for the last few weeks I thought I would share with you good people. And there you have it. I gave the government all of my excess income last year and – simply because I earned excess income and gave it to the government – the government has now come back and demanded even more of my money by this Tuesday. Unbelievable.

In May 2006, I graduated from Rutgers University with a Masters Degree and $120,720 in student loan debt. Since I started repaying my student loans in July 2006, I’ve repaid a total of $92 thousand in principal to various lenders including the federal Perkins loan program, the New Jersey Higher Education Student Assistance Authority, and CitiBank. I currently owe $28 thousand in principal to the United States Department of Education’s Direct Loans program. To date, I’ve repaid well over $30 thousand in interest to these lenders. Follow my student loan repayment story on JerseySmarts.com.

Created by: College At Home

Pretty amazing, right? Makes you look at your commute in a whole different light (and not necessarily a good one)!

Have you ever watched a commercial and just thought, “Ha! I like that!” Well, that was my response to that commercial. Whoever put that 30 second spot together really did a good job. One of the things that I like about the commercial is the use of the Neon Trees as the band that performs in the last part of the spot. In fact, I did some Googling and it turns out that the Neon Trees actually recorded a performance of that entire song – Everybody Talks – while sitting in that tour bus. Sure, the song is very likely lip synched (there’s no drum set for the drummer to play inside the tour bus!), but it’s still a pretty impressive feat. Take a look at the full video (which is hidden from people if you search for it on YouTube, but fully available to watch if you have the link… like I do):

Pretty cool, huh? Anyway, turns out that the Neon Trees will be putting out a new album in April. I’ll definitely check it out and see if it’s worth purchasing and if you like alternative rock, then I encourage you to do the same. Enjoy!

The one thing that struck me the most about the headquarters building is that it’s pretty much a fortress. I mean, it’s built like it could withstand any major natural disaster or attack. I honestly think that if a foreign country attacked the capitol, the USED building would be left standing – mocking the foreigners and their wimpy weapons. But that’s just the impression you get from the outside. Once you’re inside you see that it’s really just functional office space. I liked the mission statement of the USED, which was put up right on the wall for everyone to see when you entered the building. Take a look:

The USED's mission statement - give it a read

Pretty good mission statement for the USED, huh? I was down in Washington, DC for a conference on charter schools which I won’t get into in this blog entry. However, I couldn’t help but think that I actually helped build the impressive structure in which the charter school conference was being held in thanks to all of my student loan payments. It was a weird feeling – not necessarily a bad feeling, but one that made me take a step back and think, “Well, here’s the place where my checks have been going for the past few years.” It was just an interesting feeling.

What was not a good or interesting feeling, though, was the physical pain that I endured as I rode Amtrak’s Acela down to Washington, DC. Believe it or not, these asshats actually sold more tickets for the Acela than there were seats for the passengers. Sure, you’ll never get any official response from the Acela people saying that it was standard practice to do that or that they were sorry (apologizing is an acknowledgement of guilt). However, the conductor on the train – who was a very nice guy, by the way – told me and the fifteen other seatless passengers that this was common practice. It was outrageous. So, I rode down to the nation’s capitol sitting on this:

Imagine sitting on this for two and a half hours

Yeah… not comfortable at all. Anyway, I visited one of my two major student loan lenders last month. And while I don’t think that I’ll ever willingly or happily visit the headquarters building of the New Jersey Higher Education Student Assistance Authority (NJHESAA), I’m actually going to be really close to some of their associates starting tomorrow. Turns out that NJHESAA and my company will both be exhibitors at the New Jersey Charter Schools Association conference in Atlantic City this week. I don’t know if we’ll be anywhere near each other, but I feel like being in the same room as those people is going to drive me nuts. Frankly, I have half a mind to walk up to their booth and ask them why they felt the need to treat a highly intelligent, good-natured person (me) like a dumb, moronic piece of garbage every time I called them. And that same half of my mind wants me to ask them why they wouldn’t contact the credit agencies to report their mistaken even after admitting that they made a blunder when they reported that I made a late payment when no payment was actually due. Those idiots lowered my credit score for a few months until I had to go out of my way to get that stupid mistake wiped clean from my record. Idiots.

Anyway, enough of that tangent. The point of this entry is that I visited the USED headquarters building in Washington, DC and I was pleasantly pleased with the visit. I hope that they do their customers well as they continue to ramp up their student loan production.

So while it’s not really feasible for an old school showdown at the O.K. Corral because this Kony monster is hiding in the jungles of Africa, the least I can do is put up this video and spread the word.

Share this video with your friends and family. This disgusting Kony monster needs to be stopped before he continues to hurt helpless kids and their families. This guy is a piece of garbage.

$29 thousand and dropping...

However, perhaps a more primary reason for me posting these regular updates is to keep myself on track with the very repayment plan that I’m talking about. Most studies show that when a person commits to completing a big, audacious goal (starting a company, losing weight, repaying a high amount of debt), they are usually much more successful if they publicize those goals and their on-going attempts, accomplishments, failures, and trials along the way.

