A View From the Chair of the Board - Part 2
Last month, I mentioned that I have recently been elected as the Chair of the Board of a non-profit organization.
This experience has given me a different perspective on the management of an organization.
In the June Musings, I wrote about the priority of increasing annual giving.
This month, I want to discuss the effort to increase our profile within the community that we serve.
This organization has an important mission, but is not well known in the general community that it serves.
Or should I say that it is not well known within the community that it could serve.
Just to refresh your memory, this organization is very much a grass roots organization.
The staff is small and they are stretched very thin, so the board is a working board.
We have established a board committee to help to address this issue.
We are identifying which of the groups that we serve are most likely and able to use our services.
The marketing efforts will then be targeted to those groups.
And, not unlike cultivating potential donors, we are building relationships with key people in these groups to increase awareness regarding our mission.
This means educating the key people within the units so they can become accomplished spokespeople for our efforts.
It also means helping them understand the benefits that our organization has for their members.
We will enlist some of those individuals as volunteer spokespeople this fall.
By raising our profile, we hope to double the number of people who use our services, therefore double the number of people who understand the importance of the mission and increase the number of potential supporters of the organization.
This is the benefit only in the short term.
Over the next two years, we hope to increase the number of people reached by five times.
That is, a 500% growth in people reached and lives improved.
Yes, it is a hefty goal, but one we believe is achievable.
We believe that not only will this effort raise the profit of the organization and increase the number of people that we serve, but it will also give us an expanded pool of potential donors in a few months.
And we do need an expanded pool of donors in order to reach our fundraising goals.
Not the Circle of Life, but the never ending circle necessary for our organizations to fulfill their mission! Stay tuned for part 3 in August.
Mary Ellen If you live in the DC area, join me on September 22nd at the Fundraising Basics workshop for CEO's and board members.
Contact me at maryellen@sequoiaphilanthropic.
com for more information.
This experience has given me a different perspective on the management of an organization.
In the June Musings, I wrote about the priority of increasing annual giving.
This month, I want to discuss the effort to increase our profile within the community that we serve.
This organization has an important mission, but is not well known in the general community that it serves.
Or should I say that it is not well known within the community that it could serve.
Just to refresh your memory, this organization is very much a grass roots organization.
The staff is small and they are stretched very thin, so the board is a working board.
We have established a board committee to help to address this issue.
We are identifying which of the groups that we serve are most likely and able to use our services.
The marketing efforts will then be targeted to those groups.
And, not unlike cultivating potential donors, we are building relationships with key people in these groups to increase awareness regarding our mission.
This means educating the key people within the units so they can become accomplished spokespeople for our efforts.
It also means helping them understand the benefits that our organization has for their members.
We will enlist some of those individuals as volunteer spokespeople this fall.
By raising our profile, we hope to double the number of people who use our services, therefore double the number of people who understand the importance of the mission and increase the number of potential supporters of the organization.
This is the benefit only in the short term.
Over the next two years, we hope to increase the number of people reached by five times.
That is, a 500% growth in people reached and lives improved.
Yes, it is a hefty goal, but one we believe is achievable.
We believe that not only will this effort raise the profit of the organization and increase the number of people that we serve, but it will also give us an expanded pool of potential donors in a few months.
And we do need an expanded pool of donors in order to reach our fundraising goals.
Not the Circle of Life, but the never ending circle necessary for our organizations to fulfill their mission! Stay tuned for part 3 in August.
Mary Ellen If you live in the DC area, join me on September 22nd at the Fundraising Basics workshop for CEO's and board members.
Contact me at maryellen@sequoiaphilanthropic.
com for more information.
Source...