Revised: 3/31/98
When I tried to quit smoking in May 1996, I didn't know that Nicotine Anonymous existed locally. (I'll abbreviate Nicotine Anonymous as NicA in this document). NicA was not, and still is not listed in the Minneapolis (nor St. Paul) phone book. So I tried to quit smoking on my own, but failed.
In a subsequent quit smoking attempt, I found out in a rather round-about way that NicA existed in the Twin Cities (4 groups). I attended several of their meetings. These meetings were a considerable help to me in my successful effort to quit smoking.
I asked some local NicA members why NicA isn't listed in the Minneapolis phone book (or the St. Paul phone book), and discovered that being listed, and having a simple 90 second outgoing recorded message, cost $30/month. That is well beyond what Twin Cities NicA can afford without changing its character from a nearly free support group (a voluntary contribution of $1 per person per meeting is typical) to one which is always pushing and prodding for more and larger contributions. It would also change the character of the Twin Cities NicA from simply a support group to what seemed a lot like a business, and most members were opposed to that.
An effort to collect enough money and support for a phone book listing and voice mail was undertaken in the fall of 1997. A number of regular meetings were dominated by often heated discussions of how to collect extra money, the group's purpose, details of various options for the phone service, the need and mechanisms for inter-group cooperation, etc. These lengthy and heated discussions upset many, and took much time away from the main purpose of the meetings -- which is to help attendees quit smoking or stay quit. In the end, the effort to collect money and support for a phone book listing failed for a number of reasons, including a late start and a confusing presentation of the options by me. Also, there was considerable opposition to spending so much (more than $400 in the first year, including some initial installation cost).
Twin Cities NicA isn't the only organization without a phone book listing. Most other 12 step organizations that are below the size of the biggest 2 or 3 don't have phone book listings in most cities that they have groups in.
As for myself, why didn't I just contribute the $400+ myself (for the first year), rather than spending about 100 hours (so far) on this project? I realize that I could have made several times that amount by working those extra hours in my profession, rather than spending those hours on this project. However, this would solve Twin Cities NicA's problem (of getting a phone book listing) for 1 year, but I started to wonder about the NicA groups in other cities, and about the many other small 12 step groups like NicA. Also, I thought Twin Cities NicA needed to form the intergroup organization necessary to collect, finance and maintain a project like this (one that is larger than one group can undertake). If I or some other person contributed all of the money and work, this would have allowed Twin Cities NicA to continue to go on as-is -- remaining in an under-organized state that has much difficulty taking on large projects.
Below is my experience with the local phone company (U.S. West) and an answering service. Hopefully there is some useful information in the below for anyone thinking of getting a phone book listing for their organization. I sure hope to hear from others who have found a better or less expensive way to get listed in the phone book (and ideally with voice-mail) than the options I list below. I will certainly share the information by posting on a new web page, and emailing all respondents (if not too many).
The local phone company, U.S. West, made getting a phone book listing into a complex undertaking, as you will see in reading the below. What follows is my understanding of some of the reasonable options for our purposes. I list them in order of increasing complexity.
First, some general principles, notes, and conventions.
(1) NON-PROFITS MUST PAY BUSINESS RATES. There is no "non-profit", "charity", or "support-group" rate. All organizations must have a business service and pay the business rate in order to be listed in the phone book.
(2) GRAY PAGES -- The business section of the white pages is known as the gray pages.
(3) THE MADE-UP PHONE NUMBERS SHOWN AS EXAMPLES HAVE DIGITS AND LETTERS SO AS TO MAKE THEM EASIER TO IDENTIFY, REMEMBER, AND KEEP STRAIGHT IN THE EXPLANATIONS THAT FOLLOW. I've made up some phone numbers to use as examples, e.g. 123-JOHN is John D's phone number, and 333-NICA is Nicotine Anonymous's phone number. I've chosen phone numbers that include numbers and letters to make it easier to understand what phone number I'm referring to. This is helpful when I get into more complicated options like forwarding and cross-referencing, which involve multiple phone numbers. Of course, the phone numbers are actually listed in the phone book using 7 digits, rather than letters and digits. But, in the sample phone book listings, I show letters and digits for clarity.
