Support UCCE!

How to Support UCCE

A tutorial by D. Raymond, UCAC Member

Who are the groups known collectively as "UCCE?"

Check out http://ucchoral.berkeley.edu

There are LOTS of ways you can SUPPORT UCCE!

Here are SEVEN. Try them ALL if you can!!

1. Your generous, tax-deductible

Checks

in any amount

will be welcomed and warmly acknowledged at

University of California Choral Ensembles

72 Cesar Chavez Center · Berkeley, CA 94720
(510) 642-3880

(Make checks payable to “UC Regents for UCCE”)

2. Your generous, tax-deductible

Credit Card Contributions

will be also be welcomed and warmly acknowledged.

Use a credit card at the secure online site at

(click THIS link: ==>) http://ucchoral.berkeley.edu/donations

3. Join our escrip program, and

Go Shopping!

(Click THIS link: ==>) www.escrip.com

Search for group “University of California”

Write down your e-scrip name and password in a safe place, like in your checkbook.

E-scrip membershipcosts you NOTHING.

Except for Safeway*, you don't have to THINK about it at all.

Merchants who are e-scrip affiliates** will donate a percentage of your purchase

to UCCE whenever you buy something.

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*What? No Safeway Club Card?

E-scrip doesn't work at Safeway unless you have a Safeway Club Card account.

At checkout, you have to key in your phone number, or slide your Safeway card.

You don't need to carry the actual card.

Safeway is the ONLY merchant that requires this extra step.

Get an application at Safeway or at http://www.safeway.com/club_cardInfo.asp and

turn it in on your next trip through the checkout line.

(The SmartCheck part of it is not necessary for e-scrip.)

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** Some merchants are not escrip affiliates.

They think they're getting away for free, but you can tap them anyway.

See 3a. below for the escrip credit card.

3a. Get the e-scrip Platinum VISA card.

Double your e-scrip contibutions;

Get dollars from non-affiliated merchants.

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It's a regular Platinum Visa card with all the features, and NO ANNUAL FEE.

If you pay it off every month, you don't even pay any interest.

It's like an air-miles card except:

instead of you getting air miles, UCCE gets escrip dollars.

You can apply for it by clicking its button on the

(click THIS link: ==>) www.escrip.com web page and look for the visa card. Apply.

When the card comes in the mail in a couple of weeks,

first, activate it at the 800 number and

then, go to your account at www.escrip.com and register it.

This is why you wrote down your escrip user name and password in your checkbook...

Use the e-scrip Platinum Visa Card for everything, including (2. above)

but especially all your groceries and all your gas.

You will get an extra (approximately) 1% at e-scrip member merchants like

Safeway (our biggest source of escrip dollars)

Yes you still need to key in your phone number when you check out at Safeway.

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You also get a brand new 1% at all merchants who are NOT actually escrip members

(Chevron, Shell, Berkeley Bowl Market, Trader Joes, ...)

If you don't have the card yet, you are leaving this on the table.

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The merchant won't even know. It's like magic, only there's an explanation.

The merchant pays the bank a percentage

for credit card transactions anyway.

The bank that runs the escrip card passes on a piece of that fee

to escrip, and escrip credits your account.

3b. Two little quirks about e-scrip:

First: Credit cards expire from time to time. What happens to escrip when they do?

Let's say one of your registered cards reaches its expiration date.

A new card comes in the mail.

It has the same number you had before, but a new expiration date.

E-scrip will not recognize the new card, because

the expiration date is actually part of the card number.

E-scrip will not send you a reminder. You need to remember this yourself.

Go to your e-scrip account and REGISTER it as though it were a NEW CARD.

This is why you wrote down your escrip user name and password in your checkbook...

I found out the hard way about this, and lost six months of contributions.

Second: can I get a tax deduction for escrip dollars?

I am not your tax advisor, but I'd say probably not.

After all, it was the merchant, not you, who made the contribution.

4. Join Schoolcash/Schoolpop and shop on-line.

Schoolcash users: Schoolcash has been absorbed into Schoolpop.

Schoolpop, once upon a time, would not support anything above K-12, but Schoolcash welcomed UCCE.

In absorbing Schoolcash, Schoolpop also took on responsibility for UCCE under a Grandfather Clause,

so there you have it. How does it work?

If you are adept at on-line shopping, you might already understand affiliate marketing.

When you click the amazon.com link on the yahoo.com webpage, for example,

yahoo sneaks off a message to amazon telling them that you did that.

So off you go to amazon, but amazingly, amazon knows you came in from yahoo.

amazon is grateful to yahoo for sending you, and

sends yahoo a nice fat commission on whatever you buy.

This is one of the most powerful cash flow mechanisms in commerce today.

It channels vast currents of dollars into the coffers of catalog sites like yahoo, aol, etc.

Schoolpop (formerly Schoolcash) is an affiliate catalog like that, and

Schoolpop in turn is grateful to YOU for passing through on your way to an online store,

because amazon or whoever is going to pay Schoolpop something.

Schoolpop expresses its gratitude thus: it sends part of its commission

to the nonprofit of your choice, i.e. UCCE.

To make this work for you,

get an account at http://www.schoolpop.com/

and link yourself to

University of California Choral Ensembles.

As with escrip, write down your username and password in your checkbook.

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Then,

every time you want to buy something online,

first go to http://www.schoolpop.com/, and

then find the merchant in the catalog on the schoolcash website.

finally, click the merchant's link on the schoolcash website.

This connects your schoolcash account to that purchase.

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There's an automated way to do this, but apparently it doesn't always work.

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Use the escrip card for an additional bonus.

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Jon Johnsen is the discoverer of, and expert on, schoolcash/schoolpop.

5. United Way

When you sign up for a United Way payroll deduction, you may specify

University of California Choral Ensembles

as the recipient.

Mary Gallahue is the discoverer of, and expert on, United Way. She says:

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(quote)

One of the areas that must be filled in when you complete the form
is the section under Agency. That's United Way's term for the group that
will receive your donation.

In order to get your green stuff to UCCE, here's what you do.
First, complete all the personal info.
Second, find the section that lets you name the Agency of your choice.

Write in the following:
UC Regents/UC Berkeley/Student Musical Activities/UC Choral Ensembles
2440 Bancroft Way Berkeley, CA 94720
Third, sign if required to do so.
That's it. Easy as eating Thanksgiving dinner.
(end quote)

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6. Donate an old car

First, join escrip (sse (3) above).

Second, go to www.escrip.com and look for the

"vehicle donation program."

If you'd like to be the designated expert,

donate a car, work out the details, and let us know how it went...

7. Planned Giving

It's not often acknowledged,

and rarely discussed without embarrassment,

but

we're all gonna die someday.

UC office of Planned Giving stands ready to help you with your estate plans.

They can help you arrange bequests, charitable remainders, etc. that

are far too complicated to be discussed here.

Even better, they will do it with far more dignity than I can muster up.

Just make sure to tell them who UCCE is: that pump may not have been primed yet.

http://givetocal.berkeley.edu/ways/plannedgifts.cfm

(This method is not recommended for youngsters)

So those are the seven ways. If none of these is right for you,

feel free to think up a new one!

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I am sometimes told

"OK, it's great to ask for contributions, but what is so important about UCCE?"

Well. If you need to know more about the many ways in which UCCE benefits society,

and how UCCE will put your donation to good use,

please write me a note, and I will explain at length!

Best regards

Doug Raymond

U.C. Alumni Chorus Board Chairman

douray@comcast.net