EMPOWERING EMPLOYEES
those things that really aligned with our values.”
When Charity Storage first came
about, Ryan immediately reached out to her managers to gauge interest. “It was important to get our managers excited about the cause. They’re on the front lines and doing most of the work,” she says. “They receive and store the items and make sure they’re organized and staged to sell for the highest amount. To get our managers more involved, we asked them to identify charities that were meaningful to them. We chose to limit to two causes to make the most impact.”
Arizona Self Storage donates to Au-
tism Speaks and the Wounded Warrior Project. “I have a personal connection to autism as do some of our managers,” says Ryan. “It’s the same with Wound- ed Warriors; we’ve had managers, and their family members, who have served. This was our way to honor them.”
Arizona Self Storage has boosted
their success in the program by spread- ing the word in their local community. “We promote the Charity Storage pro- gram in store to all customers,” Ryan says. “We run social media campaigns on Charity Storage as well. When you talk more about the program you get more out of it.”
Ryan adds, “With Charity Storage,
there are many ways to participate. We serve as a drop-off site where commu- nity members and current customers can donate items to be auctioned and all proceeds go to charity. Our indus- try has benefited significantly over the years from the communities that we serve. Charity Storage is a great way to give back to those communities. I think a lot of people want to donate, but they get stumped because they don’t know where to start. Charity Storage has created a beautiful path for us in the industry to help people in need. In the end, it feels good and it’s the right thing to do.”
32 To learn more about how to join the
Charity Storage program, please visit the Charity Storage website at www.
CharityStorage.org.
About Charity Storage Charity Storage was conceived by Lance Watkins, who had first-hand experience with the storage industry and with the reality television show “Storage Wars.” The late Barry Hoeven, founder of Westport Properties, co-founded Char- ity Storage, bringing many years of self- storage and philanthropy experience to the endeavor. Today, Charity Storage is an independent 501(c)3 national self- storage industry nonprofit that is sup- ported by many self-storage owners, operators, management companies, industry associations, organizations, and vendors. Ninety percent of all funds raised are distributed to qualify- ing charitable organizations (60 percent to the charity chosen by the operator/ facility, 20 percent to Kure It Cancer Research, and 10 percent to the Self Storage Association Foundation (SSAF) Scholarship Program).
Charity Storage utilizes existing stor-
age facility operations to raise funds to support charities throughout the United States. Donated and abandoned items are placed into a vacant unit and the contents are auctioned off on site or online via
StorageTreasures.com or other online auction platforms. Opera- tors online with
StorageTreasures.com can opt-in via their account dashboard today and start selling charity units im- mediately.
•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• Katie Tompulis works in the market- ing department at OpenTech Alliance and Charity Storage and has previ- ous volunteer experience, includ- ing managing campaign fundraisers for charitable organizations. She is a writer by day and a reader by night. She received her Bachelor's Degree in Communication from the University of Arizona.
January 2022
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