Turning Down a Charity Event

Today you received in the mail a letter you have come to expect. This letter is from Jeremy Piven, the maintenance manager at White Castle Hamburger Processing Plant, to whom you provide ipottys, hand-wash stations, and other bathroom materials. You don’t get a ton of business from them, and they may expand in the future and have a big bathroom order to give some company.

Piven is also the chair of NHP, a nonprofit organization that raises money for a children’s cancer hospital in Cleveland. His company is hosting the annual fundraiser for the NHP November 3 in Cleveland.

He has just sent you and your company a letter asking for donations and attendance at the event. Companies donating $5000 will sit at the head table and be provided a gourmet dinner. He added that he’d like you personally to come because he can’t wait to see you do your moves on the dance floor, as Jay-Z and Beyonce will be the music for the event.

You checked with your boss and she said, “Nope. We’re not giving anything this year. We have nooooo money.”

You have to write the bad news to Piven. You’re letting him down; you’re letting down the hospital; you’re letting down the children. You also realize you don’t want to permanently damage your relationship with White Castle and Piven, and you know he has sent an invite and request for donations to your rival company, Plumbers’ Anonymous. He’s given you a lot of lucrative orders in the past, but that could change. You feel guilty that you can’t even provide a case of toilet paper to auction off.