(4) THERE ARE ADDITIONAL COSTS NOT SHOWN IN THE BELOW. In the below, I've only listed the monthly rate. In addition, in most of the options, there is a "one time cost" to start the new service, plus a metered cost of 5 cents for the first minute of each call, and 1 cent / minute thereafter. The one time cost is generally small relative to a year's worth of monthly charges. However, some people get in an uproar over the 5 cents / 1 cent charge. "What if we get a lot of calls? It could get to be expensive". However, I think that most of us believe that a human being who is asking about our program is worth spending a nickle or dime on. (a 6 minute call would cost a dime).
Finally, the costs shown don't include taxes. As a rough guideline, taxes add about 10% to the costs shown.
(5) PHONE BOOK DEADLINE -- In Minneapolis and St. Paul, US West distributes the 1998 edition of the phone book on January 21, 1998. In order to give them time to produce and publish and distribute the phone book by January 21, 1998, they require that all phone book listings for the 1998 edition be finalized and paid for by October 28, 1997. (Each year, the month and day dates will be a little bit different. And of course, other phone companies might have different, perhaps much different, deadlines. But for expository purposes, I will use the U.S. West 1997-1998 dates). In other words, Twin Cities NicA (or any other organization) had to decide and pay for the phone book listing by Oct. 28, 1997, or forget about being listed in the 1998 phone book. So anyone contemplating getting their organization listed in the phone book should start the process well before October 28. In the case of a multi-group organization like Twin Cities NicA, beginning several months in advance is recommended to allow time for educating oneselves and the members of the various groups, politic-ing, and getting approvals.
If we missed the Oct. 28 deadline, we can still be listed with their directory assistance beginning whenever we make the payments. The New York City Nicotine Anonymous intergroup reports that they get a substantial number of calls by way of directory assistance. Just something to consider if one misses the phone book deadline, or for that matter wants to be listed with directory assistance as soon as possible -- being listed with directory assistance appears to be quite effective.
(6) MULTIPLE PHONE BOOKS -- One must be sure, when discussing options with the phone company, to verify that the listings are put in all of the phone books that one wants. In our (Twin Cities) case, we wanted to be listed in 4 phone books -- the Minneapolis white and yellow pages, and the St. Paul white and yellow pages. For some reason, no one person at U.S. West handles both the white and yellow page listings. One has to talk to one person to get the white page listing and the phone service, and then talk to another person to get the yellow page listing. I also had to talk to two different yellow pages people -- the Minneapolis yellow page person and the St. Paul yellow pages person -- just to get the cost for a simple one-line listing in each book.
(7) EVEN IF YOU CONTRACT YOUR PHONE SERVICE AND/OR VOICE MAIL SERVICE WITH AN ANSWERING SERVICE, YOU MUST STILL CONTRACT WITH US WEST (or whatever your local phone company is) IN ORDER TO BE LISTED IN THE GRAY AND YELLOW PAGES. And note that US West charges a small monthly fee.
(8) VOICE MAIL. With US West, adding voice mail service to one's business service costs an additional $13/month. The principle feature of voice mail from our perspective is a 90 second outgoing recorded message. 90 seconds is enough time to give meeting times and locations for a few meetings, plus give a phone number for further information.
Additional time for the outgoing recorded message can be purchased in 90 second "blocks". The cost per additional block is $5/month. If you purchase any additional block(s), a menu'd system comes with it (whether you want it or not). For example, if you buy an additional block (for a total of two 90 second blocks), then one gets a 90 second recorded message followed by a "press 1 for ...." message. The caller must then press 1 to hear the additional information recorded on the second 90 second block. I asked US West if we could get rid of the "press 1 ... " after 90 seconds, and instead just have a 180 second recorded message straight through. They said no, because the 90 seconds is a fundamental limitation of their set-up.
As another example, if we needed 2 extra blocks (for a total of 270 seconds), we would get a 2-item menu'd system, i.e. "press 1 for ...", "press 2 for ... ". Again, there is no way to get rid of that and have a simple 270 second straight - through recording.
