We gave away two excellent, reliable vehicles in the last two weeks, but neither increased our total client count. You see, both are replacement vehicles. While we tend to do VERY well at finding long-term, reliable cars and SUV’s for our clients, no one bats a thousand. When something goes wrong within the first twelve months of a client’s ownership, we make sure that OnRamp takes the loss, not the client.
Case in point, we donated a 2003 RAV4 to Naomi exactly a year ago. We don’t typically buy or donate vehicles that old, but decided to roll the dice on this one since it’s a Toyota. But luck was not with us, and a number of failures cropped up at the end of the first year of her ownership. Similarly, we donated a 2008 Mazda 3 to a client named Sabrina just a few months ago. Sadly, a computer system malfunction compromised the brakes and the safety of the car, and repairs would have been exorbitantly expensive. So as we always do, we took it on the chin, took back the broken vehicles to sell for scrap or mechanic’s specials, and donated better vehicles to each client. Sabrina got a sweet Pontiac Vibe, which is actually a Toyota Corolla under the skin (a funny case of badge swapping!), and Naomi got a very nice, newer model Honda Civic that should last her for years. In total, this decision cost OnRamp around $12,000. Ouch. But completely worth it, and here’s why. I am working this month with a team of our staff and volunteers to reevaluate OnRamp’s “brand” - how best can we tell people what we do? One of the mantras we’ve landed on: the car is NOT the thing; the person is the thing. The person we serve is what counts, not the sheetmetal. People ask me all the time how many cars we’ve given away. I truly do not know! You can mine the excel data if you want to figure that out. But who cares. What matters is how many clients we’ve served: 109 clients and their families so far have received donated vehicles from us (plus half again more that have received free vehicle repairs of already-reliable cars). Some have gotten one vehicle, some two, one even got three due to a long string of bad luck! The vehicles are just tools. The people are eternal. And so, OnRamp will do whatever it takes, even fully replacing a previously donated vehicle, to lift up the people we serve. The person is the thing; not the car!
Huge thanks to Stephanie Mason, Rami Cerone, Jeremy Smith, and Joe DeWolf who brought these donations together while I was on vacation. The team actually did Sabrina’s while I was out of state, which has never happened before! Our new team motto is, “Blake who?!” I love it! I must decrease so the team can increase.