WOW! This just gets under my skin...

[alltex]

http://signvine.org/docs/WhatIsSignVine.pdf

WhatIsSignVine.pdf

Croudsourcing funding for non profits, so they can get message centers. This IMO is F-ed up! Isn't a non profit organization supposed to use their money to help people? Not to buy expensive signs or fancy buildings...

[Erik Sine]

Isn't that the business ( Signvine) started by or affiliated with Vantage LED the EMC Company or employees?

BTW- Non-Profits are BIG Business and profit machines for those employed


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[paul321]

Just got the same email. Everyones got a different angle ...or scam

[Sign Lady]

Non profits really aren't non profits anymore! The fat cats running them drain all of the money, that's why they are non profit!!

[Sirius LED Signs]

Yes I got the email from them as well. Not sure what to think about it honestly.

[Sign Lady]

Well, I feel left out. Hahaha ....... NOT!

[alltex]

I also refuse to sell a church a message center. I go as far as building sensible signs for them at 10% over my cost. I've had many disappointed and disgruntle church folks in the last 24 years. IMO, the last thing a church needs to spend money on is an expensive sign. That turns it into a business.

[HansonSigns]

Organized religion is a big business. We've sold some churchs in our area EMCs and they love them, usually have fund raisers and a couple of well off members who donate large sums towards the purchase.

[geraldi]

In my experience, when we used to do retail, churches were one of the worst customers to get a final design on and then they are rarely happy with the outcome. Everyone at the church has an idea how to improve it. There's a lot of internal politics in religion and churches..

[Sign Lady]

I have a Church that I have been working with on a sale for a message center for TWO YEARS! Thought I had everything nailed down about 3 months ago and one of the "older members" wanted to wait a while longer. You certainly can't get a group like that on the same page.

[LiteGirl]

Don't know about y'all but found this to be quite offensive.

http://www.crowdfundinsider.com/2014/08/47816-signvine-helps-teach-old-industry-new-trick/

[Erik Sine]

Well, someones bitter because it hasn't been going well for them.

....SignVine launched its crowdfunding site in March of this year and quickly found out that while they have a great idea praised by many, execution is slow-going.

SignVine project director, Paul Martin, stated,“I continue to believe that the sign industry is always going to be 20 years behind the ‘technology’ curve; maybe 15 years now. We have a bunch of old dogs set in their ways.”

“I mean no disrespect, because many of them are successful and content. So, savvy new ‘online’ tools are slow to integrate. And, now, crowdfunding? Even though it has been severely effective for raising money from potato salad to medical treatments and feeding the hungry, it’s going to take some time to convince or show (and educate) the sign industry how it can be effective for them.”.....

I didn't know we were 20 years behind the industry, at least he said that could be 15 now

I gess wer not builden signs from those 3dee printers yet

Paul obviously has no clue about what goes on in the sign industry if you look at his background, all he knows how to do is spend other peoples money in third world projects. I had an email come to me concerning signvine the other day from someone who's involved/runs it and wanted to know they could implement visibility here on the SS and I pointed that person to this thread and told them that the topic of their non-profit was already a topic here on the SS and it didn't exactly build anything towards the positive side of things nor did anyone show favor for it and maybe they could chime in if there is perhaps a misunderstanding. That didn't happen.

Anyway I asked about the affiliation of Advantage to signvine and they said that they were just one of many vendors but they did chip in for the initial seed money for signvine but other vendors like Daktronics, Watchfire, Adaptive etc etc, could be used too as long as their a "quality product". Wonder who decides that?

But this guy Paul Martin, writer of this article is also the Chief Marketing Director of Vantage LED, I don't know.....that just makes it hard for me to believe that there isn't favoritism towards one.

I don't do EMC's, but would Vantage by chance be the least expensive of those named and easier to be a vendor to use raise money for? I know Daktronics is not cheap and probably the most expensive of the bunch.

In either case Paul Martin the smart guy from signvine / vantage LED who is here to educate us on his socialistic errr, ways of crowdfunding because if they an do it for a Big Mac they'll show us how we can throw money in a vendors pocket errrrrrr, help the cause and do it for a $100K sign. Because, well you know...we're dum.....d-u-m....dum.

Especially you old goats errrrr, dogs....who are just set in your ways....you need to hurry up and just DIE off to make way for this newer generation who know how to use a puter!

That sure was an article set in motion to build energy for the movement huh?

Nice find, something tells me that article wasn't meant for the eyes of the sign industry?

[anthonyk]

,

Good questions and points. We had some of the same questions and tried to get the answers from them.

It was a little troubling to see Vantage help to start a non-profit. We figured to help sell their products.

