Nonprofit Radio for July 20, 2012: Trim Tab Marketing & No More Crappy Corporate Partnerships

Big Nonprofit Ideas for the Other 95%

Sponsored by LAPA: Campaigns. Grants. Planning.

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Tony’s Guests:

James Heaton
James Heaton: Trim Tab Marketing

James Heaton is president and creative director of Tronvig Group. The metaphor of “trim tab” as one person who can move an entire society has professional and personal meaning for him. He explains how something small and seemingly insignificant can make a big difference in your marketing. And how to figure out what that small thing is.
 

Erica Hamilton & Venessa Mendenhall
Erica Hamilton & Venessa Mendenhall: No More Crappy Corporate Partnerships

Erica Hamilton, chief program officer for iMentor and Venessa Mendenhall, vice president of the fellows program at New York Needs You, want you to take a holistic approach to your corporate relationships. Your charity adds real value for companies and they have a lot more to offer than money.

 
 


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Hyre hello and welcome to the show. It’s tony martignetti non-profit radio big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent. I’m your aptly named host. I can’t express to you how much i wish. I hope i should say that you were with me last week. It was the one hundredth show last week. And i do hope you were here with me. Of course, that was all social media. Amy sample ward from the non-profit technology network was with me as well as all our three regular contributors. It was all social media. We had contests, we had prizes, and it was a terrific, great fun show. Thanks so much for listening. And if you didn’t catch it well, you know itunes this week. Trim tab marketing. James eaton is president and creative director of tronvig group. The metaphor of trim tab. As one person who can move an entire society has professional and personal meaning for him, he explains how something small and seemingly insignificant could make a big difference in your marketing and how to figure out what that small thing is. Also, no more crappy corporate relationships. Erica hamilton, chief program officer for i mentor. And vanessa mendenhall, vice president of the fellows program at new york, needs you want to take want you to take a holistic approach to your corporate relationships. Your charity adds real value for companies, and they have a lot more to offer you than just money on tony’s, take two between the shows between the segments. I’ll recap last week a little bit and there’s some stand up comedy video, also on my block, and that’s tony’s, take two this week. Right now, we take a break, and when we return, i’ll be with james eaton, and we’ll talk about trim tab marketing, stay with just you didn’t think that tooting getting, thinking things. You’re listening to the talking, alternate network, getting anything. E-giving cubine hi, i’m carol ward from the body mind wellness program. Listen to my show for ideas and information to help you live a healthier life in body, mind and spirit, you’ll hear from terrific guests who are experts in the areas of health, wellness and creativity. So join me every thursday at eleven a, m eastern standard time on talking alternative dot com professionals serving community. Are you stuck in your business or career trying to take your business to the next level, and it keeps hitting a wall? This is sam liebowitz, the conscious consultant. I will help you get to the root cause of your abundance issues and help move you forward in your life. Call me now and let’s. Create the future you dream of. Two, one, two, seven, two, one, eight, one, eight, three, that’s to one to seven to one, eight one eight three. The conscious consultant helping hunters. People be better business people. Dahna you’re listening to the talking alternative network. Welcome back to big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent. As always, you can join the conversation with us on twitter using the hashtag non-profit radio. Also, this show is sponsored by lap fund-raising and i’m very grateful for their support of the show with me now in the studio is james eaton, he’s president and creative director of tronvig group. He grew up in florida and left the u s at nineteen for an eight year odyssey in asia, where he had a near death experience in the north of tibet, became a terra baden buddhist monk in thailand and studied calligraphy in japan. He’s, fluent in japanese and proficient in chinese tronvig group, has worked for clients in a wide variety of business and non-profit categories including museums, community organizations, funds and think tanks. His philosophy is based on the power and efficiency of truth and importance of doing good in the world. James speaks on marketing and branding, and he blog’s at tronvig group dot com. I’m very pleased that his work and his very interesting background bring him to the studio. James welcome. Thank you. Pleasure to have you on the show. What is? Your definition of marketing. Marketing is tactical activity that you engage in on top of your brand messaging so that’s, very dense technical activity, your brand messaging, what does? What does it mean in your heart? So for example, marketing activity will get you a toe by particular toyota s o you’ll see an ad, you’ll say, wow, that’s a great price. I’m going to go buy that toyota, and but that needs to be built on a brand and it’s the brand that allows you to ally yourself within that that product and believe in it so that you will subsequently say, never buy another car other than a toyota for the rest of your life. So the marketing is tactical in the branding is strategic ah, the marketing ask youto to engage in a particular activity make this donation volunteermatch volunteers have to be all about money that’s right here beyond our board and that supported by your mission, your your brand or the the the notion in people’s mind of of why you exist and why you matter so ah there so marketing is essential as the communication tool too. Get out a request for specific activity and you want to do this all in your own voice, right? This is why marketing you matters that’s, right? You want to do it such that you are creating a sense of alignments with your with your organizational with your organizational brand, you want them to do what you want them to do. But then, at the end of the day, you also want them to believe it and believe in you and believe that they have done something good. And before they can believe in you, they have to know about you and there’s, where the right communications eso marketing is communications there’s an interesting statistic