First You Have to Ask

First You Have to Ask

Don Morris

First You Have to Ask . . .

by Donald J. Morris

From the Editor: Don Morris serves as President of the NFB's Merchants Division.

He is a longtime leader of the Federation and a businessman with a flare for

selling. In recent months he has been helping with our capital campaign. His

experience is instructive and should encourage us all as we invite others to

help change what it means to be blind.

If the program was "Jeopardy,"

"First you have to ask" would be the answer. The appropriate question

with which to respond is, "What is required to achieve a successful Capital

Campaign request?"

One of the challenges Dr. Jernigan left

us is acquiring the funding to build the National Research and Training Institute

for the Blind, which he designed before his death. To accomplish this goal,

we will need to raise eighteen million dollars. In one bite that goal seems

almost unattainable; however, we don't have to do it all in one bite.

Many corporate givers plan their charitable

gifts over a number of years. By this means they can give very substantial gifts.

We have learned that even those of us whose means are more modest can make significant

gifts by spreading them over a period of five years. We are asking our members

and friends to join us in a five-year pledge to help achieve this objective.

As a Capital Campaign volunteer and as

the president of the NFB Merchants Division, I have had the chance to work with

several blind vendors in arranging for their participation in the Capital Campaign.

We achieved the first goal set for blind vendors fairly early on with participation

by only a limited number of vendors. Therefore the Vendor Goal has now been

doubled, and I believe we will meet and perhaps exceed that target.

To begin with, it is important to know

the essentials of our project: a five-story building (170,000 square feet) attached

to the National Center for the Blind. It includes a research library, technology

training labs, classrooms, a distance-learning center, an adaptive-technology

development center, and office and flexible meeting space. The goal is to raise

the needed funds by summer 2001 and to complete the project in 2003.

Through the facilities of the NRTIB, modern

technology will provide learning opportunities to blind children, adults, and

seniors. We estimate that more than a half-million blind people will be influenced

by this new learning technology within the first ten years of the Institute's

operation. The NRTIB will not provide larger and fancier offices for existing

programs. All of these programs will be an extension into new areas of research

and training.

But first you have to ask. . .

I saw our current building before it became

the National Center for the Blind. My imagination was not adequate to foresee

the day when the NFB could possibly use that much space. Fortunately Dr. Jernigan

had the vision to know that opportunities were abundant if we only had the ability

to seize them. He declared that the day would come when, even though we used

our space at 1800 Johnson Street prudently, we would need still more. I personally

was content to accept the idea that we would need the new space simply because

Dr. Jernigan had said we would, and in fact our existing building is now full

to the brim. However, as I have heard more details about the plans for the NFB's

future growth and expanded services to blind people, I am becoming really excited

about the potential and possibilities that lie ahead of us.

If you are a Capital Campaign volunteer, I invite you to adapt the letter I

wrote to a number of vendors and send it to your colleagues and friends. Ron

Gardner wrote a letter to members of the lawyers division which gave me an idea

for the following letter. Vendor response has been very encouraging. Five-year

gifts from blind vendors range from $1,000 to $100,000. The task of gathering

the gifts we need is not difficult, but first you have to ask.

Blind

Vendor

Xx

Street

City,

State Zip