Programming
Altruistic planners: (from left to right) Louise Hall Reider, Hendrik ten Cate, Lucy Eisele, Fabienne Hanks, and Alan Ranzer
CHARITY BEGINS ON-SITE
These pros help winners give back to others
BY LISA GRIMALDI
Would a bunch of harried executives who
worked like crazy to qualify for a VIP trip
voluntarily — even cheerfully — give up a
half-day of leisure to participate in a charitable activity? Absolutely. In fact, a handful of incentive professionals specialize in creating incentive activities that give back
to the communities where their programs are held. Following
are profiles of five industry pros who make incentives even
more rewarding.
Louise Hall Reider, CITE, Founder
Louise Hall Reider & Co. (LHRco)
Bellevue, Wash.
Five years ago, incentive planner Louise Hall Reider, a veteran of large incentive firms USMotivation and World Travel
Meetings & Incentives (now part of BCD Travel) and a former president of the Society of Incentive & Travel Executives,
quit the corporate world to launch a business close to her
heart. Her company, LHRco, creates incentive programs with
an altruistic angle. Reider credits a client — Kenny Kahn,
vice president of marketing for Charlotte, N.C.-based Muzak
— for asking her to create a travel incentive program that
would transform winners.
That exercise, says Reider, “was my ‘aha’ moment: I would
start a new incentive company, the difference being that each
program would incorporate an element of giving back, no
matter how big or small.”
Today, Reider says 99.9 percent of her business is just that,
even on the extremely rare occasion that a client balks at the
idea of incorporating a charity element. “In those cases, LHRco
will find a way to quietly give back either to the community or
to a cause the company supports.”
Among the clients she’s worked with since striking out on
her own are Muzak, Restaurants Unlimited, Philips and Lending Tree. Now in her fifth year of business, Reider is devising new
ways to bring good into programs. LHRco is testing a welcome
basket for interested clients, packed only with items whose makers donate a portion of the proceeds to a worthy cause.
Hendrik ten Cate, Managing Director
Easy Event
Mönchengladbach, Germany
The managing director of this meetings and incentives firm is
credited with popularizing worthy-cause programs in Europe.
Hendrik ten Cate calls these “social incentives.”
“The idea was born when I was driving with a local DMC
through a village in Jordan,” ten Cate explains. “We were driving so fast the villagers had to jump away so they wouldn’t be
run over by us. It made me feel a little like a neocolonialist.” On
further reflection, he realized traditional incentive programs
SEPTEMBER 2006
MEETINGS & CONVENTIONS
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