that just came out from nancy shorts, men’s blood getting attention, which says that eighty four percent of non-profits characterized their own messages as difficult to remember. Oh, my eighty four percent of non-profit difficult to remember difficulty. Remember how this is a communications, but they know it well, yeah, then and there’s nowhere this issue they know. So what we gonna do to cut through this so first? One thing that’s important is teo not be afraid of marketing when people think of marketing the i don’t get a little bit of cold feet like this is something that’s going to be costly it’s going to be in order for it to be effective it’s going to have to be big, and for some people it’s just a pejorative term. And for some people it’s a sort of term it’s ugly thing, it’s a it’s, a it’s, a it’s, a right it’s a for-profit or ah it’s a commercial activity that non-profit shouldn’t be engaged in, but actually because it is about communication if you i have an organization whose mission is good. Whose doing something good in the world, it’s almost a crime not to communicate that if you don’t communicate that thousands of people who are actually in alignment with what you do, who care deeply about what you do don’t know about it, right, you don’t want to hide and right, so marketing is your is a means two to get that out in your own voice, to those who are already predisposed to want what you do to to want to support what you do ah, so it’s not it’s, not about back-up a chain, you know, trying to create a marketing message like a ginsu knife, kind of like push, of course, it’s really about just explaining in ways i think old thirty second infomercials at four in the morning or too expensive. Anyway, it can’t be engaging in that. So put those aside no it’s about communicating the true value of of your offerings so that people can understand it with with, with clarity and and and an understanding of what there they need need or want to hear. So it’s this overlap this intersection between what you are and what you do and what they’re ready to listen to and to find that place and we’ll talk about we can talk about that a little more in in a minute, but don’t take over the show, we’ll get we’ll we’ll follow my agenda. Okay, okay, but we’ll get to that point. But you have some very good ideas. First about howto identify who these people are, who might be predisposed, and we have just about a minute before the break, and then we have lots of time after the break, so we just sort of tease the the your idea around finding the right people for your message. You, i have lots of information already, probably about your constituency, who gives you money? Who comes to your events, who visits your institution? Ah, that data. I cannot just sit idly at the, you know, in the corner somewhere. One of the things that an organization can do that can be tremendously effective in this is something that anyone can do, and it doesn’t require any money at all, and that is to take all that data and build it up into what we call personas teo to make of that information, eh dahna a really person, something un imaginary person that you can talk to that will that you can use toe bounce off your marketing ideas in your location idea. Okay, we’re going to talk about these personas after the break. Hope you stay with me. Trim tab marketing with james eaton, talking alternative radio, twenty four hours a day. Hi, i’m donna and i’m done were certified mediators, and i am a family and couples licensed therapists and author of please don’t buy me ice cream are show new beginnings is about helping you and your family recover financially and emotionally and start the beginning of your life will answer your questions on divorce, family court, co parenting, personal development, new relationships, blending families and more dahna and i will bring you to a place of empowerment and belief that even though marriages may end, families are forever join us every monday, starting september tenth at ten a m on talking alternative dot com are you fed up with talking points, rhetoric everywhere you turn left or right? Spin ideology no reality, in fact, its ideology over in tow, no more it’s time for action. Join me, larry shop a neo-sage tuesday nights nine to eleven easter for the ivory tower radio in the ivory tower will discuss what’s important to you society, politics, business and family. It’s provocative talk for the realist and the skeptic who want to know what’s really going on? What does it mean? What can be done about it? So gain special access to the ivory tower listen to me, larry. Sure you’re neo-sage tuesday nights nine to eleven new york time go to ivory tower radio dot com for details. That’s ivory tower radio dot com every tower is a great place to visit for both entertainment and education listening tuesday nights nine to eleven it will make you smarter money time, happiness, success, where’s your breakthrough? Join me, nora simpson, as i bring you real world tools for combining financial smarts with spiritual purpose. As a consultant to ceos, i’ve helped produce clear, measurable financial results while expanding integrity, passion and joy share my journey as we apply the science of achievement and the art of fulfillment to create breakthroughs for people across the world. The people of creation nation listened to norah simpson’s creation nation fridays at twelve noon eastern on talking alternative dot com. Hey, all you crazy listeners looking to boost your business? Why not advertise on talking alternative with very reasonable rates? Interested simply email at info at talking alternative dot com hi, i’m kate piela, executive director of dance new amsterdam and you’re listening to tony martignetti non-profit radio big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five present. So let’s, look a little more into these these personas that maybe could be a donor or could be a potential boardmember or maybe some other kind of volunteer. Or how do we identify these people? You want to think about who engages with your organization and essentially list them out first by type? You know we have donorsearch thes general characteristics age, you know, sixty five who’s retired who’s, you know, has time now too volunteer at the organization and so forth. So you you’ll know these people are but what you need to do is too create hey ah, an amalgam of a couple different people, but then make that into a persona that is very specific. So it has a name birthday on address. Particular children, particular pet peeves. Interests dahna such that you can actually write a journal entry and there in their head a ziff you were them. And of course, you could have multiple