CALLERS CAN LEAVE A MESSAGE -- The voice mail option also includes the ability of callers to leave messages. Up to 35 messages can be stored, and each message can be up to 3 minutes long. I assume we don't have to have this option if we don't want it. Not having this option would spare us the need to check for messages and return calls. Hopefully, the 90 second (or longer) outgoing message will have the information that callers really need, including a phone number to call (or address to write to) for further information. Anyway, its part of the package (if we wish) at no extra cost.
(9) CROSS REFERENCE RATES -- given that an organization already has a business phone line and is listed in the phone book, additional listings are very low cost. For example, the following listing for Smoker's Anonymous (the predecessor of Nicotine Anonymous) costs only $3 / month:
The following way of listing Smoker's Anonymous costs only $1.50/mo, because it 'provides less information' than the above way, according to U.S. West:
Nicotine Anonymous ......... 333-NICA
Smoker's Anonymous ......... 333-NICA ((this costs only $1.50/mo))
Another form of cross-referencing that we were looking at (see option _2_ later) is to have First Call For Help (a United Way phone referral agency) answer calls for NicA, like so:
First Call For Help .... 335-FCFH
Nicotine Anonymous .... call First Call For Help ((this costs only $3/mo))
This looked like a cheap way to get a listing for NicA in the phone book. However, it has one drawback -- First Call For Help, not NicA, gets billed the $3/month. FCFH was willing to go along with this plan until they learned that they would be billed. Then they said no, not even if we (NicA) paid them an entire year in advance. So that was that. However, see Option _5_ later about an idea to get a few small non-profits together to share one phone number.
Now the options:
Cost: About $19/month
Say that John D is retired, has an answering machine, and is willing to answer calls for Twin Cities NicA. Say John's home phone number is 123-JOHN. We will list 123-JOHN in the phone book (both in the gray pages and in the yellow pages) like this:
Nicotine Anonymous ....... 123-JOHN.
That seems real simple. But to list in the gray pages and the yellow pages, US West insists that John D will have to upgrade his phone service from residential to business. The difference between residential and business service is $16/month. There would be an additional cost of about $1.50/month for the "Nicotine Anonymous ... 123-JOHN" listing in the gray pages, and another $1.50/mo cost for the same listing in the yellow pages.
If instead, John D worked out of his home and already had a business rate, then the cost of the listing, which would be just a cross-reference listing, would be only $3/month. So if you know someone with a business service who is willing to take NicA phone calls, then this is probably the cheapest way to go.
One drawback is that John D must agree to do this for at least a year, because his phone number is the one listed in the phone book as the Nicotine Anonymous number for the whole year. And if he wants to go away on vacation for a couple weeks or longer, who answers the phone?
Option _3_ below is similar to option 1, but provides much more flexibility -- NicA gets its own phone number, say 333-NICA. We can tell the phone company that all calls to 333-NICA should be forwarded on to 123-JOHN, or whatever other number we choose. The flexibility of forwarding calls to any number of our choosing is the key advantage of option _3_ below.
Cost: About $3/month
First Call For Help (FCFH) is a non-profit organization that provides referrals to other services. For example, if someone calls FCFH and asks for help to quit smoking, they will refer the caller to organizations such as the American Lung Association and Nicotine Anonymous. First Call For Help's phone number is say 335-FCFH.
We (Twin Cities NicA) explored the possibility that we could list First Call For Help's phone number as our number in the phone book. We could list Nicotine Anonymous in one of the two ways shown below:
(1) Nicotine Anonymous ......... Call First Call For Help ((costs $3/mo.))
--or--
(2) Nicotine Anonymous ......... 335-FCFH ((costs $1.50/mo.))
The first (1) way to list NicA costs $3/month. The second (2) way to list NicA costs $1.50/month. The first way is more expensive, because it 'provides more information' than the second way, according to U.S. West. I agree -- the second way might confuse a caller. A caller who finds "Nicotine Anonymous ......... 335-FCFH" in the phone book and dials 335-FCFH might be very surprised when the person answers "First Call For Help". Whereas the first way is not confusing (though it requires the person to go look up First Call For Help's number).
