The Official Modest Needs Blog

ABC News San Francisco Features Modest Needs

October was a HUGE month for Modest Needs in the media, and we're thrilled to report that applications are flowing in like never before. Check out our most recent profile, from ABC News 7 in San Francisco. Now that we've set up an office in California, I hope to be alerting you to even more of these West Coast stories very soon.

As always, thanks for your support. And have a very happy Halloween!

Support Modest Needs... By Just Sending an Email

You know what I love more than almost anything? Finding ways for our supporters to help us without having to dig into their wallets. And today I'm pleased to bring you one such opportunity!

We've recently partnered with a wonderful organization called replyforall.com, a new online product that allows you to support Modest Needs by creating a custom "signature" to use within your own email accounts. It only takes a few minutes. After you set it up within your Yahoo! or Google email account, every single email you send will be helping us spread the word about Modest Needs. It will also help earn us donations. In fact, the replyforall.com partner nonprofit with the most signatures by the end of the year will win $10,000! Just imagine all the applicants we could help with that windfall!

So how do you get started? Visit replyforall's Modest Needs Welcome Center. 

A Few Key Points:

• Each email signature showcases your commitment to low-income families, support of Modest Needs, and an advertiser sponsoring the signature.
• replyforall shares the sponsor revenue with Modest Needs, so that you can personally drive financial support to us without having to donate cash.
• The more of us who use the signature, the more our sponsors pay, and the more we receive!

Starting Over: One Story of Domestic Violence

If you've spent any length of time on Modest Needs, you've probably come across applications from people whose financial troubles stem from domestic violence. Or more specifically, from their efforts to remove themselves from a dangerous home life. 

It's not something I would have considered before working at Modest Needs -- the HUGE financial burden facing someone who's planning to leaving his/her abuser. Some of our applicants have plotted their escape for months and years, quietly squirreling away the money to start over. For others, a few hundred dollars has meant the difference between leaving and staying. You've saved dozens of families. And I hope you'll consider one more.

This applicant needs our help, and just over $1,000, to leave her abuser and start over in a new apartment with her two children. I can't imagine her desperation right now. But what I CAN do, and what YOU can do, is to lend her some compassion via a donation.

Thank you for reading, and thank you for all you've done for victims of domestic violence at Modest Needs.

Funded! Funded! Funded!

Here in the Modest Needs office, we spend a few moments every day checking to see which applications have been funded overnight. And with each success story, we celebrate a little bit inside. 

With that in mind, I really wanted to share some of that joy with you this morning. So here are four applications from deserving families who relied on YOU to see them through the roughest times in their lives. As expected, you came through. With flying colors.

My Father is Dying

Dentures

I Need Help Paying My House Notes

Single Disabled Mom Auto Repair

We're Feeling the Brotherly Love in Philly

Modest Needs made prime-time TV again this week! We earned some great press in this wonderful news piece by ABC TV in Philadelphia. 

Last week, I alerted you to a FANTASTIC "Rumble in the Kitchen" event in Philadelphia that Loews Hotels sponsored to benefit Modest Needs. I just got back yesterday, and I have to tell you... What a wonderful event it was! We received thousands in donations -- not only from the proceeds of ticket sales and the silent auction, but directly from the pockets of the extremely generous event staff, too, like bartenders and valet parking attendants. It really was a night to remember.

Fox TV Memphis Profiles Modest Needs Applicant

I'd like to invite you to watch this clip from Fox 13 TV in Memphis, Tennessee. Last night this news broadcast interviewed the Shoemakers, a family who couldn't come up with the money to lay their beloved son to rest... until you stepped in.

Every few weeks, we tell one of Modest Needs' many special success stories through our Profiles in Courageous Generosity series. But nothing quite compares to actually SEEING a funded Modest Needs applicant explain the immense impact you've had on his/her life. I'm betting it's the best 3 minutes you'll spend all day.

