Planning Events That Give Back
Wouldn’t it be great if you and your couples, clients and customers could make an impact that goes beyond thrilling their guests? Well, Robert Kalt and Howard Goldberg have created PlanKind to help you do just that. Imagine feeding 200 guests at a wedding and also providing 200 meals for a local soup kitchen. Or having a corporate event at an art museum and providing art supplies to a local children’s center. The possibilities are as endless as your imagination and as big as your hearts.
Listen to this new episode for some ideas on how you and your clients can make a bigger impact on every event.
About Plankind
Welcome to a one-of-a-KIND event planning service called PlanKind. Our unique company performs acts of kindness that benefit people in need within the very same communities where an event takes place! What makes these acts so special is they relate to specific characteristics of the functions being planned. For example, planning a wedding for 200 guests, we’ll help feed the same number of children that are hungry or homeless.
Although every event has its own unique purpose and characteristics, most of them have one thing in common. They take place in a city where there’s a growing population of people in need. With thousands of meetings, weddings, and special events taking place around the world each day, surely there’s a way we can make a collective difference and help those who are less fortunate. And, as an added bonus, help spread something that is sorely missing in the world these days…kindness, empathy, and compassion for our fellow human beings!
Company Name: PlanKind
Website: www.plankindevents.com
Main Email Address: [email protected]
Phone: 888.448.1930
Social Media Handle: #plankindevents
Primary Contacts:
Robert Kalt, President
Howard Goldberg, VP Sales
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– Want to know how to plan kinder events? Listen to this episode for some ideas. Hi, it’s Alan Berg. Welcome back to another episode of the “Wedding Business Solutions” podcast. I love when I hear creative ideas and running into people just by chance at a conference. And this is exactly what happened at the Catersource Conference. I ran into Howard Goldberg from Plankind, and he introduced me to Robert Kalt from Plankind. And you guys are wondering what that is. But first of all, welcome to the show today.
– Thank you.
– So, Howard, you came up to me at my booth and a lot of people are there and they’re caterers and they’re venues and there are wedding planners and event planners and stuff like that. And that’s not what you guys do, but what you do is you help people that are planning events do more good. And I know I’m not giving this justice here. So Robert, Howard, explain to us what is Plankind?
– All right. Well, maybe it would be good to go back in time a little bit, just explain why this business came to be.
– Sure.
– My background started in the events at Johnson & Johnson, where I produced and managed a wide range of meetings and special events for the company around the country. And although each of these events had their own unique purpose, they all had one thing in common. They always had items left over at the end of the event that were thrown out that could have been put to good use. Food, floral arrangements, the trade shows had tons of giveaways and promotional items and tote bag. It goes on and on. So after I left J&J years later, I said, “There’s got to be something we could do with all this stuff.” And I created this business that basically what we do is we send a team of people into the event at the end. We call them rescue squads. And they would go into the event and they would rescue, let’s say floral arrangements that were used, the centerpieces and room decor, and we’d redirect them to local hospitals, nursing homes, cancer centers to bring some much needed cheer to the elderly and people that are sick. The catering staff had a lot of food left over. We would redirect that to the local soup kitchens, et cetera. And so we’ve been doing that for a number of years for clients across the country, both individuals planning weddings and private parties, companies planning meetings and banquets, et cetera. And one day we were starting doing events about a year or two before the pandemic hit for Ritz-Carlton Hotels. And they were launching this program called Community Footprints. And basically the essence of it is they wanted to show support to the communities where their hotels were located. And they asked us if we had any creative ideas as to how we can help them leave a footprint behind in the communities where their hotels are located. So the woman that was leading up this event in Boston, which was the first launch of it, actually was a breast cancer survivor. And she wanted to give back to women that had gone through the same issues that she had. And so we ended up donating these really pretty chemo caps that actually this woman in the UK made. She was a breast cancer survivor herself, and she twisted them around a little circle and put greenery at the bottom and they looked like roses. So at the end of the event, our rescue squad came in to the Ritz event and they picked up the flowers from the event, but also these chemo cap roses, and we delivered them to the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.
