Did you know that about half of all charitable donations are made between Thanksgiving and New Year's Eve? Two-thirds of U.S. households with incomes of less than $100,000 give to charity, according to the Giving USA Foundation, the leading researcher on philanthropy. So, even the "Scrooges" among us will drop coins in the bell ringer's kettle.

When the economy falters, there is more need as people lose jobs and turn to charities for help with food, clothing and other necessities. In giving, we also meet an additional need, our own. We need to make a difference. We realize we have something to give of ourselves whether it is money, things or a few hours of our time. Giving returns so much in terms of peace, patience and joy that often you just want to give more.

Thanksgiving brings to mind giving to local food banks. In the past year, Feeding America, the nation's leading food bank network, has seen an average increase of 15% to 20% in the number of people seeking help at its 200-plus food banks. Most importantly, food drives provide a direct connection between donors and people who are hungry.

Christmas toy drives and angel trees are already underway. Locate your local organizations and consider finding corporate matching for your contributions. "This year it will be more important than ever to reach our toy donation and cash donation goals. The economy this year will definitely cause more families to be in need of assistance and we want to make sure as many children as possible have a good Christmas." says Susan Wilson, Ellipse Business Development Manager, when speaking of the Marine Toys for Tots Toy Drive sponsored by the Apartment Association of Greater Dallas (AAGD) and Apartment Association of Tarrant County (AATC). If charity begins at home, as the old saying goes, why not organize a food or toy drive in your community or management office and post it on your website bulletin board? Don't forget to use Relate 24/7^SM to send out your dontation reminders.

In the past year, Ellipse has contributed to Rally for the Cure and Breast Cancer 3-Day for Wendy Walker, National Center for Victims of Violent Crime in honor of Steve Swan and Matt Butler, Black Tie Dinner, Inc., Triple Gem Society, Human Rights Campaign, Gillespie Group's Family Adoption Program, Project Pet, and Helping Our Helpers of Dallas. We at Ellipse have found these organizations to be worthy beneficiaries.

Unfortunately some fund-raisers get poor marks from the watchdogs of philanthropy. The American Institute of Philanthropy (AIP) is probably the toughest of charity watchdogs. The AIP online Charity Rating Guide will show you which charities received the highest grades (A+ through B). Other references to check include GuideStar which gathers data on more than 850,000 IRS-recognized nonprofits, nonprofit evaluator Charity Navigator and Publication 78 where you can check with the IRS to make sure the charity is properly registered as a tax-exempt entity. Do your research before donating to make sure the charity of your choice is a legitimate organization.

The best part of giving to others is imagining the improvements your dollars, items or time are creating. Giving helps you and your organization remember just how lucky you are.

We all know the traditional amenities offered by our industry, sparkling pools, spacious living areas, and lush landscaping but what else can you do to set your community apart? Sure you could spend hundreds if not thousands of dollars installing the latest and greatest fitness center or renovating your clubhouse, but what residents really want is something a little less tangible. The current economic turmoil has forced your residents to stop spending on things like movies, dining out, and various recreations.

Try offering a dinner and a movie night for residents. Send out invites to residents to come by and watch the latest release from your local movie rental company and have a free dinner. Since more and more people are trying to save money it's important that you show your residents that they can have a good time without leaving your community. Pick a theme for your dinner and rent a movie that will fit with your theme. If you don't have a convenient place to watch a movie you may look into your local movie theatre. Most theatres will for a low cost and the ability to address your audience

Your residents may also be interested in a wine and cheese tasting. Simply choose different wines from your local liquor store, a couple of cheese trays from your grocery store, and a few paper plates and plastic cups and you instantly have a party. Tell your residents they are welcome to bring their favorite wine or cheese as well to the tasting. Wine tastings are a very unique way to get your residents to mingle and make friendships within the community.

It's important to remember that your residents are affected by the economy just like your community. There are so many ways that you can promote your community as well as entertain your residents and ensure a higher retention rate. Get creative and try to imagine what they are giving up and offer them a solution. Give them what they are giving up.

Have you ever viewed your LiveSTATS and seen that your website had over 500,000 hits in a month? If I asked you what that means, what would you say? Most people would say it means 500,000 people viewed that website in a month. Would you agree? Unfortunately, if you answered yes, you would be wrong.

Before you evaluate the traffic analytics for your website, you must understand the language of site metrics. For instance in August, our website www.ellipseinc.com, had 2,940,317 Hits; 10,784 Visits; 92,271 Page Views; with an average of 8.2 Page Views/Visit. So what do those numbers tell us? See the story below:

Imagine Chris visits the home page of the website. After the home page, he goes to the "Products" page, which he bookmarks and then leaves the site. Later, Jenn visits the home page, is not interested and leaves the site. That evening, Chris returns to the "Products" page using his bookmark, and clicks on the link to the "Contact" page.

From the story above, you can determine that:

1. The site received 2 unique visitors, Chris and Jenn.
2. The site had three visitor sessions (2 for Chris and 1 for Jenn).
3. The site received 5 page views (4 by Chris and 1 by Jenn).

Hits
A Hit is a request made on a server for a file. A file could be the page itself, an image/ graphic, a banner, a style sheet, or a number of other things. So referring to the story above; let's say the home page consists of 27 files (24 total images, 1 script, 1 CSS file, plus the index html file itself). Every time a visitor downloads the home page, web analysis software will count 27 hits. Hits are valuable for server administrators but not very pertinent to website traffic analytics.

Visits
A Visit is considered a successful request for your website. One person can make multiple Visits to your website over time. In most cases, a new Visit will be recorded if the person opens the site with a different type of browser (Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari) or if he/she makes a request after a 30-minute "time-out" period. Number of Visits would be more valuable than Hits in gauging website visibility.

Page Views
A Page View is a successfully fulfilled request for a file considered a page. The file for a page usually has an extension like home.asp or floor.asp. Page View do not include graphics or other supporting files embedded in a web page. Since a successful browser "refresh" results in the page being delivered again, it is considered another Page View. A Visit is made up of one or more Page Views.

Check out your site metrics using the LiveSTATS link in your Apartment Toolbox^®. Feel free to contact us at training@ellipseinc.com if you have any questions.