A New Jersey pregnancy center is adding a little “charisma” and some grace to fundraising possibilities with a new venture that extends beyond the standard fundraising baby bottles.
Rita Leone-Reyes is CEO and founder of True Women’s Center in Sewell, N.J., and now also CEO of Charisma Creative.
Leone-Reyes said after 30 years of working in pregnancy help, she felt as though, “One day I could open an organization to help with fundraising.”
A few years ago, Leone-Reyes said she had an idea to make a design for baby bottles used in their annual fundraising campaign running Mother's Day through Father’s Day. She had discovered, along with her staff, that the narrow neck of the average baby bottle was cumbersome in terms of releasing coins. A new design features a wider neck with a slot in the nipple for coin retrieval.
Leone-Reyes then realized another company already existed that addressed this problem.
“I learned through an email (this business) was going out of business,” Leone-Reyes said. “I went to my board of directors and said, ‘I think we can purchase this.’”
Leone-Reyes and another individual from the True Women’s Center board of directors began working together on how, in addition to the purchase, to further promote this company to other centers.
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“We decided, ‘Let’s call it Charisma.” she said.
Charisma means, “God’s gift of grace,” said Leone-Reyes.
“Charisma Creative is a subdivision of True Women's Center,” Leone-Reyes said. “It is the marketing and fundraising department of our ministry.”
This platform has also been a great way to reach other centers with a streamlined, more unique form of fundraising, starting with the baby bottle fundraiser.
One of the first efforts of the organization is to create a QR code for the baby bottles. The code was a way for individuals to donate online if they did not wish to insert coins. The label for the QR code was universal, leading to a site where donors could click on their participating center from a host of pregnancy centers across the United States.
“We then decided to customize the bottles with each center’s own QR code,” she said.
Custom-made bottles will have the name of the center and other important information.
Thousands of bottles were to be delivered to Creative Charisma headquarters during the week of Thanksgiving. Pre-orders are available. A case of 200 bottles costs $350. For customized bottles, there will be a minimum purchase of 3,000 bottles required.
Though they hope to get creative with other fundraising ideas, marketing efforts for baby bottle campaigns are the focus for the ministry right now.
“The first thing I think that we will begin to work on will be supporting point of sale, display products for baby bottles in churches,” Leone-Reyes told Pregnancy Help News. “For example, like a corrugated point-of-sale display for containers for people to return their bottles in and carry cases for liaisons to take bottles back to their churches, and then back to the centers.”
Leone-Reyes is the co-chair for the New Jersey Association of Pregnancy Centers. She said she had a conversation with others on her center’s board about her desire to retire and assist centers with their fundraising by making the efforts easier and more creative.
She said her center has also partnered with a change machine company so that staff and volunteers no longer needed to leave the office to go to the bank. The coins were simply placed in the machine and counted there in the office. Once the machine fills up with $5,000 worth of coins, the company is called, and an ACH transfer occurs. The machines cost $400 a month to rent and are in the center for six months of the year.
She said this is an effort she encourages more centers to try, even though her center is the only one she knows renting the machines.
Leone-Reyes said the goal is to ignite the baby bottle campaign for pregnancy centers and make it appear to be “on steroids,” to make it easier for pregnancy center workers and donors. There is a goal to provide every pregnancy center in the nation with a sample bottle, she said.
“I really hope this takes off like wildfire,” she said, stating these fundraisers are not “just about the money.”
Leone-Reyes said having a baby bottle for coins in your home is a reminder to pray for the pregnancy help movement.
Bottles on display in a public place remind the public the pregnancy centers are there to provide help for women and families.
“Bottles help us shout to the world that (God) uses the simplest things to confound the wise,” she added, referencing I Corinthians 1:27.
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A baby bottle in the home of a stranger is a ministry to someone you may never meet, Leone-Reyes said.