– So you’re not just recycling stuff that was for that event. In this case, you’re actually adding to it.
– Correct. And so to me, it was like, I think back that was the first seed that was planted for the business we’re launching now. And when the pandemic hit, and was like, all bets were off, everything was changing and no events were being done. And I started thinking over the last few years, man, there’s a lot of people in need now. If there were ever people in need, it’s now. And also, let’s face it, there’s a shortage of kindness and empathy in this world these days. And I just start putting the piece of the puzzle together and I said, “When the vents kick back into gear, I want to try to help spread the joy and kindness to more people.” And that’s how this event idea came together.
– Yeah, I’ve heard little smatterings of this through the years. There’s somebody who’s probably listening, a friend of mine, David Rothstein in Chicago, who’s got a wedding band. And for many years he’s been collecting the flowers at the end of the event with the permission of the couple and bringing them to nursing homes, shelters, things like that. And he’s been doing this for years. But that’s a one-off thing. This is nationwide, right? Is this worldwide or is this nationwide?
– Well, it will be, but one step at a time.
– One step at a time. So this is any event, any size event, big or small, if somebody feels they’re going to be things left over. Okay, so flowers seems to be a logical thing. A lot of people,, they leave the flowers, they have these beautiful centerpieces, they’re going to get tossed out. Food, doesn’t that get a little bit trickier? Like it can’t have left the kitchen or something like that?
– Yeah, yeah. And so let me just say that that’s why we’ve moved our focus towards not the items left at the event, but what can the event do to help people in the community? It doesn’t have to be something left there. We did an event once at Ritz-Carlton Hotels, excuse me, the New York Plaza Hotel. And there was a beautiful ritzy event, hundreds of guests. And as we’re walking down the side street, there was this homeless family sitting on a blanket and they were begging for money to feed themselves. And I just, I’ll never get out of my head the picture of them sitting there hungry and this event taking place. So I just felt like it was really important that this business strategy that we’re employing can help these people, and that’s why I decided, with the lack of kindness that seems to be pervasive now, I wanted to figure out a way to expand our reach. So it doesn’t have to depend on what’s left at event, it’s just plan it forward, I’ll say, So plan it forward so your events can help those in need in the very same community where your event’s taking place.
– The beauty of what we do now is, in advance, we strategize with the planner or the host and hostess or whatever, and we come up with an action plan that will, because of an event, have an additional event happen that will perpetuate kindness. And that can be very specific, creative, unique, match the theme of the event. And because of the event happening, we create this act of kindness and we make a record of it so that we can share the results of what we did with the guests, the host and hostess, the company that’s producing the event. And they can use that as PR to share with their community just what took place, what great things happened because of the event that they did and because of the planning that they did.
– You said, so you’re creating another event? A separate event?
– An act of kindness.
– An act of kindness.
– Using the term loosely.
– Got it.
– And I think the key that makes what we’re doing unique is that it’s not just an act of kindness for the sake of it. What we’re trying to do is we’re trying to connect the event to the people that are in need. And we’re doing that in a unique way by tying in the act to some aspect or characteristic of the event being planned. So whether that be, let’s say a couple is planning a wedding for 200 guests. What we’ll do is we’ll provide a local food pantry or food bank or a soup kitchen with enough food to feed the exact same number of children as their guests at their wedding.
– Got it.
– A client is planning their annual gala at an art museum like the Guggenheim or Museum of Modern Art, New York. We’ll provide art supplies to our therapy programs for children with autism. So what we’re doing is trying to correlate or connect the dots between some aspect of the event to those people to help. And if a client has a particular cause that they’re passionate about, we’ll modify the act to benefit the needs of that particular organization.