personas for each category. You wanna have a view percent might be a teenager. That’s, right? I also be your retiree that’s, right? You want to create a number of them? I think the maximum number is about nine, but you want to have these very specific persons and you can, you know, grab a picture off the internet, give them a face, make them as real as possible, and you can actually bring them to meeting. What else do we know about them? What? Where they shop exactly where they shop? What? That, what websites they visit? You know what they do in their free time, what their secret fears are, what would be the what would be the worst thing that could possibly imagine happening to them in their entire life? Life you so that you create something that’s sort of a sort of psychologically formed imaginary person, and you give it a name and a face, and you use that to look at what you’re doing. Look at oh, we’re going to send this appeal letter out. Well, what would george think of that? And you be george, read the letter and say, well, this is this part of the letter is silly, i don’t i don’t care about that. So it gives you this consumer. Ah, perspective on what it is that you’re trying to say, and it can make it substantially better and it takes some work, but it doesn’t really cost you anything to put this put these personas together and it doesn’t cost you anything to bring them to a meeting and some people, like physically, like, have a little alright stand on then or do these people talk in the meeting? What are we doing with them? You could so yes, they will criticize and review what you’re planning on doing that the actual program that you’re going to going to put out there, and that gives you this view that internally you don’t have, um and it’s like focus group almost but you but you’ve got this sort of imaginary person in the room and this can be extremely beneficial. If particularly you, then sort of look at your organization, you create a kind of like a venn diagram. What do we do? What we do this and we do this and we do this and he’s like the three areas of our of our activity. Where do these personas overlay on that you could like? You have little chest piece is almost like where did they sit on this thing? And where is our sweet spot? That is, that is going to capture the broadest group of our constituents. And how do we need to talk to them? Who are they? And what language did they understand and will make sense to them? You can then tail your broad brand message. Your your your overall institutional organizational messaging to speak to them it’s a hundred times more of what you’re already already writing in their voice. I mean, you said you can even write their journalist that’s, right? Right? To write to them right to a specific person and not to this sort of amorphous, fuzzy general audience. And it will make whatever you’re doing one hundred times better. Okay, who do you who should be involved in creating these personas? Well, that’s an interesting thing and and it’s. Okay, say that’s a good question. It is a great. Even though i admonished you before you can say that’s a good question, that’s allowed. Can i tell a little story about this? Sure welcome. Who should? Who should be involved in understanding the consumer’s perspective in relation to an organization? The best answer is everyone that may be impractical, but arnel lehman, the director of the of the brooklyn museum who i think has a kind of a visionary andan adherent to trim, to have marketing, whether he recognises it or not initiated a few months back. A new program on this institution wide program where he requires every single person in the institution, whether the c f o the chief curator or a research associate to sign up on a sheet or not maintenance maintenance on a rolling basis. Uh, spend an hour on the floor of the museum interacting with the general public. Yeah, and just a knauer or an hour week or just a now on a rotating basis. So i don’t know how many employees they have. Quite a few so proudly takes a while to get through that cycle, and i think he instituted this, you know, basically with a switch oven avenida act in this case, and i think there was quite a bit of resistance internally to this. But what this does is it gives everyone that kind of on the ground retail insight about the experience of the exhibitions at that museum. Uh, the insights gained there will have, eh, a long term sort of cascading impact on improving everything that they do because they’ll be aware of the ultimate final on the ground, sort of experienced how people are using that museum because they’re interacting with absolutely answering their cars they get so they’re watching. Maybe even yes. And i went to an unrelated meeting there recently. And when i came out of the meeting, i went into the great hall and there was a fantastic exhibition there, and i had to tell somebody about it. So i walked overto this man who looked official, and i started saying, this is an absolutely fantastic exhibition and, well, what was it? What was it was thie connecting cultures in there in the great hall? Okay? And we started up what turned into a forty five minute conversation about the exhibition and the institution and how it relates to the public. And it turns out that he was serving his his one hour intends to come the quarters of his three quarters of his one hour, i think, to both of our both of our ar benefits and that it was actually edward bleiberg who’s thie, curator of egyptian classical in ancient greece. Turner so but what he learned from you in that forty five minutes. Do you think it was very interesting because he had contributed to that exhibition and he was resistant to the notion of that exhibition? And i spent, like, fifteen minutes extolling how sort of basically saying why? I thought the exhibition was great. And in fact i brought my kids to the exhibition that the following saturday and they thought it was great. So he was getting retail in sight. He was getting what? Ah, i as the actual, like coming to it, knowing nothing about the background or the struggles that led to that exhibition, but the the actual user interface he was getting a firsthand account of how his work and the work of all the other characters who worked on that played out on the and this is the this’s, the tactical experiential level which makes all the difference for the success or failure of a particular exhibition, and ultimately of the institution and all that. And in order for that to happen all aren’t a lehman had to do is just have this idea. Yes didn’t cost him a thing. And this would obviously contribute to the creation of the personas. Yes. Okay. James eaton is president and