Live from New Orleans: New Nonprofit Funds and Advises Small Businesses

Before Katrina hit, New Orleans hosted 115,000 small businesses. According to some estimates, as many as half may never open again.

DesireNOLA, a tax-exempt nonprofit organization launched in early September, is providing cash grants, as well as pro bono consulting services from newly graduated MBAs to those that have. To date, it has awarded, or is preparing to give away, more than $80,000.

“New Orleans is built on small businesses,” said Christopher Kane, president and founder of Desire NOLA and an attorney with New Orleans law firm Adams and Reese LLP. “You drive around and you won’t see a lot of chain restaurants. Those restaurants won’t survive here. You see a lot of mom-and-pops, and those people are important to the culture.”

Christopher Kane, founder and president of DesireNOLA, a fundraising organization that provides grants to small New Orleans businesses.

Since it first launched on Sept. 8, DesireNOLA has raised a total of $140,000, around $80,000 of which is liquid and available for distribution. Much of the rest is tied up in merchandise: DesireNOLA’s primarily raises money by selling “I [fleur de lis] NOLA t-shirts, bumper stickers, and an exclusive lapel pin designed by local jeweler Mignon Faget (which, separately, is donating money from sales of some of its other goods to a variety of New Orleans organizations.)

That $140,000 figure doesn’t take into account stores that sell its t-shirts. Around a dozen New Orleans retailers stock the $15 shirts, and when they are sold, $5 goes to the retailer, $5 goes toward the cost of production, and $5 goes to Desire NOLA. “I don’t count the $5 from those shirts that goes to the retailer as money we’ve raised,” Kane said.

For what are essentially impulse buys, DesireNOLA’s products have done quite well on the Web (http://www.desirenola.org ). Kane estimates that the organization has raised around $45,000 online, with two-thirds of that coming from t-shirt sales and one-third coming from the pins.

DesireNOLA also sells its merchandise at a number of live events, such as tailgating parties at nearby universities or local festivals, including merchant block parties it has hosted. All told, DesireNOLA has sold somewhere between 2,500 and 3,000 pins, and between 10,000 and 12,000 t-shirts. While it does sell the bumper stickers in groups of 20, those are primarily given out as promotional items to tout its Web site.

Mignon Faget’s red fleur de lis pin was designed exclusively for DesireNOLA’s fundraising efforts.

DesireNOLA also raises money through out-of-state events, for which it will provide packages of its t-shirts and pins, as well as resources within the organization to help coordinate it. To date, Los Angeles has held one, New York City will host one later this month, and Terre Haute, IN, Memphis and nearly a dozen others are planning similar shindigs.

“We give information, ideas and themes for the party,” Kane said. “Go to this Web site: It is selling New Orleans stuff. This jazz musician hasn’t had the chance to play half the gigs he usually plays. Buy his CDs and give them out at the party.”

The organization’s success is especially gratifying given the initially low expectations the five founding members had. “We thought what we were staring was going to be a flash-in-the-pan, raise-a-couple-thousand dollars and find somebody to give it to thing,” said Kane.

Desire NoLa started with an e-mail of 5,000 names, primarily taken from the personal and professional contacts of the five founding members. The founding members sent out an e-mail blast announcing their intent to raise money through t-shirt sales, and asked recipients to opt in to receiving further messages. Of the 5,000, around 2,000 elected to do so, and the organization has since added another 4,000 names.

Kane has sent four e-mail updates to his list. He does not maintain a regular blast schedule for it, preferring instead to send out the PDF newsletter (the format helps it go through e-mail filters more easily) only when he has enough relevant information to fill it.

While the organization continues to sell its t-shirts and pins, it has begun to focus on a second-phase project: Linking newly minted MBAs with local businesses. Ideal candidates are companies committed to remaining in New Orleans. In its application form, DesireNOLA asks how long either a company or its founders have lived in New Orleans, how many people they have employed, and how involved, either as a company or as individuals, grant requestors have been in their community.

The final criteria, one which DesireNOLA applies a great deal of weight to, is what the money will be used for. Special consideration is given to any company that plans to hire additional employees. “We want to focus on job creation,” said Kane.

That focus is also part of its program which matches the MBAs with local companies. Kane hopes that by getting MBAs involved with these firms, it will cut down on the brain drain – people coming to Louisiana business schools, earning their degrees and leaving – the state has experienced.

“Essentially we are trying to marry a young, innovative energetic mind, with a struggling small business to help them with free consulting,” Kane said. To date, the DesireNoLa has made about 10 matches.

“If you apply for a grant, you are considered for this program,” Kane said. “Because of the number of businesses available and the number of MBA students available, unfortunately the MBA students can pick and choose who they want to help.” The organization, which has had around 60 applicants, is doing additional recruitment to correct that imbalance.

What frustrates Kane is the inability to do long-term planning: The next hurricane season starts in June, and depending on the amount of damage it wrecks – if any – all New Orleans entities will have to change their plans.

“A local businessman who we are trying to get to donate money asked us ‘What is your five-year plan?’” Kane said. “You have to throw out traditional business models. Every month we re-create our six-month plan. I can’t tell you where the city is going to be from an economic standpoint or from a housing standpoint.”

Kane continued, “The issues that underlie what Katrina has done are enormous. We’ve got a mayoral election coming up that could potentially change the face of the situation. If another hurricane comes within 100 miles of this place, you’re going to see a psychological effect on the marketplace here. If we get hit by another major hurricane, the story will be completely different. We need a break. We need time to get our levees and infrastructure in place before we have any more brushes with natural disasters.”

For now, Kane is looking no further than six months out. On March 31, DesireNOLA is hosting a fundraiser for young professionals who are planning on staying in New Orleans, in an attempt to get them involved in its efforts. In April and May, it will be selling merchandise and being visible in the French Quarter festival, and at Jazzfest.

“On August 29 – the one-year anniversary of Katrina, we’re going to plan something relatively large, just like most of the city. We don’t know what that’s going to be yet. Maybe a local golf tournament. But we will be doing something, no doubt about it, because we believe it will be an important benchmark. Just like Mardi Gras, which just happened to fall on the six-month anniversary. And that was an important benchmark, because we were able to put on a pretty good show.”

This article is part of a series Direct Newsline is featuring on direct marketing and the economic recovery of New Orleans.

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