Page 27 of Her Hidden Smile

“Mr. Reston, please call me Millie. I hope you’re calling me about my proposal for a donation from your company.”

The man chuckled. “All right, Millie, please call me Chuck. I have to say, I’ve never received such a comprehensive proposal from a charity before. Normally charities just explain what and why they need money and request a donation. Instead, yours looks like a business plan.”

“That’s exactly what it is.”

Milly crossed her legs and looked out the window toward her orchard. I was surprised that she wasn’t looking at her computer.

“I have some questions. Seven years seems like a long time to commit to one charity. Normally we diversify who we give our funds to.”

“I realize that. However, I was able to access the amount of money you spent on lobbyists last year and the year before. It was ten times the amount of money you spent on charities.”

“How did you find that out?” Chuck sounded incredulous.

“Not from anyone in your corporation. I have sources in Washington D.C. who help me gather that information. Don’t think that I just called up your lobbyists and asked how much Luxton spent, instead we have a database that tracks all lobby money.”

There was silence on the phone.

“I would be very interested in looking at that database,” Chuck said. He was more than just interested, I could hear the greed in his tone.

“I’m sorry, that is confidential. I would be breaking my NDA.” I watched as Millie crossed her fingers on her left hand. I wondered whether Millie had a hand in gathering that information.

“All right. I do get your point. However, we have vetted and believe in the charities we are currently supporting. I would hate to stop allocating funds to them in order to provide you with the amount of money you’re asking for.”

“Chuck. I’ve attended your last three quarterly earnings calls. You’ve had spectacular results this year. What I am asking for is less than a quarter of a percent of your net increase for the first two quarters of this year. If you allocate monies to us, you’ll receive a substantial tax deduction to offset the increase in revenue.”

“I’ll go back to the fact that seven years is a long time to commit. I have no idea what our earnings will be like for the next seven years.”

The man is smooth.

“If you set aside one percent of your net increase for the first two quarters of this year, and put it in a high yield savings account, it will fund the seven-year plan.”

Shit. My girl knew her stuff.

Chuck paused, then changed his tack. “What kind of publicity would we get from the International Burn Alliance?”

“Each time one of our new centers in Africa, Asia, or South America goes live, we will be highlighting this in our newsletter and on our website. Our newsletter reaches over one-hundred-and-fifty thousand readers and goes out monthly. We will work with your marketing team so that they can link these articles to your website and newsletters. We have a half-yearly publication that we send out to our seventy-five-thousand person mailing list; all of the accomplishments made with your donations will be recapped in the publication.”

“Will we get top billing?”

“No. Each donor will get articles based on the projects that their money has accomplished.”

Damn, she has an answer for everything.

“If you want to send a Luxton representative to any of these locations in order to do a photo shoot, that has to be coordinated through IBA. Have I answered all of your questions?”

“Yes. You have. I’ll still need to think about this.”

“Why? You just said I answered all of your concerns.”

“It’s still a lot of money,” Chuck answered.

“One percent of your net earnings for the first two quarters of this year is a lot of money?”

“You know it is,” Chuck said in a condescending voice.

“Chuck, I assume you were planning to do a lot of buybacks with this money. I realize that’s good for your stockholders, but the last time you did that, you were written up in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Time Magazine for being one of the greediest companies currently traded on Wall Street. Imagine if you had a story that could spin that around. A story that talked about how you tripled your charity donations due to your increased earnings. Every time someone talked about your buybacks, you could talk about your company’s generosity.”

There was silence.