Search This Blog   Tuesday, November 22, 2005  Ronald McDonald
House is Not What You Think  Recently I visited the Nashville
Ronald McDonald House, along with Tami Heim and Dawn Stanton, to
tour their facility and receive their thanks for last year's
sponsorship of their telethon. What I found there surprised me.
Most of us think that McDonalds supports Ronald McDonald House
via the coin boxes under their drive-in windows and probably
some corporate help since the houses bear the corporation's
name. Actually, that's not at all the case.  For the naming
rights to the RMH facilities, McDonalds leverages their vendor
relationships to get free or drastically reduced cost materials
and equipment to open each house. That does not even begin to
cover the capital expense of opening a house, but it certainly
helps. McDonalds also passes along customer generosity from
their coin drops, but again that doesn't even cover a fraction
of each house's operating expenses. Each RMH is a free standing,
self-funded charitable e