creative director of tronvig group, which you’ll find at tronvig t r o n v g group. Dot com. What is tronvig yeah, that’s. My great uncles name. Carl tronvig emigrated to the united states in the nineteenth century and went in north dakota. Okay, south hoexter in memory, and we’re gonna talk a little about another family member of yours shortly. Let’s, talk about the trim tab. What? What is it? What’s. A trim tab. And why is this trim tab? Marketing trim town is a little device. The edge of a rudder that helps it turn. But the importance of the trim tab is a metaphor is let’s. Say you’re a child and you’re in a bathtub. And you have a little replica. A miniature replica of the queen elizabeth to this huge ocean liner and it’s floating in the bathtub. And you want to turn it well, the natural reaction would have to be in the tub with my brother. Do i? I hated bathing in my brother. You want to turn the ships and i’m there alone, we think my little boat. So you touched the bow right? To turn the ship. You wanted to go left. So you you touch the touch the bow and that turns the ship. But if you had an actual queen elizabeth to ocean liner and you wanted to turn it by touching the bow, the force required to move the ship by touching the bow is astronomical. So how does this ship actually turn the rudder? Right? The rudder is in. Fact, the size of a house so i can’t turn it with my own strength. So in fact, on the end of the writer there’s, a little tiny rudder, i called a trim tab if it turns in the opposite directions writer creates a vacuum and allows the rider to swing easily the direction that you wanted to go. Okay, so now if i take that model and i live out of the water and i tried to figure out what makes this ship turn it’s going to be very difficult for me to understand that it’s, that little tiny trim tab on the tip of the rudder on the rather writer on the redder, they’re actually allows me to easily turn this ship. So this notion of the obvious small changes that can turn the whole organization is what we’re talking about. This is the notion of a trim tab this’s finding those things that that actually can steer the whole system in the direction you want but are not big. They’re not costly, they’re not. We have this idea that big solutions are big problems have to be solved with big answers. That and marketing is one of these big answers it’s like, oh, well, we need to have more money. Well, let’s, let’s mount a big marketing dr and that this big marketing drive is going to give us big results. That notion is flawed and that’s good news for small and midsize charity is very good news in the fact of the matter is that if you think about the system and you think deeply enough about changes that can be made at the user experience level, there are some very minor that’s what i say when i say tactical, they’re very minor changes that can be made that can have the same effect as these big marketing programs were. We recently did a thing for the bronx museum where we were asked to get more people to come into the museum. Ah wei have a certain amount of money, and they wanted to do a traditional marketing program, you know, bust signs, bus shelters, subway posters and so forth, which we did, but we set aside a little bit of that money to do something else that they didn’t really ask us to do. And that was to change the sign ege on the door. And the windows of this at the street level of the museum. Okay, that thousand dollars from the however many thousand dollars, but what we had was the best money we’ve got because that’s, what actually brought people? How do you know that? How do you know that the door signing and the windows made the difference? Because when we were, i hope you’ve a few a few things one when we were talking to people as they were walking on the right on the grand concourse, they’ve been there for forty years. Ah, and we were asking people on the street will what’s this, and they were saying, i don’t know they’re working buy-in causevox busy. Is that? Is that a courthouse? I don’t know. And if you looked at it, then considering okay, why don’t they know? Well, let’s, look at it. Oh, okay. There’s, the sign the sign is is way up there over the top of the door and there’s a flag way up there. But people tend not to really look up when they’re walking down the street guy. So and it’s a beautiful building. But there was nothing on the front door that you could see that the windows there wasn’t really anything that was big and obvious telling you what this was and and they were announcing in this case that they were free. So we put big orange signs in all of these places that you would see on the street and lo and behold, people walk. How come how can charities find the trim tab? The the example that i give you that i give you a minute ago about understanding who you’re talking to and how they see you is a is a is a kind of trim to have activity personas as a function of your spending the time because i think any trim tab action requires a kind of research it requires thought you’ve got to find that thing it’s not going to be obvious it’s not going to be the the i mean, the thing that’s right there in front of you, it won’t be the big an obvious thing, so you have to look at your system uh, how does it operate? What mental models are you operating with? Like what is what is this? And this is also how personas are interesting because they get you out of your mental models your marketing department might have its own vision of, like what? What the organization is or what have you and you we work psychologically with this kind of shorthand? We don’t necessarily think through every step along the way that gets us to a particular decision. We we use shortcuts and mental models are a shortcut, and we have them for our for our organizations and and the way we operate and also who we think we’re talking to. Bye. That’s what the specificity of these personas? Why it’s so important? Because you’re getting at something that breaks through these short hand models that we have of, well, we have this, you know, the retired over sixty five crowded and is too superficial, yeah, it’s the need to get into the detail we need to get in. We didn’t think we need to talk to the time you know, the curmudgeon, right, who comes every saturday and, you know, and complaints to the guard, you’ve got to get into his head and start talking to him, and then he will break down your you’re in perfectly formed mental models and help you create useful. Ones we have just a minute before we have to go this trim tab metaphor has a personal resonance with you, explain. Tell listeners why that is. Yes, well, the notion is not applied to marketing. It