Volunteer!
This page describes how and why to volunteer and our charitable purpose.


There are a few different ways for you to volunteer. Please email us if you're interested. You would be part of spreading the idea of a new Christmas tradition!

1. Decorate and water trees that are on display at public locations like a grocery store.

2. Put up fliers on bulletin boards in cafe's and such, (print our fliers from the download on our media page).

3. Call agencies/bureaus/institutions/groups that buy trees (and plant them in public areas) and ask them to buy trees from TOLCTC. Call PSU and bug them to spend $100 of their 25 million sustainability grant to buy and plant ten of our clients Christmas trees. Call neat tree people and blow their bureaucratic minds with our tree deal.

4. Encourage specific media people to publish our news. Email us for their email addresses.

5. Drive a truck and make deliveries, (if you like rock and roll music and have navigation (GPS) or truck driving skill).

6. Go to a planting event! Usually in January and February our clients Christmas trees are being planted. You could go and record the driving directions and maybe get GPS on each tree. You could take photo/video that ends up on our website, you could be like a scientist and take notes on how the trees are planted. You could help us provide our clients with 'planter tracker' info on where all (some of) their trees get planted! OMG- you could even plant your own Christmas tree!

Woohoo right? Email us then!


Document
Donation reference		Document
Earl !		Document
Restoration reference

Ideas about 'nonprofit'
(We're not experts on law so the following is meant as guidelines about 'nonprofit'.)

We're asked every year if we're a nonprofit. The main reason we are asked if we are a nonprofit is because of our '.org' internet address. We chose the '.org' because .com was taken, and because we feel we do good work. (We lower the price of trees to planters thus increasing the demand for trees getting planted.) We're not registered as a nonprofit with the State. It costs like $2,000 and more than a few hours to file for nonprofit status. All legally designated nonprofits are businesses that are corporations. 'Profit' is best understood as income above expenses. A nonprofits expenses include employees (and board members) wages, any money at the end of the year above those set limits goes into growing the business, not to shareholders. Profit above expenses can go to increasing expenses (employee wages) the next year. Employees of nonprofits pay income tax on their wages. OHSU hospital is a nonprofit and is the largest employer in the Portland metro area.

The second main reason we are asked if we are a nonprofit is because 'we' plant trees. The main criteria for a business to be legally designated nonprofit is if they have a 'charitable purpose'. We say our charitable purpose is that we lower the price of trees to planters, preferably local public agencies. We buy trees for $x. We 'rent' them for the price we need to stay in business. We sell them after New Years for $x-divided-by-more-than-two. (We sell our trees after New Years for $10 which is less than half of what we buy them for before Christmas). Doesn't that sound like something a nonprofit would do?

The public who pay for our Christmas trees, our clients, are partly subsidizing the price of trees we sell after New Years. Get it? We'd give the trees to planters but we'd have to charge our Christmas tree clients $10 more.

The main reason businesses choose to register as a nonprofit corporation is to get things donated and people to volunteer. If TOLCTC was a nonprofit we could get growers to donate trees to us and growers could write the value off their taxes. Then we could give trees away after Christmas and really make big news. If people volunteer we could charge people less for their Christmas trees. It's just a matter if we qualify to be a nonprofit, if we apply to be a nonprofit and then if we're designated by the state as a nonprofit. Sounds like a good idea. we might apply for nonprofit status someday.

A nonprofit (fuf.net) in San Francisco 'partners' with The City Of San Francisco. That partnership is financially beneficial to fuf.net. TOLCTC (us) have been around 20 years which begs the question, "where's our partnership with The City Of Portland?" Does the legal designation matter more than the deeds? Hmm huh?

We're just a small Christmas tree business that seems like big because of our unique service and because most Christmas tree lots don't have web sites or delivery or press. So volunteer, you could even plant a tree. We're a good cause.






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