In Tough Times, Turn To Charity

There's an article in Business Week about how the financial crisis on Wall Street will have an enormous impact on charities who have relied on generous donations from banks and their executives for much of their annual budgets.

Time to get creative, because that money's not gonna be there this year. And the timing for some charities couldn't be worse. The America Red Cross is staring in the face of hurricane season with dwindling funds. Jonathan Aiken, a spokesman from the disaster relief fund says they have no choice but to borrow the money they need. But that creates a ripple effect; Borrow now, pay interest on that money later which makes it even harder to make ends meet.

I think our coaches have a resource. 200 million Americans need a solution to their health and weight issues. Why don't some of these charities enlist as coaches (we have special structure for 501(c)3 charities to make it economical -- coach relations has more info) and ask their supporters to become coaches downline from the charity and band together to raise money through our business opportunity while they get healthy?

One of the very first charities to get involved as a non-profit Beachbody Coach is the Tunahaki Foundation, a small charity focused on helping an orphanage in Africa. To date they have generated over $3,600 as a coach - and that is with fairly passive action. They mentioned it a couple times in newsletters, but otherwise have not leveraged the opportunity to mobilize their base of supporters to get in shape and help others in the name of helping the kids in Tanzania.

What about right here though? Is your PTA having any issue meeting its budget? We already have school PTA's who have signed up as coaches to raise money by selling healthy Beachbody programs rather than candy and baked goods.

I know many people like Perry Tinsley, Joey Petri, Blake and Angie Warrington, Milan Jensen and David Lewine are looking to leverage the upcoming release of the Kathy Smith's "Project: YOU! for Type Two" to raise money for diabetes-related charities.

In fact, I want to start getting people to sign up for the ADA's step-out walk, Sun Oct 26th in LA at http://www.diabetes.org/Teambeachbody. You can form your own team under Team Beachbody, sign up solo, and sign-up people who sponsor you as a walker. Kathy Smith herself will be leading the warm-up that day, and I'll be walking with my four-month old. (Sign in is at 7.30 am for the 9:00 am walk.)

Here's the bottom line to all this: Beachbody is spending millions a week in TV advertising to make effective products like P90X, Ten Minute Trainer, and Turbo Jam famous. People can buy them from Beachbody directly, they can buy them from you as a coach, or they can buy them from your favorite charity so they earn the 25% commission and you as a coach get the bonus. I know I would rather see the girlscouts motivating their parents and friends to get healthy with "ChaLEAN Extreme" instead of pushing boxes of cookies.

Who do you know that could benefit from Beachbody's healthy alternative to fundraising and community improvement? Why not mobilize that community to workout in the WOWY SuperGym to get healthy, and if anyone wins the $1,000 they split it with the charity? Or devote their personal transformation to that charity and compete for the $10,000 prize in the Million Dollar Body Game -- and then donate the prize to the charity! If I ran a charitable organization I would promote the money Beachbody gives away as if it were the charity's, and rally the population of supporters to "get healthy and help us meet our budget!"

With over 12,000 Beachbody coaches, I know some have connections to charities which you care about. Whether it's active participation to get people healthy the way we are doing with the ADA, or simply getting a charity involved as a coach and promoting the availability of these TV-promoted products in the charity's newsletter, every charity, church, and school who is looking to meet its budget and to have a positive impact on the health and wellness of its community should join as a Beachbody coach.