About Us

OUR BACKGROUND

The NONPROFIT BRANDING BLOG  is written by John Burke  (primarily) and by Janice Gavan, owners of VisABILITY.

Since 1985 our company has supplied nonprofit organizations with logo-imprinted branding products for use in fundraising, membership and marketing campaigns.  (Website: http://visability.com/ )

Readers of this blog must ask two basic questions:  Does VisABILITY understand the needs and unique values of nonprofit public service organizations? Can VisABILITY provide us with better information and guidance than our current vendor?

The answer is YES. You can trust our advice. We are from your world.  We have years of hands-on experience managing public service organizations, holding or supervising jobs like the ones our clients and blog readers now hold.

That experiences is balanced by this: since we formed our company in 1985, VisABILITY has supplied imprinted branding products and marketing advice to 16,000+ nonprofit fundraising and marketing campaigns!

VisABILITY’s Founders (husband and wife team) are or have been: director of a local United Way, external affairs vice president of a university; development vice president of two private colleges; executive director of a regional health association; trustee of two private colleges; senior fundraiser for an international health organization; secretary of a public university board of trustees; director of a regional animal shelter; admissions officer at two private colleges; management and marketing consultant to 23 regional and national nonprofits.

We organized annual benefits with 35,000 participants; obtained coverage from nearly every major print and broadcast media in the nation (plus some international press); wrote and produced two nationally broadcast TV documentaries; managed development programs, supervised direct mail campaigns, wrote grants and conducted major gift solicitations producing nearly $200 million in philanthropic funding.

 

We founded VisABILITY in 1985: The goal was to put our nonprofit background to use in an entrepreneurial context. Our company quickly became – and still is - the primary supplier to the nation’s public radio system. We are entrusted with national brands like Marketplace, This American Life, Morning Edition, A Prairie Home Companion, NPR News and many more of equal luminescence. We operate the Shameless Commerce Division for Car Talk.

Contribute to your local public radio station?  The premiums you receive will probably be produced by us. We might even have packed and shipped them for the station.

In addition to servicing America’s public radio stations and producers, we have embraced a number of nonprofit clients from the public service sector outside of public broadcasting that.  VisABILITY has supplied custom logo-imprinted branding products and related marketing advice to:

MIT (Cambridge, MA) Smithsonian Museum (Washington, DC) Wells College (Aurora, NY) The Food Trust (Philadelphia, PA) Komen Denver Race for the Cure (Denver, CO) UCLA Alumni Association (Los Angeles, CA) Smithsonian Publishing (Washington, DC) San Jose Museum of Art (San Jose, CA) Colorado Department of Social Services (Denver, CO) New York State Historical Association (Cooperstown, NY) Outward Bound (Golden, CO) Canton Municipal Government (Canton, NY) Arkansas State University (Jonesboro, AR) George Foster Peabody Awards (Athens, GA) Radio Free Asia (Washington, DC) American Association of Cancer Research Foundation (Philadelphia, PA) Vassar Alumnae Club (Philadelphia, PA) Tufts University School of Veterinary Medicine (North Grafton, MA) Dana Foundation (New York, NY) Christian Brothers Academy (Syracuse, NY) Empower African Children (Dallas, TX) Defenders of Wildlife (Washington, DC) Seattle Youth Symphony (Seattle, WA) Grassroots TV (Aspen, CO) University of California (Davis , CA) American Motorcyclist Association (Pickering, OH) The Concord Coalition (Arlington, VA) Minnesota Orchestra (Minneapolis, MN) Dance Theater Workshop (New York, NY) Audubon Society (Cheyenne, WY) University of Missouri (Columbia, MO) Denver Regional Council of Governments (Denver, CO) Ordway Center for the Performing Arts (Saint Paul, MN) University of Northern Colorado Alumni Association (Greeley, CO) and more….

As you can see, we have served in management positions in universities and in community agencies, in health associations and in public broadcasting stations. We also served on governing boards for institutions in each of these categories. Then we formed our company so we could enjoy working together. By 2005 (last time we counted) VisABILITY had supplied over 16,000 fundraising and marketing campaigns with products and guidance.

A few years ago a staff member tabulated another index of performance. It also gave us a lot of pride: a comparison of original and then-current client rosters revealed that 93% of the organizations who became clients during our first two years in business continued to be active clients 20 years later.  Old timers in the promotional products industry tell us that a client retention rate of 93% over two decades is a spectacular achievement.

We believe the reason for our client retention is this: no supplier of promotional products in the nation has our level of experience with the nonprofit public service sector. Or our understanding. Or our commitment. That understanding and commitment is reflected in the way we staffed our company, established its policies and practices and installed corporate values.

Now that you have read this summary, we ask you to consider this question: Wouldn’t you rather deal with people who know your business? If so, please visit our website at   http://visability.com/ 

We live in an extraordinary little town in the Colorado foothills. Our spectacular location helps define who we are, how we live, who we hire and how we operate our company. So, when you get a few minutes, check out the Lyons, Colorado link at the top of this blog. You will be pleased you did – especially if you ever wondered what you would actually find at the end of the Yellow Brick Road.