An Open Letter to Corporate America!

This is a letter I plan to send to the CEO of every Fortune 1000 company. I'll send it as an email, customized with the CEO's name.

Dear CEO,

My name is Michael H. Fox and I am founder of a non-profit organization called Project Five-Star. Project Five-Star ultimately will help house, feed and train up to 1000 homeless men and women in the Raleigh NC area, providing them with the skills they need to find a permanent job in the area. Once they have that job, Project Five-Star will help them find permanent housing that will ensure that they are never homeless again.

But Project Five-Star needs your help. I have attached a book that I wrote, titled ‘Project Five-Star: the Five Points of Hope,’ in which I lay out the plan to build the project gradually, from helping 10 men and women at a time to helping hundreds and beyond.

One of the chapters under funding is called ‘$1000 from 1000 companies.’ This chapter describes how initial funding for the company will be obtained and this is where you come in. All I am asking, just to help this company get off the ground and on decent financial footing itself, is a donation in the name of your company of $1000. In exchange for that donation, the name and/or logo of your company gets prominently displayed on the Project Five-Star web site (which your funding will help to create).  Your company will get a very grateful mention in the Project Five-Star blog (http://www.projectfivestar.blogspot.com). All this advertising just for providing a very worthy cause with seed money to get it going.

Let’s get the training started right away! Go to http://pledgie.com/campaigns/15711 to make a credit card donation! You can also encourage your employees to make pledges on the same web site.

Project Five-Star can help thousands get out of the shelters and into careers that will help everyone, including your company. Give to our cause so that someday the people you help can give back to you!

Thank you for your time. If you have any questions, you may send an email to me at projectfivestarraleigh@gmail.com, or you may call me and leave a message at (919) 438-1392. I look forward to hearing from you!

Sincerely,

Michael H. Fox

Founder, Project Five-Star

Member Responsibilities

What follows is a draft of the responsibilities that members of Project Five-Star will be required to fulfill.

Members have the responsibility to answer any question asked by staff truthfully.

Members have the responsibility to follow any rule as set by the Board of Directors.

Members have the responsibility to respect the rights of staff and other members.

Members have the responsibility to maintain their rooms in a clean and sanitary manner.

Members have the responsibility to report any problems within their room.

Members have the responsibility  to report any problems with food.

Members have the responsibility to use profanity in a limited manner.

Members have the responsibility to follow their training and work schedule as set by their Skill Director.

Members are expected to learn job etiquette skills and apply them to their daily lives.

Members have the responsibility to not allow non-members to use any facility or service within the Project without prior approval from management.

Members have the responsibility to perform their chosen skill to the best of their ability.

Members have the responsibility to look for a job with the help of the Employment Director.

Members have the responsibility to look for permanent housing with the help of the Housing Director.

Member Bill of Rights

In my book, part of the 'What needs to change' chapter suggests a 'Homeless Bill of Rights.' What follows is that suggestion turned into a reality from the Project Five-Star point of view:

Members have the right to speak and write freely as long as they are not abusive, the language is not unduly littered with profanity, and they are not invading another member’s privacy.

Members have the right to a clean room, as long as they do their share in keeping it clean and are not deliberately destructive.

Members have a right to good food, served promptly at the designated times, at a temperature that is appropriate to the food, as long as the food is consumed on the premises and not shared with non-members without prior approval.

Members have a right to privacy, from staff, and from other members, as long as they respect the same rights of staff and other members.

Members have a right to learn a skill as long as they maintain at least the minimum standards as set by their Skill Director.

Members have a right to get certified in the skill they have chosen as long as their Skill Director gives approval that their skills are adequate to pass the certification exam.

Members have a right to get help finding a job as long as they follow through with job leads as presented by the Employment  Director, dress and act appropriately for the interview and accept a job offer when proffered by an employer.

Members have a right to help when finding permanent housing as long as they follow through with the Housing Director when appropriate housing is offered.

Members have a right to appeal any decision made by the Board of Directors with regard to continued participation in Project Five-Star or continued participation in their chosen skill at the chosen level.
 

Status: ???

I don't want anyone who is following this blog to think that just because I haven't posted in over a month that the project has lost steam. Excitement is starting to brew, but it's a slow buildup that I believe will boil over in a relatively short time.

First, some good news: The book: 'Project Five-Star: The Five points of Hope,' has been published and is available in several outlets. A hard copy of the book may be bought from Createspace.com, for $6.10. I make very little money from that, and any profit would go toward the project anyway. You may also buy it from Amazon.com, for %6.10, and I won't make any money at all from it.

If you have Kindle, you can get the book for 99 cents, and I don't know how much money I'll get from that. You may also find it for the Nook, also for 99 cents.

The next bit of news may or may not pan out. I let the guy that sleeps in the bunk above me read the book, and he and his fiance were impressed to the point where he thought he'd present it to his church to see if we can get donations rolling. I told him I'd make him a paid fundraiser if he could do that, but unfortunately, nothing more has come of that.

When you're homeless, it's easy for things like that to get lost in the shuffle, which is one reason why I haven't posted much, I've been trying to find myself a job.

And in between all that, I did send pdf copies of the book to several media outlets. I have not heard back from any of them. Promotion is hard work!!!

But I did want to post those two bits of good news and let those that do read this blog know that the project isn't dead. I'm fighting every day to get the word out!

