Whidbey businessman Fred Geisler has a deal for local nonprofit groups: checks that show up in the mail and require no fundraising or follow-up.
It’s one way he acts on his passion for sustainability while contributing to the community he loves.
Island Assets, Geisler’s long-distance phone company, donates 5 percent of each customer’s total phone bill to local nonprofits of the subscriber’s choosing. Beneficiaries include the Child Abuse Prevention Foundation, South Whidbey Youth Center, Habitat for Humanity of Island County, Whidbey Environmental Action Network, Operation SackLunch and others.
The businessman said he has long had an interest in passive income streams, such as endowments, that are built over time to provide a secure source of future revenue. Island Assets, through its supporters, provides income that requires no work by the charities.
"And don’t you think that makes sense for nonprofits, because they should keep their focus on the kind of work that they are trying to do instead of on spending 75 percent of their energy on raising money," said Geisler.
Robin Hertlein, executive director of the Child Abuse Prevention Foundation, agreed: "For us as a beneficiary, it’s a wonderful opportunity to get operating funds that aren’t specifically designated for a project.
"Money that can be used where needed is hard to come by."
While it sounds like an unorthodox approach, Island Assets came out of Geisler’s years working under a traditional business model in sales and manufacturing. An education focused on economics, marketing and business management at San Diego State University gave him the tools for a successful career that he later evaluated in light of some serious family illnesses.
"I had a wife with ovarian cancer and a mom with lung cancer and these things shape your life," he said.
Though his primary business activity is a company that manufactures and sells women’s back supports and support bras, today Geisler devotes much of his time to the community, serving on the board of an environmental organization, working with his wife, Laurie, on a successful campaign to ban spraying county roads and starting Island Assets, from which he derives no income.
It was his dissatisfaction with his long-distance business telephone service that prompted the start up.
It was modeled on the long-distance carrier Working Assets that donates a portion of its revenue to national nonprofits through a customer voting system.
Geisler had a string of unsatisfactory long-distance carriers with poor customer service, billing errors and other problems. Then, after two years of satisfaction with carrier PowerNet Global, Geisler called them and asked if there was a way to become a sales agent for the company because he liked their service and wanted to tell others.
"They said sure and it was at that moment that the light went on," he said. "What I developed two years ago was the concept of Island Assets, which would be a business that I could run that was not actually producing any landfill waste other than very little paper, that provides long-distance phone service to folks, businesses and nonprofits while giving a portion of its revenue stream back to local nonprofits that the people that join can choose."
Entrepreneurs Brenda and Dan Cole of Clinton, who own the Boomerang Co., were looking for a new long-distance carrier for a business they run for a client, Customer Support Services, Inc., a phone support center for products such as above-ground swimming pools and electric scooters.
They heard about Island Assets and approached Geisler to ask if their favorite charity, based on Whidbey, but serving meals to Seattle’s homeless population, could be added to the program.
"We were having some pretty high phone bills; 10,000 to 15,000 calls per month," said Brenda Cole. "In my search to find an inexpensive but reliable company — this has to be central — I talked with him and he added to his list Operation SackLunch. It’s been a great thing for me, his lines are clean, and we are giving something back to organizations that deserve it."
She is delighted, too, with Geisler’s customer service, which helped sort out a complex problem in moving a toll-free number, printed in a user manual, from a client on the East Coast to Cole’s business location.
The company has about 150 customers and returns about $175 monthly to the community, which is one-third of its commissions from PowerNet Global.
Geisler is aiming for 2,000 customers.
"When we hit that level, we’re probably going to be giving about $2,500 or $3,000 every month away to nonprofits," Geisler said. "It’s like a savings account … you start depositing 25 cents or a dollar or two dollars when you are really young and then you keep building it over time very gradually and at some point it provides annuities."
Sue Ellen White of Whidbey Island is a student in the University of Washington School of Communications News Laboratory.
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