– Right, so if a company that’s listening wanted to do this as an ongoing thing for themselves, they can say, “Every time we do an event, this is going to happen.” And that’s a selling point for them if their clients care ’cause some people are going to care about this more than others. But if they care, that could be a selling point. Say, “I’m going to choose this company. Yes, I like their services, but I also like that they’re doing this and that I feel like we’re doing more good for the community.” Correct?
– Yes.
– Correct, so a company or an event space can be known as producing events that are branded Plankind.
– Right, and again, that’s what I’m getting to is a lot of people I’ve seen on their websites where they talk about their giving, they’ll have a page about their giving. It might be occasional, it might be ongoing, something like that, but this is an opportunity for someone who’s not currently doing that who has, again, a cause that’s important to you or you could offer, I think with Subaru cars. I remember them saying, “If you buy a car, here’s four different charities. You can choose the one that the donation goes to,” so that it’s not just the thing that’s important to you, it’s you let them choose what it is. And now the clients actually feel like they have a say in this. So now in terms of the scaling of something like this, how would this work? Let’s say there’s a company listening right now in Oklahoma. And they’re doing a wedding, the wedding’s coming up in six months and they want to do an act of kindness because of that. How do you get involved with them?
– Well, depending on whether or not they’re contacting us directly or through an independent wedding planner, we’ll have a series of questions that we’ll ask them to get a sense of the specs of the event, guests, where it’s being held, and see if there’s any creative connections we can make to the venue or a theme at the, whatever, color scheme, whatever it is.
– And how grand of a scale they want to make it, being sensitive to their budget, their goals.
– Or do they have a particular cause that, like I said before, that they’re passionate about. And then we’ll create a concept or two and we’ll present it to them and explain what the associated costs are for it. And they can pick the concept they like and then we take it from there. So there’s really not much that the person who’s asking us to do it has to do. Once they say, “Go ahead,” and sign on the dotted line, we take care of everything. So we have a database, a huge database that I’ve created of nonprofits and organizations all over the country that is categorized by a specific topic. So let’s say it’s homeless or nursing homes, cancer, whatever it is, so whatever that category is. And so we’ll hone in on that community where their event is taking place and try to target a particular organization that would benefit from whatever the act we’ve come up with.
– Right. During COVID, one of the things that happened, we all had some time, a friend of mine guilted me into putting up a video of me playing the piano. And people were surprised ’cause they didn’t know that I played. And when somebody says they play, they’re like, “Oh, you play ‘Chopsticks’ or whatever,” but no, I can actually play. So it surprised people. And after the second video someone said, “Where’s your tip jar?” And I said, “Well, I don’t want a tip jar, but I saw that you could add a charity link.” So what was important to me was food banks, food insecurity. And I started adding tip jars, air quotes here, for those of you that are listening, not watching, for Feeding America and other food banks and these videos a little bit later I added Ukraine causes. We’ve raised almost $4,000 just from me putting a video on Facebook. That was just crazy, just things like that. And that’s where the little bit can add up with this. So if someone still wanted to donate the flowers or something like that, you could still help them with that in addition.
– Yeah, we can still do that. But like I said, our focus is moving towards this.
– But in terms of a grander thing, if they say, “I want to donate the art supplies, but these flowers are going to be left over. Oh, can you take care of that too?”
– Yes. Because the end result is someone is getting joy from it.
– Exactly, exactly. And again, I know that food is a little bit more difficult, but we do have a lot of caterers listening. So is it possible still to donate food that is left over from an event?
– Yeah, the criteria would have to be that the food, lots of times, let’s say hotels or banquet halls, they’ll have extra food that they have on hand in case the guest count increases near close to the event. That food can be donated as long as it’s properly handled and maybe kept refrigerated prior to the pickup. It’s not food that’s out at a buffet table or served the guests. And then so we will, with the help of the kitchen staff, we’ll pack that up and get it right over to soup kitchen.
