SHP Newsletter #1 - Sleep in Heavenly Peace

I’m excited to get our first weekly newsletter out to you! This will evolve as we determine how best to get information and support out to you. Thanks for all you do to make SHP great!

Amy Andrew-Communications Manager

Operations Message

Dear SHP Team,

My fellow friends and SHP family. I am so excited to finally have an official platform for updates and important messages to be relayed to each of you. I truly hope you take the time to read and follow all the important information that will be shared through this newsletter. It will save your Inbox!

I want to share with you something that I feel is the heart of who we at SHP are, or who I hope we should be. As many of you know, my daughter Kaitlin has started the ID-Pocatello Chapter. This is 100% her thing. Of course we are supporting her and mentoring, but I’ve left it up to her. However, this story is not about her, but about how I hope each one of us thinks of each other as a family. As she has been building up, she has been going through the same struggles as many of you – finding money, sponsorship’s, etc. Well, a few weeks ago I got a call from Levi, who most of you know as the CP of the ID-Rexburg Chapter. He mentioned that he wanted to help Kaitlin out by providing a trailer for her, and bringing her some beds that he has in storage! Levi has been very fortunate to have had plenty of donors and in his words said: “money sitting in MY chapters bank account, is not providing beds for kids in any town.” He wanted to surprise Kaitlin and show up with a trailer full of beds, bedding and then hand her the title to the trailer and give her a ‘hand up’ in her new chapter. I wish you could have seen the look on her face as we drove away, pulling a beautiful trailer, and leaving behind a storage unit with some beds in it. She was emotional and full of gratitude for his willingness and desire to help her.

Even as I write this, I get teary eyed thinking about how Levi has caught the true vision of SHP’s mission statement; “No kid sleeps on the floor in our town” and recognizes that HIS town is each of our towns. I would hope that there are others or you out there in the SHP family that have been blessed with an abundance, that would be or are willing to reach out and help another struggling chapter – there are far more struggling then you realize. SHQ has helped several out there get up and going, and it always returns with stories of success and new sponsors, etc. I would encourage you, that if you have an abundance of funds, to honestly take a look at the chapters around you, or even across the country that could use a hand up to get started, etc. Levi’s willingness to share, truly shows how important this family is. We have many chapters out there that are being blessed with funds beyond what they can spend over the next year – I encourage each of you to reassess what your spending those funds on – and consider reaching out to another chapter that could use your help! He is right – money sitting in a bank account isn’t getting kids of the floor in any town.

Thank you ID-Rexburg for setting an example to myself and my daughter and to the SHP Family. We love each of you and are always humbled by all that you all do every day!

Best,

Matt

Chapter Support Lead

Please help us make SHP better by providing feedback at this link. We would like to know how we can best help you!

http://bit.ly/shpcpfeedback

Let’s Talk Money

Hey everyone. I want to thank you all for your patience as we have transferred from Chase & ICCU to US Bank and Divvy. It has been quite a process and took longer than we hoped for, but we can sure see the light at the end of the tunnel now. We have over 50 chapters set up to receive their P&L and are adding more each day, if you don’t see yours come through Sunday morning, you should see it the following week. There are a few loose ends that may not show on your P&L but we are working on tidying up those as well. Huge shout out to Anna, Levi, Eldon, & Jordan for making this happen. Here are a few things you need to be aware of:

1. If you mail your donations to SHQ, DO NOT put them in DonorPerfect. This causes extra work on our end and delays the donation getting credited to your chapter.

2. If you deposit a check into US Bank, MAKE SURE YOU enter it into DonorPerfect. It is the ONLY WAY your chapter gets credited with that donation.

3. If you do not have a DIVVY card or US Bank card, please let me know again. Even if you have requested it recently, I do not want anyone falling through the cracks and want to make sure you have one coming. You cannot use your Chase card any longer. Divvy is the only way to spend money. We have a non-credit card option in the works for those who will not take a credit card and I will update you when that is available, likely, next week. US Bank is the only way to deposit money. We are working on getting mobile banking set up for those of you without a local deposit option, hopefully, within the next week as well. In the meantime, send your donations to SHQ for deposit on your behalf. You do not need to endorse the back of the check, but make sure your chapter shows on the memo of the check.

4. Donations that come through third party platforms take time to process and receive the money, so be extra patient on these. This would include Facebook Fundraisers, Mighty Cause, Your Cause, GoFundMe, Crowdrise, Eventbright, Shopify, Benevity, etc.

5. Start thinking about your November budget. It will need to be complete by Oct 25, so we can load your Divvy card with the funds you need by Nov 1.

6. Please remember to finish your Divvy transactions in the Divvy app. You need to select your chapter and the category the expense falls under. If it is not a typical expense please add some notes to explain what it was for, not for my sake but for the IRS. Also, Divvy doesn’t push these transactions to Quickbooks until the transaction is complete. If you delay in completing these, your P&L will be inaccurate. Currently, there are 56 transactions needing completed. Also, when submitting a picture of the receipt, please use an itemized list of what was purchased, not just the total. You always can add more than one picture if necessary.

Finally, keep up the good work! It is truly amazing to see all the good that each of you are doing and making a difference in your town one kid at a time!!