On a Wing and a Prayer

“Earthquake damage, people understand. We didn’t have to explain that,” Carpenter says. “So we never talked about bricks and mortar. We talked about lives changed and results and the importance of the services we provide.”

As a rule, the UGM newsletter never contains an ask. It focuses instead on success stories, program notes and other news. The May 2003 edition focused entirely on the retrofit project and, even without a solicitation, generated twice as much money as normal for the time frame, Carpenter says.