9/19/14

Hi everyone,

The Mail
Most of the Scrip went out in Thursday's mail. (Wednesday's carrier came early in the morning, and orders were not yet complete.) Thursday's carrier came late and did NOT take the outgoing mail. And we had a LOT of outgoing that he/she just plain ignored. Amazing.

SO, John Mueller just took the huge pile of mail directly to the post office this morning (Friday). We'll see if that helps. And we complained to the post office for the fourth time. We'll see if that helps. I'm not hopeful.

Review of ordering guidelines
I realized this week that a review of Scrip ordering procedures might be helpful for us all.

When people request Scrip, be sure to collect money and report their sale on the reporting file. We can't fill unpaid requests for Scrip. We have done this numerous times and ended up not selling the Scrip. And then ministry dollars are tied up in unused cards.

Your order should include:

• Replenishment of your cards up to the number of cards that you have sold in the last 6 months (I have complete record of your sales for the last 10 years, so I can adjust your number up or down if you're not quite sure of the history of a card.)
  
• Items to fill your paid-for and reported requests.  If you have a request for more than you have on hand, go ahead and collect the money, report the sale, send in the money,  and I'll happily get those cards ordered for you.

Remember too that more and more often that Scrip is available as ScripNow! at ShopwithScrip.com. There's no need to wait for a card when you can print it right at your computer, email it to a recipient, or bring it up on your phone and redeem it within seconds at a store. This is turning out to be a wonderful thing for many of our Scrip supporters - no more wait!

Over the last decade I've come to realize that ALA is extremely unique in carrying as much inventory as we do. Most schools require that Scrip users place their order and then wait for those cards to arrive. ALA has invested over $150,000 in Scrip inventory and we are blessed to have you all managing that for us. We ask that you help us by keeping your inventory fresh and by understanding our ordering guidelines. We need to make sure we're not tying up ministry dollars in cards that will go unused.

I hope that review is helpful!

Scotch tape and cards
I don't think I've mentioned this in awhile - scotch tape and gift cards are a bad combination. The cards remain quite sticky after I take the tape off of them. So please avoid scotch tape when sending the cards.

ALA Scrip News and Facebook
I've made a huge effort lately to keep Scrip in front of people via the Scrip News blog and Facebook. Here's the blog, and check out Facebook if you have an account. Then share this resource with your church and school! And let me know if there's a topic you'd like me to highlight or better explain on the blog.

60%!
Have you shared the news with your users yet? Let them know that ALA is sharing 60% of Scrip rebates resulting from their September Scrip purchases! We are excited to offer this, and we hope to share an even larger percentage with our users in upcoming months!

Have a great weekend!