BRIAN FONTAINE
FAYETTEVILLE FIRE DEPARTMENT
$7,000 ad sales
$21,000 donations
= $28,000 PROFIT
Once just a small 18th-century settlement, Fayetteville, New York has blossomed into a thriving town with a very busy fire department.
Serving 3700 homes, Fayetteville FD responds to over 3500 calls a year with the help of 40 active volunteers, including Brian Fontaine, who’s been serving as an interior firefighter there for almost 18 years.
While Fayetteville FD is fortunate to find support from an affluent tax base and generous donors, they still decided to switch to GBC’s program for one simple reason: “We make more money. Just flat out.”
Fayetteville was no stranger to raffles, feeds, and especially direct mailers. But they took more effort and had hefty upfront costs.
The direct mail campaign was great, but we had to pay the company to do that. So we were already underwater a little bit before our donations came in, and then that depleted our donation money.
Brian estimates that Fayetteville profits over $10k more than they used to thanks to the much smaller investment.
When Brian discovered GBC, his fellow firefighters greenlit the project a few months later. There were skeptics in the firehouse, but they too came along when they saw the results. It was especially loved by the treasurer, who didn’t even need to account for it––because it automatically paid for itself.
In the first year, Brian went out into the streets to personally ask businesses for an ad purchase. But now, in his fourth year of running the program, he can do it all from just his apartment.
Right now, I've probably sold about 25 ads and haven't left this chair in my kitchen…
I have a stack of checks behind me on my counter ready to be deposited.