Leib Lurie, CEO One Call Now

Supporting Education around the world

Many of you know that we gladly donate our services to hundreds of religious and secular mission trips that serve people around the world. If your organization is planning a trip or project; use One Call Now to send a daily update to friends, family and supporters. History shows that these daily updates are well received and help garner 40-50% more donations the following year!

Towards that end, we visited an orphanage in Lhasa Tibet and a Primary School near X’Ian China recently to see how they use some of the funds we donate.
It was gratifying to be dragged by the hand by an enthusiastic 5 year old to see his dormitory, classrooms, and dining hall where 72 orphans are now being clothed, well fed and sent to school; whereas many were begging on the street for scraps to eat.

Leib Lurie presenting gifts to Lhasa Orphanage

Exploring our world

PS5, the Ellen Lurie Primary school is named for my mother, a community activist and proponent of equality in education for all children regardless of income, color, and background. We were, therefore, very proud to be invited recently to the annual multi-cultural festival at the school. The students, fourth and fifth graders, put on a great dance exhibition featuring dances from many countries around the world. Their enthusiasm and rhythm were impressive. One Call Now and the Lurie family (my four siblings and I were together for the first time in two decades) came from 10,000 miles to present a check to the principal. The funds will allow these inner city kids to visit the out of state Liberty Science Center as a graduation celebration. We are pleased to be able to support these types of endeavors, along with dozens of others this summer. I’ll blog about them later…

My wife and I are off to visit China today, where we will visit primary schools in China and Tibet. I’m sure the differences will be stark, but the enthusiasm of young kids and the teachers who care about them will be universal!

Summer is approaching – keep kids safe and parents informed

As Memorial Day looms, many schools are approaching year-end. Although my native New York City goes till June 30th, here in Ohio, May 31st is the norm. Except for the many schools making up extra snow days and extending their year! My wife even had to work this past Saturday to make up a teacher Waiver Day. She wasn’t happy, I told her that “we never put up with grief when our kids were sentenced to Saturday School, so buck up and deal with it!”

The grass is growing, Summer swim teams are starting up, baseball is in full swing, summer reading programs are recruiting volunteers, and summer camps are sending their final instructions.

It’s also fun to see that thousands of these teams, groups and organizations are renewing or beginning to use One Call Now to better communicate, pass on instructions, coordinate activities and assure a safe and happy summer for all.

I’m happy that our automatic lightning alert system is proven, and available to protect lives with advanced warnings.

Our unique, easy 2-way text messaging service is growing in popularity, it allows groups to better coordinate activities and volunteers.

Our new Facebook and Twitter integration means group leaders can broadcast information by voice, text, email, and to 30+ social media sites; all with a few clicks from our ‘send a message’ page.

Communicating is cool; keeping kids safe and parents informed is a hot topic. Hot and cold; we love both extremes!
PS… Planning a Mission trip? Raising money for a Mission trip?

Many groups report that their donations increased by 50% or more from those who received a daily call during the trip.

Let us donate a One Call Now account to the group. Use it to send a daily status message from wherever you are to give the supporters, friends and family back home a daily brief. We sponsored hundreds of trips last year in this way, and are happy to do the same for yours.

Because You Never Know What Might Happen

Tens of thousands of our clients started using our message delivery/notification service when snow or rain caused activity cancellations.But this unusual weekend hammered home the fact that ‘it’s more than snow’.

-Our Boston area schools, businesses and clubs made sure to inform parents, staff and members that due to a massive water main break, their facility would or would not have drinkable water Monday.

-Financial Service Firm with offices 50 yards from the Times Square car bomb- kept their staff informed through the weekend using One Call Now.

-The US Coast Guard has been sizzling with our text messages to coordinate their response to the massive oil spill in the gulf.

Schools, fishing fleets and local governments are using One Call Now to keep citizens and workers informed and aware.

-Once-In-A-Century rains in Tennessee & Texas has prompted hundreds of thousands of calls to coordinate evacuation and sandbagging.

-Tornados in Missouri swept the state, but warning messages helped keep people safe.

When Messages Matter, We Deliver.
Are your students,  families, citizens, staff and customers as safe as they can be?

When disaster strikes, how fast can you notify everyone that needs to know?

Contact us to get a system in place to send voice, text and email – securely, rapidly, to everyone.
We call everyone in minutes.
We can have you ready to protect, inform and engage those who need and trust you – within the hour.

It’s School Levy Time- Will Yours Succeed?

It’s Spring, time for primaries, school levies and bond issues. Will Yours Succeed? One Call Now school districts have a proven track record of success.

It’s frustrating to see how many schools are facing severe shortfalls in budgets due to economic conditions, the rippling effects of tax cuts, and often misguided attempts to rein in school spending. Most schools struggle to succeed, most do an admirable job, and many schools of excellence can be found – in both traditional and non-traditional settings.

Yet in many states the election and education laws prohibit schools from urging the electorate to vote for a levy or bond issue. A volunteer committee must be set-up to wave the flag and carry the load. A great idea that causes most essential levies to fail, services get cut, pandemonium ensues, and eventually, after several expensive election cycles, funds get approved. It’s a miserable way to run a system that demands technological and creative thinking of our children for this century.Nonetheless, my rant won’t change the system, but we can help make a difference within it.