That’s part of what I’m trying to do with these updates – keep myself honest and totally focused on the ultimate goal of living a debt-free life. In fact, once this aggressive repayment plan is completed (since purchasing the new car, the deadline has extended six months from Christmas 2012 to Summer 2013) I fully plan to continue to utilize JerseySmarts.com to hold myself accountable for other goals that I’m trying to achieve. For example, in the past I’ve noted on this blog that I managed to get myself type 2 diabetes from eating too much and not working out enough. I’ve achieved some remarkable success in reducing the impact of that disease in my daily life and I think I could certainly write more about that on the blog.

Related to the diabetes… many years before I used this blog to publicize how I’m destroying my student loan debt, I wrote about how I was losing a tremendous amount of weight. Well, like most dieters and gym rats my life pushed me in a direction where I couldn’t workout as much (thanks full-time job and awful, awful commute!). And – as you might imagine – I gained back a bunch of weight. No, I didn’t gain back all of the weight (thank God), but I did gain back a lot of it (I went from 385 down to 260 then back up to 365 and now I’m down at 325).

With my weight loss and healthy activities I think there’s clearly both a good story to tell and an opportunity to hold myself accountable for greater levels of success. What type of greater success might that be? Well, I see my total weight loss and healthy journey as more than an attempt to fit into a certain size pair of jeans or a certain t-shirt. I see the journey as a way to a more active lifestyle and as a way to be able to do more “fun” things that I really can’t do right now. One of the folks that I work with is always telling me how she and her husband go hiking and how New Jersey has a lot of great hiking trails. Hiking is something that I could certainly do right now, but I wouldn’t enjoy it because I’m just not in good enough shape. The same goes for bike riding. I would like to ride a bike around town or even to ride a bike up and down the boardwalk on early mornings. However, if I did that activity now I definitely wouldn’t enjoy it because I’d be huffing and puffing when I should be enjoying the activity.

And have you seen these tough mudders and other crazy types of obstacle course races? That looks like a whole lot of fun… just not a whole lot of fun yet for me. Plus, I feel like I can get some people to do those events with me (I’m referring to my roommates who read this blog as well as my cousin and brother who both read this blog).

And there’s more to it, too. I don’t often write about the fact that I stopped eating fast food back in 2002 and stopped drinking soda around the same time (though I never really drank a lot of soda). In fact, there was a point in high school (late 1990′s) where I stopped drinking soda for over a year! Over the last 5 – 6 years I’ve done a lot of reading and some minor research on healthy foods, primal/paleo eating, and organic food versus non-organic food. I’d like to share a lot of that information and my thoughts on it on JerseySmarts.com, too.

Don’t think that the future of these accountability updates will deviate too far from the financial world. Once Summer 2013 has come and gone and I’m student loan free for the first time since 1999, I’ll have quite a bit to write about as I build up a significant reserve fund, housing fund, and continue to work to pay off this new car loan – and ultimately a mortgage for a house. In other words, these periodic updates aren’t going away after Summer 2013, but they might change a bit.

At this point, I guess it’s worth mentioning that my student loan debt has dropped again. This time it fell from $32 thousand outstanding down to $29 thousand outstanding. This represents the achievement of two major goals in one, fell swoop. First, I’ve now repaid over $91 thousand in student loan principal (and about $30 thousand in student loan interest). Second, I broke through the $30 thousand barrier! Believe it or not, the last time I only owed this much in student loans was after the first semester of my Junior year of college (that would be way back at the end of December 2001!).

In other words (working backwards), so far I’ve successfully repaid the academic and housing/living student loan debt that I incurred in (1) graduate school, (2) in the year before I entered graduate school when I was sort of in between schools, (3) during my senior year of college, and (4) during the second half of my junior year of college.

Pretty amazing, huh?

In May 2006, I graduated from Rutgers University with a Masters Degree and $120,720 in student loan debt. Since I started repaying my student loans in July 2006, I’ve repaid a total of $91 thousand in principal to various lenders including the federal Perkins loan program, the New Jersey Higher Education Student Assistance Authority, and CitiBank. I currently owe $29 thousand in principal to the United States Department of Education’s Direct Loans program. To date, I’ve repaid well over $30 thousand in interest to these lenders. Follow my student loan repayment story on JerseySmarts.com.

In the mean time, the New York Daily News reports that they’ve honored the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, the 60th Anniversary of the Communist Takeover of China, and gay pride week. In the coming week, they plan to honor Corporate Philanthropy Day and National Eating Disorders Awareness Week. Really? You’re going to honor the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Corporate Philanthropy Day and then NOT honor Cardinal Dolan?

Give me a break.

Thankfully, the much bigger, much more important Freedom Tower at 1 World Trade Center decided to make this situation right by bathing the building in red in honor of the new Cardinal. Take a look at these amazing pictures taken by Anthony Quintano and posted on Flickr.com:

I don’t know about you, but the Freedom Tower looks pretty good drenched in the red that is symbolic of the Cardinal’s new attire. Very nicely done by the team at the Port Authority.