We tried to give them the benefit of the doubt and ask about policies and procedures for how an LED sign vendor is chosen. Didn't really get an answer. We got a dance around the question.

Looked even more shady...

Seems if you question their integrity or motives in choosing vendors, they question your intelligence.

We sent them some emails and tried calling to ask questions back in June. We finally received a reply yesterday.

Their answer was a link to Prweb. (Same Article)

http://www.prweb.com/releases/2014/08/prweb12119656.htm

Great movement. LOL.

I saw a total of two campaigns on their site for a total of $240 raised. That seems like a real need for this type of service. 5 months of marketing for two customers.

[Support.ADA]

Here's my .02 ...

Everyone's money is the same to me, religion / politics, I don't desriminate against anyones dollar and their right to spend it with me. Church's (the baptist mostly) always worked out well for me, as I do ongoing indoor work and outsourced the big stuff. Nothing like a one off $300 ada sign that I kept a stack of back at the shop to make me play nice. Church commitee's are a nightmare - yes - and I charge them for that. As long as I'm getting paid, I'll sit there and listen to you argue - no problem. Any kind of committee - charge well and chrage often, and belive me you won't be sitting there for long before they figure out, they can argue without you.

SignVine, just another sign broker with a bad idea. Think about the time and effort to get a company signed up with this, in hopes THEY will advertise their whatever for themselves. Lets face it - if they were that good at raising money, they could afford their own sign to fit their purpose or would be making better use of the money on whatever they are doing. No one is going to split their contribution feeds over two projects.

The lead time from contact to getting on the board to making enough money to buy the sign.... way way way to long. Hell even a 1.2 million build has a 6 - 8 month lead time of which we spend maybe 20 active hours till the job hits - and even that we bitch about. Image the man hours into this process before you get an actual job - IF you ever make enough. They are a broker - so most of the money goes to the manufacture and installers... leaving you what - at most $10K for the pass through? And from I hear now adays you all just don't have the margins for even that.

According to Whois - signvine.org was created Dec last year.... Bet they don't make it another year.

My suggestion - they have a builders and patron's page - call one of them as an installer that got approached by these guys and see what they say, or even if they know them.

Why doesn't someone with more money than brains ever come to me for an idea? :)

[Erik Sine]

Well, guess this answers the question about which LED vendor gets picked

http://www.prweb.com/releases/2014/12/prweb12362471.htm

[Eddy_E]

all said and done already ... food and fodder comes before troops and horses ... they should not poke their noses where it don´t belong to really. As you folks mentioned already most of these non-profits turned into pure revenue streams over the years. Some of them like Unicef, Oxfam and Co. are juggling with billions in the meanwhile and are exceeding some countries GDP´s out there. Now that is just plain weired xD^^

I wish the governments would bring out a legislation amendment or so to cut down management costs. Wondering how much of those rats would be not abandoning the ship and keep working on a voluntary basis :)

to sum it up: the Signvine thing ethically a complete disaster, but a smart move from that cheeky fella Paul Martin to add some further sales that goes onto his account ...

[anthonyk]

Sign Vine - Says Goodbye for now.

https://www.signvine.org/

[Erik Sine]

How funny I meant to post that link, there was another and I thought I did but obviously not. It was to a page that said basically it failed because they were "Too ahead of their time", lol.

Guess they don't understand pyramid/socialist schemes just don't work, especially a non-profit that tries to pose as just that but only serves one company....themselves.

Back to the drawing board....for now.

[anthonyk]

Erik,

I saw that one too on Linkedin. I believe one of the marketing folks for Sign Vine was stepping down publicly.

Here is a public link if anybody wants to read.

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/great-idea-didnt-work-mike-prongue?trk=mp-reader-card

I really enjoyed the comment section on that post.

They previously bashed the sign industry for not being technologically advanced enough.

In the newest one...

"Non-profits seemed to expect more of a grant than just another fund-raising campaign. So their interest level was cool at best. Then the reality is that the "crowd" tended to be the church congregation and not curious and benevolent visitors going to the site to be part of something they believed in. The anonymous visitor was not making a $20 donation to fund a Broadway play- they were helping some church they would never visit or see buy an electronic reader board. While noble, that is not very exciting. When you give your services away for 6 months and it still does not draw a crowd, it was time to reconsider."

[alltex]

Good riddance! There's enough Wolves masquerading as Sheep in our industry. Their entire pitch/scam hit a nerve with me from day one. I'm sorry, but building EMC's for the sign industry. Doesn't make you a sign expert. It makes you a parts supplier to the sign industry. Maybe in 20 years, there will be enough stupid people to make SignVine work. I'm glad there's a shortage of stupid people....