That’s why One Call Now donates calls to the levy or bond committee for any of the thousands of districts we serve. This allows the committee to reach every voter (not just parents) with educational and get-out-the-vote messages easily and effectively. In fact, we have won national recognition and awards for the power and success of our targeted calling process to win school votes. Last year we donated over $50,000 in calls to help schools succeed in this way.

Just contact Support at One Call Now to learn how we can help your district succeed this election.

If your district does not use One Call Now; it probably cannot be used by the campaign committee at all. If it can, it is  a “closed-loop” system that only reaches 20-30% of voters; those with students in the home. Successful campaigns must reach the 70-80% of voters without children at home; to educate them on your issue.

One Call Now can do this. Others cannot.

Easier Done Than Said- Try new One Call Now IPhone App

The One Call Now IPhone app is now available – for free – at the Apple Iphone app store.
Sending messages is now easier Done Than Said.
You can
1-Enter or Save your ID and PIN to start even faster
2-Use the Iphone to record a message, (touch to your cheek to start recording, pull it away to stop!)
3-Or type a message to be sent as text-to-speech
4-If desired… Name and save messages for re-use later
5-Visually display and select one or more subgroups (or just select everyone)
5-SEND Message

Summary and detailed message reports can show who received your message

You will need an account with One Call Now- if you don”t have one, the app will offer to connect you to our Client Specialists to get started immediately.

Try it.
The fastest, easiest, best way to send messages for schools, sports teams, churches, businesses and government agencies. Reach parents, families, players and staff – because When Messages Matter- We Deliver.

Text Messaging is good, except when it’s not

Our service offers unlimited SMS text messaging on many plans, and usage is growing fast. Youth, and increasingly busy parents want to see a quick text alert, rather than interrupt something to listen (although my wife says that looking at texts while with someone is just plain rude).

Our system allows users to send text messages from our web site – and broadcast to everyone or any sub-group in moments.

But we do not encourage sending or reading text messages while driving.
I’m glad to see that Ohio has passed a new no-texting while driving bill; as have a dozen other states and more to follow.

To help encourage the right behavior, We have a standard signature on all company IPhone emails-
mine is…

Looking forward,
Leib Lurie, CEO
One Call Now | When Messages Matter, We Deliver
Please excuse the brevity, sent from my IPhone (and NOT while I’m driving)!

Please encourage your organization and family to do likewise!

Unusual Weather creates unusual needs

Hurricane force winds in the East, wicked winds in the south, blistering rain in mid-Atlantic; all unusual for the first week of Spring; but just another day in our world.
Weather causes changes, cancellations, adjustments, and rescheduling.
Weather brings dangers that drive folks indoors and cancels outdoor events.
This used to lead to confusion and the black hole of ‘what’s happening’.

But letting everyone KNOW “what’s happening is not only our business it’s our passion.
Helping tens of thousands of organizations protect and connect children, families and their community; because “When Mesasages Matter, we deliver”

Life is beautiful, and so very fragile

It’s heart warming to hear how many of our clients use One Call Now to send baby announcements; telling friends and family about this joyous event in their lives.

Yet the end of life has it’s communication needs as well. Hundreds of religious organizations, particularly Jewish Synagogues, use One Call Now to tell the congregation about funerals. This is particularly important in that faith as Jewish burials are to be within 48 hours of death. Before using our service, many long time friends and neighbors did not get the word in time to show their respects and comfort the family.

But today, we heard about another, more tragic way in which our system spread needed information to those in the community. A teacher committed suicide during her lunch break; and although staff called affected parents personally, all families were informed of this horrible news directly, via One Call Now, from her Principal, before the news appeared in the press and evening news, which would have been even more devastating.
Our heart goes out to her family, students, co-workers and friends.
I feel comforted knowing that in some small way we were able to bring that community together.

The beginning and end are all part of the great and often fragile circle of life.
In this, as in so many other ways, we cannot predict the content, but When Messages Matter, We Deliver.

When its snowing- does your communications system work?

As a deep blanket of white stuff descends across the eastern US, One Call Now is pumping out the calls, texts and emails. Delays, closings and schedule changes due to weather impacted millions of people served by our clients. Our dedicated staff works 24/7/365 so we can effectively Protect, Inform and Engage.

All ten dialing locations were humming; our triple redundant systems and dozens of alternative phone carriers did what was expected. The system just worked.

This morning, even with tens of thousands of homes without power across the mid west and phone lines down; 99.99% of all calls were dialed within our short Service Level Agreement (SLA) time frame.

It’s puzzling to me that One Call Now is the only company to offer an SLA and one of the few with 24/7/365 toll-free, no-charge tech support for anyone needing to send a message.

Our 35,000 clients know these are critical and crucial requirements when deciding what company to depend on when people’s lives and safety are at stake.

For Business Continuity, School to Parent communications, Government emergency outreach, church/synagogue congregation communications and team information; When Messages Matter, We Deliver.