The color of caring: Pink flamingos planted around town will grow donations for local charity
By TIMOTHY ALEX AKIMOFF of the Missoulian 4/5/08

Missoula is about to be invaded by pink flamingos.

No, global warming did not send the warm-weather birds scurrying for the Garden City.

Necessity brought them here.

What Big Brothers Big Sisters of Missoula needs more than anything is good volunteers who have the time to be big brothers and big sisters.

Second only to that, they need money to run the organization, which has 101 children waiting to be matched with good brothers and sisters here in Missoula alone.

“Money that is raised is used for general operating costs,” BBBS CEO Danette Rector said.

And those costs start piling up the minute a potential volunteer walks through the door, throughout the screening process and over the lives of the relationships, some of which have lasted 12 years or more.

That’s where the Young Business Professionals of Montana stepped up with a fundraising idea based on that spindly pink bird more familiar on a Florida postcard than in a Missoula yard.

Being young business professionals doesn’t give these lawyers, financial advisers, Realtors and well-connected entrepreneurs much time to become big brothers or big sisters themselves, but it affords them networking and social opportunities that have a way of turning into much-needed cash.

The networking group began last June and is made up of Missoula-area professionals with less than five years’ experience in their given fields.

Founder Nick Taber thought Missoula needed its own young professionals group after reading about it in a business magazine.

“I just got the feeling that everybody knows everybody,” Taber said. “There is a good ol’ boy network in Missoula where a lot of people know everybody and they do a lot of business with the people they know.”

And where there is networking, especially business networking, there is a seemingly unending flow of ideas - which can turn into projects, which can turn into a lot of money.

The pink flamingos (plastic, of course) that will be popping up in front of Missoula businesses in the next two weeks are one such idea.

“We thought of the spring atmosphere in Missoula, everything sort of coming back to life,” Taber said. “The weather starts to get a little nicer, and I guess it’s just the nature of getting businesses involved in something.”

Group members saw the idea in other cities around the country, and thought it would work well in Missoula.

“Basically, a business donates $100 (the recommended donation) and they have the opportunity to place those flamingos in front of another business,” Taber said. “Hopefully, it’s another business they work closely with.”

The idea is that businesses can host a colony of pink flamingos, getting exposure from what is sure to be a strange sight in Missoula, or send the colony off to neighbors, competitors or partners.

A donation to BBBS removes the colony and allows that business to choose where to send them next.

“We’re sending postcards to 250 businesses in town,” Jill Hanson, a member of Young Business Professionals of Montana, said. “Our goal is to raise $5,000 for Big Brothers Big Sisters.”

The money will go toward the group’s general operating costs.

“We’re thrilled to have a group sort of adopt us, so to speak,” Rector said. “We’re always so busy working with kids and finding matches. We do have events, but they take a lot of time.”

Volunteers come through a lot of different sources, one of which is word of mouth, according to Rector.

But another is by events that increase the public’s awareness about BBBS, like a colony of pink flamingos in the front yard.

The flamingos will be available to host or send around Missoula until May 9.

Visit www.ybpm.org, e-mail info@ybpm.org or text PINK to #44133 for more information.

“It’s a great way to be involved personally,” Hanson said, despite circumstances that keep many group members from becoming Big Brothers or Big Sisters themselves. “Everybody in the group wants to be involved in something that does something good in the community.”

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