How to Survive Bad Credit

The Wall Street credit crisis we're reading so much about lately isn't the only credit crisis in the U.S. today. Just ask thousands of Modest Needs' applicants, who've watched their personal debt wreak havoc on their credit rating in ways they'd never imagined possible.

Let's say you miss a few payments on your mortgage. Or you fail to pay off the monthly minimum on a couple credit cards because you're busy scrounging for money to cover your heating bill. Those discrepancies follow you, via the dreaded "credit rating." Five and even 10 years later, a bad credit rating can sabotage your ability to get a loan or even rent an apartment.

For so many people, bad credit feels like an inevitable result of living paycheck-to-paycheck. But there are ways to make the most of even a terrible financial situation, as explained in CNN Money's 10 Solutions for a Personal Credit Crisis.

While you're at it, take a look at ABC News' 5 Tips for Saving on Your Energy Bill, too. The less debt you carry, the more likely you'll be to pay it off in a timely manner.

Rumble in the Kitchen

Good things are happening in Philadelphia. And I'm not just talking about the Phillies making it into the World Series!

This Wednesday, October 22, our friends at the Loews Hotel Philadelphia will be hosting "Rumble in the Kitchen," an Iron Chef-like cooking contest coupling culinary students with some of the top chefs in the City of Brotherly Love. All proceeds will be coming to -- you guessed it! -- Modest Needs. 

If you're interested in attending the event, which will also include an open bar and complimentary appetizers, live music, and a silent auction, call 212-231-7230 or visit Rumble in the Kitchen. Tickets cost $40 in advance or $50 at the door. And the silent auction prizes are something pretty special -- especially its headline item: a meet and greet with the one and only Jon Bon Jovi!

What Would You Have Done Differently?

You're told that your son needs emergency surgery to relieve the pressure being caused by a brain tumor. He's covered under Medicaid. When the hospital suggests immediately moving him to a facility better prepared to deal with this brain surgery, do you ask questions?

Of course not.

Not until you get hit with a $1,000 bill for a private ambulance transfer.

I invite you to read this applicant's full story and make a contribution, however modest. Thank you for reading, and have a wonderful day!

Saving Nonprofits, One at a Time

Big news! Recently you generosity has managed to save a whole slew of wonderful nonprofit organizations. I figured I'd let them pass on their own word of thanks:

"Our organization started in 2006 by delivering one Candy Bouquet to a boy fighting Cancer. This year we will personally deliver more than 200 bouquets. We feel blessed to be able to brighten the spirits of some children who are going through tough times in the hospital. As the requests for our free bouquets continues to increase weekly, we really needed to set up an office, but did not have the funds to do so. Your generousity inspires us to continue our mission. We can't begin to thank you enough. Bless you all."

"We are so excited and grateful for this grant!  We will use the money to repair our RV so we can continue our tours of homeless shelters, empowering people everywhere we go. When we are on the tour, the RV serves as our home and the focal point for all of our activities at the shelters. This vehicle is essential to our operation and the success of our project.  All we can say is WOW and thank you, thank you, thank you ..... to ALL!"

"The process of applying for a grant through Modest Needs Foundation was so extremely easy. The Oklahoma Brain Tumor Foundation received funding for our capacity building project...This will help us ensure that we continue to thrive as an organization and continue to help the thousands of Oklahomans who are battling a brain tumor. I cannot say how much I appreciate the ease and timeliness of the process. Thank you so much for helping us and our families!"

"Dear Friends: On behalf of Sparkplug Education Program we would like to thank all of you for your generous gifts of $662.75 and $4,850.78. Your commitment to helping youth at risk of academic failure in our community is sincerely appreciated... Thanks again for your generous support of our efforts to implement programs that assist youth in addressing the serious issues that negatively impact optimal academic performance. Best wishes, Darlene Turner-Executive Director Sparkplug Education Program"

Congratulations on funding these wonderful organizations. And remember, you can find plenty more nonprofit applications on Modest Needs today!