– Yeah, what I had heard is as long as it hasn’t left the kitchen yet, it can be packed up and gone and obviously kept rightly. So just in case somebody’s asking about that because we know there’s always lots of extra food, not the stuff that’s on the buffet people didn’t eat. If it hasn’t left the kitchen yet, it can get packed up there. So art supplies, great idea. There are definitely some people listening who are at museums. That’s a perfect tie in. If you’re in a museum, you do an event here, we’re going to donate art supplies. What are some of the other ideas that you’ve done?
– Well, let’s say the New York Public Library. They do huge events there. There is no shortage of inner city schools or disadvantaged communities that could use books. So in fact, we did an event that the librarian, we rescued the flowers and we put them in these glass vases in the front of the vase ’cause it was a rectangle was the cover of a book. So it looked like a book vase. So that’s where it is. We try to be creative in how we help people. Let’s say someone’s doing a theme event. It’s a sports theme. Okay, so forget about the type of venue. Let’s say it’s a themed event and it’s a sports theme. We’ll provide sports equipment to summer camps for children with developmental disorders. We did an event for Ritz-Carlton Hotels at the Yankee Stadium and we ended up coming up with this idea of donating Yankee baseballs and gloves to youth programs in the New York area. That was, no pun intended, but a big hit.
– Yeah, we had one with National Speakers Association one year, I always arrange a jam session. So we have this jam session and we have something called the All-Star Band. And one year we’re in Indianapolis and we were going to rent musical equipment and it turned out it was actually cheaper to buy it than to rent it. Now we didn’t buy the same quality that we might have rented, but we have $2,000 worth of new equipment. I said, “Well, what are we going to do with this?” And we ended up donating it to the Boys and Girls Club of Indianapolis. We went and gave them new guitar, bass, amps, keyboard, drums. We gave them all this brand new equipment. And again, so much better than having rented it. The money is gone. Now something better was-
– So it can live on.
– Sometimes it’s better to strategize with a client in advance while they’re planning so that some of the decisions that they make will work with our plan of action afterwards. For instance, in Texas, the wedding that was done, the carpeting that was used under the tents, why don’t you share just a tidbit of that?
– Yeah. Well, I was thinking about actually, and that signage there. There’s just this stuff can live on. It has a purpose and so we try to find the opportunity to pass it on.
– Habitat for Humanity. Got to get the carpeting after a lavish wedding.
– You’re speaking my language. My wife and I spent the weekend cleaning out our attic. We donated five boxes of books to the local library. We went to Habitat for Humanity with two car fulls of stuff. And then we went to Goodwill with two other car fulls of stuff that wasn’t the stuff that Habitat wanted. So again, you’re just speaking my language here in terms of this. Clothing that we give away, I look at it in the closet and go, “You know what, it’s not getting worn. It’s in good shape, it’s not getting worn.” I gave away 12 suits, I gave away 35 shirts. If you’re not using it, what good is it doing sitting in the closet? And I always look, I see the trade shows, you’ve seen this when they’re breaking down the trade shows. And there’s all this stuff. I buy my tables instead of renting a table and then I give it away either to a local friend or one time I went to Goodwill and I gave ’em a table, I gave ’em the carpeting that I had bought, same thing. After the trade show, I went and did that. That’s a small scale. That’s me doing it myself. But when you think about people do wedding expos, they do trade shows, they do these things where, again, what do you do with this stuff? How much stuff is ending up in a dumpster?
– So a lot of it is a do-it-yourself concept that we hope many people continue to pick up and perpetuate. And we hope perhaps that our service brings us to the forefront and people begin to make this part of their regular mantra. But it’s easier said than done sometimes. And that’s where we step in. That’s where we can really make it happen.
– So this could be through the planners, wedding and event planners, the emcees, things like that. But it could also be through really anybody in an event. The venue itself, the caterer. But anybody could get involved with this and talk to their client and say, “Would you like to do something bigger? Would you like to do something?”
– And then we could, I’m sorry, but we tell our story and we’re going to put that on our website and a link to our website and to the story can be shared with our clients so that they can use that to let their community know what great things just took place because of what they’ve done.