may be mine, but it’s, not mine at all, in the sense that my great great uncle, buckminster fuller, whose people know as the inventor of the geodesic dome, futurist designer argast maximilian of the dye maxie and map, and maxine carr, and and the geodesic dome, which everyone knows because it’s, the lightest, most cost efficient, strongest structure in the world and your uncle, has this on his on his tombstone. Great uncle martignetti he on his tombstone, has engraved. Call me trim tab. Great nephew of buckminster fuller, james eaton is the president in creative director of tronvig group. You’ll find his blaga tronvig group, dot com, james ariel, pleasure having you on the show. Thank you, thank you so much. My pleasure. We take a break when we returned tony’s take to stay with me, talking alternative radio, twenty four hours a day. Hi, this is nancy taito from speaks. Been radio speaks. Been. Radio is an exploration of the world of communication, how it happens in how to make it better, because the quality of your communication has a direct impact on the quality of your life. Tune in monday’s at two pm on talking alternative dot com, where i’ll be interviewing experts from business, academia, the arts and new thought. Join me mondays at two p m and get all your communications questions answered on speaks been radio. Hi, i’m carol ward from the body mind wellness program. Listen to my show for ideas and information to help you live a healthier life in body, mind and spirit. You hear from terrific guests who are experts in the areas of health, wellness and creativity. So join me every thursday at eleven a, m eastern standard time on talking alternative dot com professionals serving community. Money, time, happiness, success, where’s, your breakthrough. Join me, nora simpson, as i bring you real world tools for combining financial smarts with spiritual purpose. As a consultant to ceos, i’ve helped produce clear, measurable financial results while expanding integrity, passion and joy. Share my journey as we apply the science of achievement and the art of fulfillment. To create breakthroughs for people across the world. The people of creation nation listened to norah simpson’s creation nation. Fridays at twelve noon eastern on talking alternative dot com. Hey, all you crazy listeners looking to boost your business, why not advertise on talking alternative with very reasonable rates? Interested simply email at info at talking alternative dot com. Welcome back to tony martignetti non-profit radio it’s. Time for tony’s, take two at roughly thirty two minutes into the hour. My block this week has a list of last week’s contest winners i know you were with me. You had to have heard last week’s hundredth show i just know you did. And so on my block this week, i have all the contest winners listed and also links to a couple of stand up comedy videos from a set i did at gotham comedy club in new york city earlier this earlier this year. I was just at gotham two days ago, and i’m grateful to the people who came out wednesday night, including my parents, that’s, all on my blogged at tony martignetti dot com, you’ll find the winners and the link to a couple of videos at tony martignetti dot com, and that is tony’s take two for friday, july twentieth, the twenty ninth show of the year and show number one hundred and one i’m going to stop counting the shows now. Right now i have a pre recorded interview for you. No more crappy corporate relationships. This is from fund-raising day in new york. City ah, this past june, and here is that interview with erica hamilton and vanessa mendenhall. Welcome to tony martignetti non-profit radio coverage of fund-raising day two thousand twelve, we’re at the marriott marquis new york city, right in times square hosted by the association of fund-raising professionals, greater new york city chapter. And with me now is erica hamilton she’s, chief program officer for my mentor, and vanessa mendenhall, vice president of the fellows program at new york. Needs you, ladies welcome think, honey it’s a pleasure to have you your seminar topic was building strategic corporate partnerships. Erica what? What are charities you think not doing right? Generally, and we’ll have plenty of time for details around their corporate sponsorship relationships. Sure. So i think one of the key things child you need to focus on is a holistic approach, which is something we talked about in the session. So is thinking about how to approach corporate partners with a variety of a level of ass. So it’s not just about funding it’s about in-kind donation it’s about employee engagement. It’s about really hearing what the corporate sponsor needs in the partnership. Okay, and was your topic just around sponsorships was also include corporate foundation giving. It was about both, both. So the holistic. So the entire, the entire relationship? Exactly. Okay, um, so you’re recommendations include building ah, relationship let’s. Vanessa, why don’t you start us off? How do we have a relationship with these big corporations? That’s. Right? Well, so in addition to holistic relationships, we talked about the importance of relationships being reciprocal on. So we talked about the importance of establishing a two way street. So you have a understanding of what that corporate partner is seeking to get from you. You nourishing of how they measure success and how they report the success of their investments to their stakeholders, whether that’s, their boss, or whether it’s their board of directors. Oh, and you, you understand what you are asking as well, and you have a a holistic ask you’re asking for more than just money. We also talked about importance of flexibility, thinking outside the box and corporate partnerships on being willing to try something new and try something different if something’s not working. Okay, let’s, let’s, talk about some of these things. Reciprocity. What? What? What is the charity case? What? How do they make their case? Erica, that being associated with us is good for your brand. So a lot of what we talked about was having organizations really helped her firm understand how employee engagement and social enterprise does things to drive employees and gay. Even with the firm. In terms of pretension, it attracts new employees to the firm. It raises brand awareness in terms of the firm’s efforts beyond just a peon l or profit and loss. It’s about corporate social responsibility. Okay. And what do some of these employee engagement programs look like? How can we engage them? Yeah, totally. So i work in heimans work, which is a nonprofit that basically engages adults to mentor high school students to apply to and go to college. And so we