Can there be Cooperation among Competitors?
“Competition has been shown to be useful up to a certain point and no further, but cooperation, which is the thing we must strive for today, begins where competition leaves off.”
Honor with Flags works with youth organizations to offer an American Flag subscription service to their community, while earning those organizations some needed funds for their programs. In our geographical area there are some other organizations that already offer this same type of fundraiser. Some people have pointed this out to us and there is some concern that Honor with Flags is aiming to take away from, or diminish those groups’ efforts. This cannot be further from the truth.
We are aware of between 8-10 high school booster clubs (mostly music programs) and 7-10 Boy Scout Troops in the area that have a flag service fundraiser. The majority of the High School groups are delivering in the range of 1,700 to 2,000 flags. If we take, for example, the 4 high schools in our district and estimate that each are delivering 2,000 flags, that totals up to approximately 8,000 flags. Add in about another 2,000 flags for the Boy Scout troops, and this places 10,000 flags on the streets in our district boundaries. 10,000 flags for an area which actually has >50,000 homes and is estimated to add another 1,000 homes a year for the next 5 years.
As our family has been involved (and is still involved) in delivering flags for our High School Band, we’ve encountered a huge demand for this service that is currently not being met. Each and every time we’ve been delivering or picking up flags for the band, folks in the neighborhood ask us, “How can I get a flag?” These high school music programs are delivering ~2,000 flags, which equals 50+ routes for parents to cover. It is sometimes hard to find that many parent volunteers, even with in a band or a choir of over 150 members, as many of the programs do. This is just one of the ways in which Honor with Flags supplements the demand within the area, without draining other organizations’ fundraisers.
Some neighborhoods are well-covered, have American Flags lined up down their streets and are beautiful during holidays. Other neighborhoods, however, may not have had any flags to begin with, or the youth have graduated from their programs or moved away—either way they don’t have access to renew or get new flag subscriptions. A multitude of other reasons can and have led to a demand for more flags. It truly depends on the neighborhood.
We created Honor with Flags not to take away any American Flag subscriptions from any organization at all, but rather to work with MORE youth programs to help them raise funds and get MORE American Flags in our communities.
We believe that we are, in a cooperative relationship with the other organizations in the area. Some people may choose to switch to support the organizations Honor with Flags is working with, some may choose to stay supporting the organizations they have been supporting for years, and others may decide to get 2 or more flags and support more than one. This is totally up to the home owners… but we are pretty certain all of our “competitors” would agree that we are “cooperating” for the common goal of more American Flags uniting our communities.
“Alone we can do so little, together we can do so much.”