– Are you seeing people doing this, maybe instead of favors or gifts that they’re giving out?
– Yeah, yeah.
– Well, right now, my background in event planning, a lot of times I run into a client, I’ve run into political clients who are running a campaign, they’re being judged on how lavish the event is. And they’re like, “We want to do it nice, but we don’t want it to look like we’re wasting money.” Okay, so there’s an impression of the public that’s at hand here. So if you pair it up with something like what we’re doing, all of a sudden the focus is on the greatness that we’ve created as a result of having the event. And then you feel a lot better about spending extra money doing something lavish because you’ve made it a point to prioritize doing something good, doing something kind.
– So a little reciprocity and a little guilt at the same time.
– Yeah.
– Alan, you mentioned clothing before. And the actual perform could relate to the type of event, like let’s say it’s a fashion show, okay. We’ll help coordinate the donation of clothing to children that are homeless or fleeing war-torn countries like Ukraine. So it’s just about connecting the dots between what’s taking place at that event and planning it forward to help others.
– So how would people get involved with this with you? I’ll put it into the show notes of course, but how would somebody who’s listening right now and says, “You know what, I’m feeling this. I’m feeling this, I want to get involved with this.” What should they do?
– Well they should reach out to us through our website. We have a toll-free number they can call. Of course, email. We’re starting to put together ’cause everything is a work in progress, but we’re putting together a social media platform across various mediums. But the website is probably the best place to start. I’d have a phone number on it, like I said. And just give us a call and we’ll get things rolling with you.
– And the website is?
– Www.plankindevents.com.
– Www.plankindevents.com. We’ll have that again in the show notes. We’ll put the phone number there, we’ll put the email in there as well. One last story. Give us one more story, something you’ve done. Something like, “I have to share this one. This was so cool.”
– Yeah. Well, let me just throw in before I quickly say that. I want to tell you one thing that is kindness doesn’t necessarily have to stop with helping people. Let’s say you’re passionate about animals that are abused or endangered. We can perform acts of kindness to help them as well. And let’s say another thing that’s in need, a major need of kindness, the planet. One of the other things that we’ll also be doing is giving people the opportunity to help address climate change through their events. And how we’re going to do that is we develop relationships with several organizations that help plant trees to try to combat the ozone layer problems. And so if someone’s planning an event and they’ve got 20 banquet tables, we’ll help plant 20 trees to offset the carbon footprint that their event leaves behind. So kindness doesn’t just stop at our fellow man. It goes beyond that. So I just want to make a mention of that. I’ll tell you one real closing, real great story was we did an event in Texas and it was actually simultaneously being planned in Dallas, Houston, and San Antonio. And the person that was running the event grew up as a foster in the foster care system. ANd they wanted to plan it forward, if you will, and help people, children in similar situation. So we started reaching out to various foster care organizations in the state of Texas. And it was interesting, we found out that there was something that they all offered to help children that are dealing with the difficulties of going through foster care and they cart their belongings from one home to another in a trash bag. And so we found these really beautiful tote bags and matching backpacks and apparently the programs that they put in place to help these children, it was called equine therapy. And they get the kids a chance to get close with the horses, they pet them, hug them, and it makes them feel so good and it really helps deal with the stress that they live through. And so we found these tote bags and these backpacks, and they had horses on them. So it’s tied it all together. And needless to say, I think we reached out to eight different foster care organizations throughout Texas and it was a big hit. So these are the ways that we can help people planning weddings and companies planning meetings and events help the people in need right around the corner from where their event’s take place.
– Fantastic, fantastic. So plankindevents.com. We’ll put the show notes with the contact information, email, phone number, all of that in there as well. If your heart is not feeling warmer right now, I don’t know what to say to you. So Howard, thank you for coming to my booth. Robert, thank you for joining us here as well. I want to hear the success story, so circle this back on and-
– I’ll make sure we do that.
– Thanks for coming on with me today. Appreciate it.
– Plan it forward.
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