offer opportunities for corporations to give funding, but then tow also engage their employees to become volunteers in our program as well. Okay, yeah, absolutely. About for you, vanessa. What does employee engagement look like? All right, we’re also a mentoring program. And so we also engaged engaged employees to be mentors in our program. New york needs you worked with first generation college students, so we work in the next stage we work with, students have gotten into college, but we help them graduate from college and in transition into careers. We also we talked a lot about the importance of using highly skilled volunteers in a smart way in your organization. And so we also offer volunteers a way to leverage their skills, whether they know how to do marketing, whether they help with strategic planning, a huge thinking we’re actually in the process of writing our street your plan right now and we’re involving about ten volunteers in the process in a heavy way. Okay? And so we give volunteers away to engage their minds on their talents in our organization and helping us steer the ship, helping us figure out where we’re going next as a non-profit are either of you familiar with the the site? Catch a fire? Yes. Ok, i’ve had rachel chung seo on the show when speaking of next-gen way were at next-gen just like we are here today. Okay on. And they do exactly what you’re describing exactly high that was a high functioning form. What really skilled highly skilled batches, right? Okay, um, so so there is value for the corporation and we need so you’re supposed to go in and ask confidence? Vanessa, right? Not sort of hat in hand and humble. I think you want to ask questions and listen in the very first meeting with the new corporation, you want to spend eighty percent of you your time at least asking questions to find out what their double bottom linus again, how they measure their success, what’s important to them what their values are on ly after you get that information from them, obviously you want to do your research before you walk in, but ask those questions, understand think of them like a client, in a sense, you know, i want to understand what you’re trying to accomplish and how that potentially aligns with artwork. Then you talk about your program so your pitch shouldn’t be the thing that you leave with. You really should listen first, then talk about your program in a way that’s using the same language they’re using so that you can train your organization and help them see how it fits in alliance with their mission. But it sounds. Like this is a process that could take a couple of meetings, it certainly could, and it should be, i mean, if it’s a really relationship, if you’re not just asking for money, it should be on ongoing conversation. For those of you watching the video, we’re not having an earthquake in new york city background is shaking because we’re the last ones here. If we could pan around the room, you would see bear pipes and walls were the very last ones here, and so the workers are cleaning up the booth behind us to the end, to the left of us and that’s shaking and causing an earthquake like momentum, and maybe we’ll get a picture of what it looks like. We’ll put that on the on the facebook page to a company that we have remarkable focus, right way we’re all we’re all still in focus, so i wouldn’t want to ask you what you were just saying. I was gonna ask follow-up for erica, but i don’t remember what exactly we were talking about listening, asking a lot of questions oh, great everywhere what? Coaching you, i had one thing can add murcott e i was going to say no, no, no, i was going to say, when the relationship is most successful, what you inevitably ends up with is the organization itself doesn’t have to be the one doing the asking ends up being the employees in the corporate structure that air volunteering with our program that come and make the ask and that’s one of the most powerful asked a corporation responds to so that’s a great place for an organization intent towards okay, thank you very much for that because it made allowed me to remember my question. Great, which was going to be for you if this is going to be a multi meeting, ask multi meeting relationship building. What about the fear that we won’t get a second meeting? Yeah, the first meeting is all just listening and gathering information. If i haven’t hooked them in my first meeting, i may never get a second meeting. I have to ask you the first. Yes. Now why is that wrong? Yeah, i think you have to figure out there’s some funders that you’re gonna want to take the long view. With their their funders that we work with you in the first several years of asks never gave funding we thought were not engaged with our mission. We’re not interested, and at some point down the road, whether it be a change of staff member on their side or a change in how we’re positioning our work with the work they’re trying to fund, it clicked. And so one thing i would urge non-profits to do is not feel this rush to get funding as a thie the measure of success quickly in a corporate partnership. It’s think about developing a relationship, the success maybe getting space for an event that might be a wind. It’s figured out how to get your foot in the door, if you would. Okay, okay. All right. So and again, that really hearkens back to the holistic approach is not all about the money akeley want. Would you want to build a relationship? And i mean, even if after the first meeting vanessa, if there’s no interest, it just isn’t alignment. Then both parties will know that. Then there, then there’s no point in going further. Sure that’s, right. But going back to what? Erica was saying before the importance of having a volunteer who’s affiliated with your organization who works for that corporation in that meeting, with you opening the doors for you, helping you build the relationship goes a very long way. And in my experience, you end up with meetings, her actions to take afterwards, whenever you have a volunteer engaged. So one of the things that i think is really important when you’re thinking about corporate engagement. It really all begins with volunteer engagement. In my mind, you know, you don’t want to be making cold calls. That is not the way to approach, you know, relationship. Elearning corporations. You want people inside those organizations advocating for you. And to do that, you need volunteers that are inspired, that are engaged and feel sense of owners. Oh, be a program. You’re listening to the talking alternative network. Have you ever considered consulting a road map when you feel you need help getting to your destination when the normal path seems blocked? A little help can come in handy when choosing an alternate route. Your natal chart is a map of your potentials. It addresses relationships, finance, business, health and, above all, creativity. Current planetary cycles can either support or challenge your objectives. I’m montgomery taylor. 