Swimming against the national tide

SHOWING PRIDE: Roger Dubord, chairman of the Bristol Fourth of July Parade Committee, shows off a sample charity license plate. The committee is trying to sell its own license plates to help fund the parade, but needs to presell 900 before they can be printed. / PBN PHOTO/RUPERT WHITELEY
SHOWING PRIDE: Roger Dubord, chairman of the Bristol Fourth of July Parade Committee, shows off a sample charity license plate. The committee is trying to sell its own license plates to help fund the parade, but needs to presell 900 before they can be printed. / PBN PHOTO/RUPERT WHITELEY

The New England Patriots have one, as do the Boston Red Sox and the Rhode Island Community Food Bank.
The New York Yankees tried to get one this year – but failed – while the Wildlife Rehabilitators Association of Rhode Island, Woonsocket School Department and Gloria Gemma Breast Cancer Resource Foundation need public support to get theirs.
They are official Rhode Island charity license plates, the increasingly popular and sometimes controversial fundraising strategy attracting a growing range of nonprofits.
This year, the General Assembly authorized the creation of five charity license plates before Gov. Lincoln D. Chafee vetoed the “Choose Life” plate supporting a Catholic Church-affiliated anti-abortion group.
Even with the veto, this year’s bills bring the potential number of optional, open-to-the-public plates in the state to a dozen, not counting special plates only available to certain groups such as firefighters, veterans and magistrates.
But although license plates seem to demand an inordinate amount of energy in Rhode Island – there were more than 20 bills relating to plates in 2013 alone – the Ocean State actually has one of the smallest collection of specialty plates in the country. In pioneering Maryland and Florida, the specialty-plate options stretch into triple digits.
As many of the groups that have turned to license plates for revenue have found out, growing the number of successful license plates in a small state is not as easy as it looks.
Even after they have secured legislative approval for plates, charities have to pre-sell 900 of them before the state will order them made, by prisoners, and distributed.
“People see the Plum Beach Lighthouse plate everywhere and say ‘We should do that,’ but to get to 900 orders is a daunting task,” said David Zapatka, president of the Friends of Plum Beach Lighthouse Committee, which is the beneficiary of Rhode Island’s best-selling specialty license plate.
Since the legislature approved a Plum Beach Lighthouse plate in 2009, the state Department of Motor Vehicles has issued 6,911 of them, and Zapatka said he’s taken more than 7,000 orders worth more than $140,000. The Friends use the money to repaint and maintain the lighthouse in Narragansett Bay underneath the Jamestown Verrazzano Bridge.
The New England Patriots Charitable Foundation has the second-highest-selling plate, with 3,052, according to the DMV. The Rhode Island Community Food Bank’s has sold about 2,200 Mr. Potato Head plates, and the Boston Red Sox Foundation has sold 1,228. A television cameraman, Zapatka has now written the book on Rhode Island specialty license plate fundraising, a 30-page how-to pamphlet with pointers for other groups looking to follow Plum Beach’s lead.
A key to the success of the Plum Beach plate is its design, he said. The Narragansett Bay sunset imagery on the lighthouse plate appeals to many Rhode Islanders who don’t have any connection to Plum Beach, but want something more colorful than the standard-issue “wave” plate.
“People are tired of the wave plate; it’s gotten old.” Zapatka said.
The Bristol Fourth of July Committee is one of the groups struggling to get to 900 orders – it has about 500 now – and is looking for ways to broaden its appeal to more Rhode Islanders
Committee General Chairman Dick Devault said the group will discuss a plate redesign this summer that would, among other things, allow the plate to accommodate six-digit registrations, like the wave plate, instead of five digits.
Although there was no deadline to reach 900 orders when Bristol Fourth started, the General Assembly this summer past a bill setting a five-year time limit to reach the number.
“We’re a little over halfway there, but it has been slow and we are concerned about getting [to 900,] Devault said. “There is competition now, without a doubt.”
Just approved for a license plate by the General Assembly this month, the Wildlife Rehabilitators Association of Rhode Island is using Zapatka’s book as guidance and the same designer who drew up the Plum Beach plate.
Meredith S. Bird, president of the Wildlife Rehabilitators Association, said it took two years to get a license plate bill through the General Assembly.
“We started two years ago to get approval and had started collecting money thinking it would be a piece of cake,” Bird said. “But last year the Senate didn’t pass it, and this year we thought it was not going to happen in the House, so we didn’t [push for orders] as much as we might have.”
Unlike Devault, Bird said she expects the growing number of plates, while adding competition, will actually help sales for individual charities by making the concept more common. “Plum Beach let everyone see what a pretty license plate in Rhode Island could look like,” Bird said. License plate collectors attribute the birth of the American specialty plate to the U.S. Bicentennial celebration in 1976, which inspired specialty plates in Maryland, Georgia and Virginia. However, it wasn’t until Florida issued a plate commemorating the space shuttle Challenger disaster a decade later that the phenomenon really caught on.
Richard E. Dragon, a plate collector and historian who is compiling a database of specialty plates, said Rhode Island is among the states with the fewest optional plates.
A small population and the 900-plate pre-order rule have kept the number down, Dragon said.
Under Rhode Island’s program, specialty plates cost $41.50, with $20 going to the sponsoring charity, and $21.50 to the state. Of the state’s share, $10 goes to cover production costs, $10 goes to the general fund and $1.50 is for processing. DMV spokeswoman Debbie Rich said the department does not keep a cumulative total of specialty plates sold, nor calculate the cost of making and distributing the plates.
Based on individual sales figures from the five groups with plates in production, the state has sold at least 14,200 plates since 2002 and generated about $280,000 for the state and charities, minus costs.
At least one Rhode Island lawmaker, however, isn’t happy about the apparent popularity of specialty plates. Rep. Joseph A. Trillo, R-Warwick, has voted against every specialty plate except one, the “Choose Life” plate that so many objected to.
“It is a mistake diluting what license plates are all about,” said Trillo, who voted for the Choose Life plate because he supported that cause. “You can’t identify what state someone is from by the license plate anymore, and that is going to hurt law enforcement. A lot of this is so people can get better treatment when they are pulled over.”
Still, despite all the politicking over making special plates, the concept remains popular.
“Over the years it has gone up and down, but it still brings in a nice sum every year with very little work on our part,” said Cindy Elder, communications director with the Rhode Island Community Food Bank, whose 2002 Mr. Potato head plate with Hasbro Inc. was the state’s first.
“Almost more important than the financial contribution, it is the opportunity to remember that the food bank is here and feeding people,” she said. •

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