Either way, this is a very cheap option. However, it has one drawback -- First Call For Help, not NicA, gets billed the $3/month. FCFH was willing to go along with this plan until they learned that they would be billed. Then they said no, not even if we (NicA) paid them an entire year in advance. So that was that. However, see Option _5_ later about an idea to get a few small non-profits together to share one phone number.
Some have the concern that a listing like this makes it seem like we are endorsing First Call For Help. But others don't see it as being much different than listing a church's name as a meeting place, or advertising in a newspaper. No one presumes we are endorsing the church or the newspaper.
Cost: About $16/month
In this option, we would list 333-NICA in the phone book (both in the gray pages and in the yellow pages) like this:
Nicotine Anonymous ....... 333-NICA.
Now, who answers 333-NICA? Nobody. 333-NICA does not belong to any phone or phone line. So we tell the phone company to forward all calls from 333-NICA to John D's home phone at 123-JOHN. (John D is retired, a member of NicA, and has agreed to take phone calls for NicA).
This forwarding option is very handy and flexible. What if John moves out of town in the middle of the year? Or what if he goes on a long vacation? We can tell the phone company to forward all calls from 333-NICA to someone else's home phone number. Thus, we don't have to rely on one member being able to take calls all year. However, it costs $15 to change the forwarding number each time. So because of the cost, we can't change the forwarding number often. So a plan like having one person take calls during the days, and someone else (at a different number) take calls during the evening, would not be feasible because of the cost of all the switches. (A plan like that would result in 2 switches a day, at a cost of $30/day!).
A drawback of option 3, as well as options _1_ and _2_, is that John D (for example) must be willing to answer phone calls. If there are a lot of phone calls, that will be time-consuming and disruptive. That also means he has to be around a lot or have an answering machine. If he has an answering machine, his anwering machine's outgoing message must be something like "you have reached the John Doe residence. I also answer calls for Nicotine Anonymous. ..." Not a big drawback. But what if the organization is Shoplifter's Anonymous, and John is looking for a job. What if a potential employer calls John and gets his answering machine, "you have reached the John Doe residence. I also answer calls for Shoplifter's Anonymous. ..."
Aside from that, John cannot reasonably have his answering machine give out a long message about NicA, such as meeting times and locations. That's because everyone calling John, e.g. his friends, children, broker, etc. will have to listen to the same long recording about NicA meeting times and places. Option _4_ below (which is essentially this option plus voicemail) fixes that problem at additional cost.
Cost: About $29/month
For an additional $13/month above the cost of option _3_, one can get voice mail. The fundamentals of voice mail are explained in section _B1_, item _8_ above.
Briefly, this option consists of a 90 second outgoing recorded message, and also the option of recording up to 35 incoming messages (each up to 3 minutes in length). Additional outgoing message time costs $5/month per 90 seconds.
This option works well for everyone. Anyone who calls 333-NICA will get the voice mail message with the long recitation of meeting times and places, as intended. Anyone who calls 123-JOHN, such as his friends and children, will not get that recorded message, which is good too.
The only major drawback of this plan is the cost. $29/month comes to $348/year. In addition there is the one-time startup cost, plus the metered cost (5 cents per call + 1 cent per minute). Thus the first year cost is more like $400 - $500. Try to raise that by passing the hat at meetings, when there are only a couple groups with small attendance! And then, someone asks the inevitable question, "couldn't we do something more cost - effective with the $500, like advertising?"
Based on the attractive low cost of option _2_, I thought there must be some other way to use the cross-listing idea to get a low rate. Why not get say 4 small non-profits together who currently aren't listed in the phone book, and form an organization called "The Coalition". Let's say the 4 small organizations that form The Coalition are Debtors Anonymous, Nicotine Anonymous, Pills Anonymous, and Spenders Anonymous.