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Today, your greatest athletic performance is just a phone call away at eight a one six zero four zero two nine four or visit aspire consulting. Dot vp web motivational coaching for athletic excellence aspire to greatness. Talking. Duitz durney i mean, it could happen to that people who are volunteering go to their corporation instead of coming to you and saying exactly earlier way, want more engaged, they might go to their company and say, why can’t? This is a fantastic mission and, yes, here’s the alignment with our world. Yes, why can’t we be doing more of that shit happens all at a home game? Yeah, zoho, exactly, yeah, that’s. Wonderful. Then you get the call. It’s. Always nice to be called once in a while, it is nice to be pursued. It happens every once in a while, like dating. How do we figure out? Oppcoll? What? What is going to be most appealing? How do we get to that double bottom line in the first meeting, right? But what kinds of questions that we ask it? I i think before you’re walking in and we talked about this in the session, it’s being very well researched, you’ve gotta do your diligence like just very clearly and it’s diligence in the general sense of online and, you know, the regular library type of research, but it’s also diligence talk to people that the firm is funding, those are going to be the best insights you’re going to get no williams of approach really well. Other organizations that are getting funding help, organizations that are seeking funding, aren’t they fearful that this is a zero sum game and what you get? I’m going to lose. Yeah, so typically what i found it is if an organization is already getting funding, they’re less fearful about partnering and sharing information. If it’s, another organization seeking funding simultaneously that’s a little bit more challenging or what, but sometimes you find collaboration at some of them, but also good i was gonna say, and this is why you want non-profit partnerships. You know, and at new york needs you, we have a team. The tragic partnerships team it’s not primarily focused on developments, actually focused on relationship building with corporations with non-profits with government with, with kind of any any anti out there that we want to work with, and we developed formal partnership zoho non-profits to help with this kind of knowledge sharing and it’s kinda relationship building and helps us with corporations. We go into a corporation, and they say, oh, yes, we were familiar with mentoring we’ve worked with, i’m entering before so that’s great there there, partner of ours there for their kids to our programs, it really helps boost our credibility. Andi helps establish us is a real participant in the community when when you have those those establish non-profit partnerships. Okay, erica, another another possibility for the doing your due diligence research would be talking to the people who are volunteering for you from the corporation, right? What’s the culture i mean can’t they can’t give you enormous and so they do that’s a brilliant one and what they’re also help with the way he’s. Very brilliant. Very brilliant. Okay, what? What? They’re also helpful. With is identifying the appropriate contact sometimes what you’ll find up corporate entities is it’s, not just one point of contact it maybe multiple it maybe contacts you may not consider so a great concept. We’re talking about it’s not always the foundations of the csr sometimes business units within a corporate issues. Yes, our twenty martignetti munter non-profit radio. We have drug in jail. What? What what’s? The csr may not know the csr thank you. Let me try to get parole it’s a corporate social responsibility. So just basically that the bigger enterprise inc pursues to be more involved in community impact and reinvestment in those kinds of things. But what we were saying is sometimes like a bee bin is within a corporation has money for strategic initiatives just at their discretion. They khun spend it’s not through the bigger corporate entity. You would only know that if an employee can give you that insight for their great moles, as we call them. Okay, yeah. Suppose we show our research and we’ve had two or three meetings on dh. We have ah, decent number of volunteers from that company helping us, but we didn’t get any we didn’t get the funding for our run walk that we really wanted to that we didn’t get that seventy five thousand dollars sponsorship that we wanted for the run walk. Vanessa, what? Where do we go is this is the end of relationship? Absolutely not and what you really that’s, why we talk about having multiple types of asks, you know, almost like a menu of options. One of my famous favorite non-profit executive director’s guy named little perry. We’re in space brothers, big sisters, and down in tennessee, he talks about if you have a menu of options, you can you can almost set it up like, you know, you can choose any of these options. The only thing you can’t choose to do nothing, right? So you give people a lot of options, a lot of ways they can engage in support, your organization, you get that foot in the door, they might start small, you know? But the more they get to know your organization, the stronger relationships they build with multiple staff members, volunteers, the more likely they’re going to be to give next year, so give them all those options and be creative about what? You’re asking for it from your partners, ok? And that’s really parallel with advice around individual giving also, exactly people don’t just ask for one one gift we asked for, uh, assortment on dh solicitation has lots of choices after that. If one thing doesn’t sound good, erica, is there something you wanted to add to what vanessa said? I think as well, how could you tell that you’re very effusive you in your desire to speak with your flailing arms? Because if you’re not watching the video, you’re watching the video it’s an earthquake and not watching the video erica’s jumping up and down, raising her hand, shooting it up like a third grader? I love it. The only thing i’m gonna add was one of the the strongest messages you consent to a corporation in terms of how mature program is valued is dollars for doers and that’s, a program where corporations actually give funding to employees that employees can appropriate to certain non-profits organizations