Project Five-Star: A Crude Logo

Since no one has come forward to help me draw a logo, I went ahead and crudely drew a logo of my own, using Paint, of all things. Here it is!
I will welcome artists who can draw this better than I. (Edit: I redid it, so it's a little better, still not perfect, though.)

Project Five-Star: A Glimmer of Hope?

Friday, I sent emails off to the CEO's of Red Hat and Cisco, asking for a donation of software and training material for my computer class. Today I heard from someone at Red Hat, explaining that while they do not give away their Enterprise software, there are sources for software that approximate the Red Hat experience, namely fedora.org and centos.org. She mentioned that while the software may be a bit out of date compared to Red Hat, it should fit our needs all right.
She was not sure if training materials could be provided, but she will check on that. I have not heard from Cisco yet, but there is time.
I have downloaded Fedora and will put it on my laptop to play around with it at a later time.
I have been crunching some numbers lately, on how much just the classes would cost to produce. There are two sets: One where I pay the members, and one where I don't. I figure if we go by a straight salary of $200/week for each member, times a consistent 20 members training for six months, over the period of a year the costs will be $208,000 just for their salaries, plus the other expenses, including my own salary. I'd be happy making $25,000/year. Then there's the cost of the office, which I haven't looked into yet. Then there's the cost of the computers, assuming I can't get them donated.
If I go the way of paying the members, I'll need someone to handle payroll, either outsourced or in-house. Then there are taxes.
I suspect in the long run I'll need to forgo paying the members until we can prove that we can produce certifications. I'm not happy about it, but I'm realistic enough to know that people won't donate to pay homeless people. I want to get the party started, so I'll make sacrifices. I plan to explore other means of getting money into this start-up and I'll throw ideas out there from time to time.
Feedback will be appreciated!

Project Five-Star Initial Needs

Project Five-Star is in its initial stages of conception. Right now it is just a series of ideas I came up with while homeless myself. They are suggestions, really, of how a homeless shelter should be run and what it should do to a) help the homeless get off the streets, and b) help the homeless stay off the streets.

I’ve been working on these ideas for years, really, since my first bout with homelessness in 2005. Yet I’ve found that by myself I can’t accomplish much except give the appearance of complaining about so called free services.

So for Project Five-Star to really get off the ground I will need help. Here’s a list of things I need:

1. Legal counsel on how to set up a non-profit organization in North Carolina. I’ve done some research on the topic and all the research tells me that I really need a lawyer. This lawyer should be prepared to work pro bono, or at least get paid on a delayed basis, as I have no money to spare for a lawyer. This lawyer should help in getting all paperwork created and filed properly, including filing for tax-exempt status and any other status the project will need.

2. Once the Non-profit Corporation is set up, or even before, I’ll need a Board of Directors. All members of the board should be volunteers. I’ll start by volunteering myself. If I’m going to work as hard as I already have, and will should the project go forward, I want a say in how it’s run. I’d like to be the general manager of the complex, but I’ll step aside if the board wants to hire someone else. We’ll need other officers as well, all of whom should be prepared to volunteer their time until we get adequate funding to pay minimal salaries.

3. Office Space. I had thought that we could start with one small office, with me holding computer classes within it, but we may need more than one office. We should be prepared to pay for a year’s lease at the very least.

4. Since the members of the project will technically be working for the project, we’ll need an HR director to make sure we’re compliant with state and Federal regulations. This should probably be a paid position, but I’d still like to hire from the homeless or at least poorer population. This person should be prepared to train project members in the duties of an HR Director.

5. An accountant and/or a CFO who can keep track of  the money. Anyone who has tried to run a corporation knows that we need to know where the money goes, and so does the state and Federal governments.

6. Someone skilled in fund-raising. I am perhaps a bit too blunt to be the only one asking for money. The project needs someone who knows who to call for donations of cash and equipment. This should probably be a paid position, and again, I’d like to hire from within the homeless community.

7. Once we have adequate funding, offices, personnel and equipment, I will start giving classes on computer training. We’ll need computers to do that. I plan to train 10 people at a time for 4 hours a day, two separate classes. That means 10 computers for them, one for me. We either need funding to purchase them or have them donated.

8. Once we have a track record of helping homeless get computer jobs, fund-raising should be easier, and the next phase of the project can begin. We’ll need land. We’ll need an architect, preferably one who will donate time, but if not, funding for it. I don’t know how much land we’ll need, but the more, the better. I have ideas of expansion, but I’ve covered that in another blog.

9. We’ll need building supplies, equipment, and someone willing to train and certify our members in the use of the equipment and supplies. I anticipate having at least one expert on staff to train in each of the categories we want to train.

10.  We’ll need case-workers (or one experienced case-worker who can train members on the job) who will work with members on getting their needs met. This may include finding permanent jobs, and permanent housing. This should include meeting with the member in their charge to record success and failures. There should also be a record of money saved.

11. We’ll need a banking professional who can help us set up a credit union and train members on how to work in the banking industry.

12. We will need a web presence. I plan to set up an initial web site with basic information, but we need to train our members to build and maintain the web site, under supervision. We will need a domain name, and either a web site provider or a server of our own with the appropriate IP address. I would prefer the latter, as this gives our members some experience doing this on their own.

There will be other needs that come up as we start the process and build toward the inevitable outcome, but these are perhaps the most important to get us started. As I have stated before, this is an ambitious project and only by working together can we make it succeed.