APIOH Blog

Dear Patrons,

We love to celebrate good times and commemorate our loved ones. We celebrate birthdays, weddings and anniversaries. We mourn those whom we have lost and remember their passing. We highlight milestones such as graduations, promotions and retirements. And we have lots of holidays. This month we celebrate Father’s Day. Last month it was Mother’s Day. Grandparent’s Day is in September. We also have our nationally observed holidays, our religious based holidays and our holidays to give thanks. Beginning of life, ending with death and everything in between, find a cause and mankind will create a celebration.

At APIOH - A Place In Our Hearts, we focus on this desire to celebrate, thank, commemorate, pay tribute to, and remember. We offer systems to highlight those special events in our lives (APIOH Life Events), be grateful to our contributors (APIOH Donors), commemorate our departed (APIOH Memorials), honor our champions (APIOH for our Heroes), and more. We work with the organizations that promote those celebrations - the communal, religious and social organizations dedicated to being there alongside us in our celebration - whether for good or for bad.

We look forward to bringing our APIOH products to your organization so all your celebrations can have meaning today and forever.

- Steve Katz, CEO

“A man, let’s call him Al, was walking near a bridge when he heard a loud splash.  Al rushed over to the river below and found a man had slipped and fell in.  Al jumped in and rescued this stranger.

The stranger, let’s call him Bill, was taken to the hospital where he recuperated for the week.  During that week, Al came twice a day to check up on Bill’s progress.  Following Bill’s release from the hospital, the two of them continued their communication and developed a strong enduring friendship…”

This story is not unlike many each of us has experienced.  An event or happenstance brings us together with someone else that we had never met before, and that meeting develops into a strong lasting relationship.  But what changed between the day before the meeting and the day after the meeting to initiate such a strong friendship?

The day before the meeting, the two were unconnected individuals among billions of other unaffiliated individuals.  They were just a name or a face in the crowd.  After the incident, a bond developed.  They were no longer just a random stranger in the greater public.  The incident brought them together.  They were connected.  The relationship became personal.

Recognition systems work the same way.  With no recognition systems, the connection doesn’t even begin.  With the current recognition systems, the presentation of a name starts the connection.  With APIOH – A Place In Our Hearts, the connection develops into a strong heartfelt bond that stays with someone forever.

Let APIOH help create those eternal bonds between those being recognized, those connecting through the recognition, and the organizations that facilitate the ongoing relationship.  Let APIOH ‘help make it personal’.

Should I do it now or wait? Here is a question we all inevitably struggle with. Whether it is completing a project, buying new tires, getting that life insurance policy, going to the doctor, etc, we wait for the event that will push us to action.  Until then, we just sit.

EXAMPLE - Your roof needs repair. There is a minor leak that is causing minimal damage. You know over time you will need to replace the roof, but do you have to do it now? So you wait. And the damage gets worse and the leak now becomes two leaks. And you wait some more. You may even patch the problem, but you don’t get a new roof. What for? You can manage the leaks as they happen and save some money. And wait.

Now, five years later, you decide to move to a new home. Miraculously, the decision to fix the roof is much easier to resolve. You need to get a new roof before you sell. The sale might fall through otherwise.

Here’s the irony. Had you changed the roof five years ago when the problems first popped up, the new roof would still be in great condition for the new owners and you would have enjoyed five years of living leak free. How sad it is that you had to live under substandard conditions and the new owners will live comfortably. Also, the new roof may now be significantly more expensive because the foundation is now rotted. Had you replaced the roof earlier, you could have saved a nice chunk of change.

I can paint the same picture with APIOH’s recognition systems. An organization’s decision to adopt an APIOH system or live with the current plaque system or no recognition solution at all may go the same way as our roof example.

Imagine the decision making process in getting an APIOH Memorials system. The organization determines that the APIOH system will be an amazing compliment to what they now have.  They appreciate the added information and introduction of pictures they would now make available to their members or patrons. They could use the revenue generating potential of this new product. But should they get it now or wait until funds become available or until they find a donor? So they wait. Memories of loved ones start to fade, details become unavailable, the pictures are boxed up and put in the attic or discarded altogether, but they wait.

Now, five years later, someone says they would like to donate a memorial board in memory of their loved one who has recently passed away. The decision to get an APIOH Memorials system is much easier to resolve.

The irony here is that the organization could have enjoyed the benefits of the APIOH system but chose to wait. The organization will put in the system, but they lost five years of opportunity. Five years of memories have gradually disappeared. Five years of additional revenue potential from the APIOH Memorials system has been abandoned.

Of course financial decisions are very difficult. This has never been truer than it is in today’s economy. Still, each organization should consider whether they will be getting an APIOH system in the next five years, and if so, work with us at APIOH to figure out how they can get five extra years of benefit from the system they will be adopting anyway. Call us at APIOH at (877) 289-4690 or email us at info@apioh.net. Don’t sit by and let memories fade.  Make APIOH a reality today.

Let us help you move ahead