it’s, typically based on hours of service. So you are an employee of goldman sachs. They have a threshold which says, if you volunteer a thousand dollars, the firm will donate a thousand hours will donate a thousand dollars on your behalf when you can do that kind of money from your employees. Volunteered face. It speaks volumes to a foundation or corporate entity, about how embedded you are and how much they aren’t aligned with you, and they want to be so that’s. Also great. Bottoms up, strapped. Where’d you call that donors for dollars for doers is sometimes a ton of companies have doers, is not the scotch. We’re not you, and i will do a shot thousand dollars it’s. Not that way. I don’t even drink. Durney okay, what? I think i’ve exhausted really well, okay, no, i haven’t suppose you did get the seventy five thousand dollars sponsorship, and you still have the nice, robust number of volunteers, and maybe there was some maybe there’s another form of engagement? How do we how do we keep the ball going when we don’t need something from them immediately? It’s not a one way relationship that way don’t really have anything to say. What do we talk about until the next time we need a sponsor? One of things we talked about the session is the importance of events in inviting them to your events, trying to kate create vips, experiences for them so they feel special. So for insisted they come to one of your training sessions, setting aside special time for them to meet with some of your students, you know, doing special things like that and showing up at their events if they have an event for some of their clients or they have special, you know, cocktails or dinners or anything like that show up, wouldn’t they love to show you off as the charities that way, it has to be a two. Way street, so encourage those invitations that wei will send representatives and we’ll send in your case, his students, many even share absolutely done since erica, have you sent students all the time? All the time we send them out. Sometimes corporations will do their own, like employee engagement days, which just about getting more employees to volunteer, period, and we’ll send out mentees mentors, pairs staff members, whatever it takes to help them achieve their goals because we all win. So yeah, for those of you’re not watching the video. I love you, john. Can you get a mike on that fly away like a fly? I don’t believe it’s a it’s, it’s, espionage somebody else’s, it’s a little robot it’s somebody else’s show trying to steal our contract. Believe way are really this is desolate here. All right, well, we have, like, just another minute or so, vanessa, what else? What else did you talk about in your in your program that we haven’t talked about here? Sure. S o i think one of the other important aspects of corporate giving is teo there’s. A few there’s. A few things to watch out for. Write a few pitfalls. That you want to avoid. So one of the pitfalls that we talked about was making sure that everyone your organization particularly, you know, top level staff, but the organization knows who your major corporate partners are. Ah, it’s a major embarrassment, if, you know, one of your staff members meet somebody who works at csr, bank of america, golden sachs or whoever and doesn’t know that they’re one of your top partners, that is a major thing to avoid. And so you really it’s important to communicate to your entire organization, who you’re working with and at what level they’re donating, i think it’s also really important. Um, actually, do you have another point? Well, one thing i was going to say a tidbit for you that we didn’t go into detail on the session was the need to really be able to communicate the impact of whatever it is the corporate sponsors investing in. So when you’re going in with the ass being very clear on how you’re going to measure success up front that way, when it comes time for the end of the granite, one of the new you can clearly communicate your goals, your accomplishments. What you’ve achieved with partnership funding. Okay, so, so sort of playing off the expectations from the beginning. Exactly. You could say expectations one through four. Check. Check. Check. Check. Exactly. But where do we go now? How do we make a bigger? Okay, ladies, we’re gonna leave it there. Thank you very much. Neo-sage life closest to me is right. Next to me is vanessa mendenhall and she’s, the vice president of the fellows program for new york. Needs you. And erica hamilton is chief program officer for my mentor. Ladies, i thank you very much was real pleasure. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Twenty martignetti non-profit radio. The last vestige of fund-raising day two thousand twelve. Then nobody else will utter that phrase. Because there’s, nobody else in the room the hotel has been evacuated. So hotel is empty. Forty seven stories. The marriott marquis empty on. This was fund-raising day two thousand twelve. Our coverage. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. My thanks to everyone at fund-raising day for ah, all their help. We were on the exhibit floor that day. And, of course, thanks to erica and vanessa. Also also want to thank james eaton for being a guest in the studio today next week. Arts and culture building bust joanna waronker withs is an associate at the university of chicago’s cultural policy center. She co authored a study of the major building boom of museums performing arts centers in theaters in the u s from nineteen, ninety four to two thousand eight, he studied five hundred organizations and seven hundred building projects, ranging from four million dollars to three hundred and thirty five million dollars. She and i will talk about the lessons from that research the show is all over social media, you know you can’t make a click without having a head on collision with tony martignetti non-profit radio, you know, we’re on facebook, you know we have the new linked in group join the group, see us on facebook, you know you can get weekly radio email alerts. You conjoined that list on facebook? You know we’re on twitter hashtag non-profit radio use it, use it wildly you can follow me on where we’re also on itunes non-profit radio dot net takes you to our itunes paige i’m on foursquare. We can connect their connect in all these different ways. What does it mean when a cause long out of the spotlight raises one point six million dollars in just two years, an idea grows into a powerhouse, helping one hundred seventy thousand people each year. And when an agency raises three point eight million dollars in government grants in six weeks, it means lap a has done its job. 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