The Coalition would get a business phone number, and voice mail with four 90 second "blocks", Say the phone number the coalition is given is 777-COAL. The cost is as follows:
Business Phone number and listing ...... $16/mo
Voice mail with one 90-second block..... $13/mo
3 additional blocks (3 X 5) ............ $15/mo
4 cross-reference listings (4 X 1.50) .. $ 6/mo
------------------------------------------------
Total .................................. $50/mo
Cost per member organization (=50/4) ... $12.50/mo
Each of the member organizations of The Coalition would be listed in the phone books (in their appropriate places alphabetically in the gray pages, and in their appropriate categories in the yellow pages), like so:
Debtors Anonymous ............ 777-COAL
Nicotine Anonymous ........... 777-COAL
Pills Anonymous .............. 777-COAL
Spenders Anonymous ........... 777-COAL
This $12.50/month cost per organization is real reasonable, particulary considering that it includes voice mail. I'd imagine that each organization would just have a 90 second outgoing message. And that callers wouldn't be able to leave a message, so as to reduce complexity (i.e. the need for someone to check messages and call back). Although at no cost some or all organizations could allow callers to leave messages.
However, someone must agree to pay the bill. Say it is John D. He would also have to keep some kind of track of how many calls were being made to each organization. That's so that the metered costs (i.e. the 5 cents per call, 1 cents per each additional minute) would be paid by the appropriate organizations. (Although I suppose the 4 organizations could just be socialistic and divvy up the cost equally).
John D would also have to hassle with each of the 4 organizations to collect payments from them.
As an aside, what if John D was a saint and agreed to a system without voice mail? i.e. he (and his answering machine) would take all calls? The cost would be
Business Phone number and listing ...... $16/mo
4 cross-reference listings (4 X 1.50) .. $ 6/mo
------------------------------------------------
Total .................................. $22/mo
Cost per member organization (=22/4) ... $5.50/mo
That's very cheap, but John D would have to be a very special person to handle all calls for 4 organizations.
As another aside, what if 10 organizations were part of the coalition? And again assume that we wish to have the voice mail option (since anwering the phone for 10 organizations is far and away too much to expect from a volunteer). It turns out that the cost per member organization is:
Business Phone number and listing .......... $16/mo
Voice mail with 1 90-second block........... $13/mo
9 additional blocks (9 X 5) ................ $45/mo
10 cross-reference listings (10 X 1.50) .... $15/mo
---------------------------------------------------
Total ...................................... $89/mo
Cost per member organization (=89/10) ...... $8.90/mo
The above are some of the appropriate options from US West as I understand them, as of September 1997. I am not at all sure that I understand all of the details, so some of the above information is probably wrong (the devil is in the details, as they say).
U.S. West, for some reason, does not have anything in writing to explain these things.
For a while I thought I understood the U.S. West proposals. But when I presented the proposals to others at NicA meetings, I would get questions that I couldn't answer. There was nothing in writing from US West that I could refer to or show the NicA members, just my own prepared material and my notes. Then in a later discussion with US West, I got told some things contradictory to my earlier understanding. Again, this was a problem that wouldn't have happened if US West had provided adequate written information. By now, the October 28 deadline for getting a listing for the 1998 phone book was fast approaching, leaving little time for clarifying matters for myself and for the NicA membership. I also began to feel uncomfortable about the lack of anything in writing from US West. Therefore, we (Twin Cities NicA) decided it was best to table this project until next year.
The back and forth with US West and NicA membership at multiple meetings exhausted a lot of my time, meeting time, and calendar time. It took so much calendar time that we couldn't complete the effort by the October 28 deadline, even though we began this effort in earnest in early September.
As an alternative, while I was pursuing the phone book listing and phone service with U.S. West, I talked briefly to an answering service (which also offers simple voice mail services not involving a human operator). My limited experience was that they offered the same services for less than US West. And the answering service endeavored to keep things as simple as possible. But later when I asked some more questions, I got 2 different stories from 2 different people. As the October 28 deadline was getting too near, I decided to wait until next year to pursue these discussions.
Be aware that with an answering service, one must still contract with US West (or whatever your local phone company is) in order to be listed in the gray and yellow pages.
However, all in all, I felt that I had obtained much more information in much less time from the answering service than I did with US West. And despite the monthly fee that one must pay US West for the phone book listing, the combined cost of the answering service and the phone book listings was less than the same package of services and listings all from U.S. West.
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