In This Issue: Co-Branding - How To Catch the Big One! Top 10 Reasons Special Events Can Fail KEY STEPS FOR STRATEGIC GRANT WRITING Coming in 2009 - Exploration™ Management by Assessment Two Great Books Available Now Online Book Order Form How Can I Help You? Take This Quickie Quiz What People Say About Jean Block Sign Up for Future Newsletters! If you find this newsletter helpful and interesting, there’s only one way to keep receiving it  - become a part of the email subscription list. If your email address changes or you want to add a second address, just send me an email with the new or additional information so you don’t miss out on a single issue. IMPORTANT: Remember to include your email address printed carefully and clearly! THANKS! Click here for the electronic form "I love your newsletter! It's refreshing, fun  and filled with helpful hints" Toni Paglia, Director of Development, The ARC Syracuse, New York

This article is Part I of a series of articles on Co-Branding, written by Lauren Romero, a consultant with remarkable experience. See her bio at the end and contact her to learn more.

How to Catch The Big One - Hooking The Co-Branding Partner that Will Commit

The keys to co-branding success are aligning the right for profit brand with your cause, exploring and envisioning the optimal relationships, listening to stakeholders, lining up the right resources, establishing realistic mutual expectations and goals, and establishing and sustaining a relationship that promotes open communication. This article will discuss how to align the right brand partner.

1. Fish where the fish are. You don’t do that until you know what kind of fish you’re after, right? So figure out which big brands seem to make the most sense from a strategic standpoint.

• Is their audience the same as yours? Could it be?
• How would it benefit their brand to partner with your cause?

Once you know this, you’ve figured out the target. Now, you need a strategy for hitting that target. I suggest you first read all that they’ve ever published about themselves, then all that others have published about them. If your target is a public company, you can start with their three most recent annual reports. Then, place yourself where they are likely to congregate. You might be tempted to attend conventions, and certainly face to face is usually best, especially if you have extroverted and charismatic people in your organization you can send to make the connections. Wallflower attendees will be a waste of resources. If you can wrangle free invitations from conference sponsors for those that come near your city, that’s great. Think of any way you can to meet any of their top people in person, live. It helps to remember that in large organizations, there are plenty of “top people”, given many divisions and geographies. Figure out which might offer the best fit, and visit their geographies.

If resources won’t permit live visits, then you can certainly do your best to find them online. I’ll give you a tip. The corporate types like to list themselves on LinkedIn, and sometimes even blog sites for major newspapers or business magazines like Fast Company. Get your people on these, and see who anyone knows who knows someone at your target company. Get yourselves introduced… but first, be sure you know what you’ll say!

2. Have the right bait. You should NEVER approach a “prospect” as important as this without having done your homework. You don’t want to try to tempt a perch with a useless sparkly lure when what it responds to is a bit of hot dog (okay, the fishermen out there are now figuring out I’ve never actually been fishing, or at least not much).

What this means without the hokey metaphor is that you will need to be armed with a clear understand of not just the likely needs of the organization you’re approaching, but also those of the person you’re approaching. What is his or her job role? What might their priorities be? How can you quickly and succinctly pitch an idea that will (okay, sorry) “reel ‘em in”? If you are lucky enough to gain access, and clever enough to get the attention of a powerful someone in your target organization, then you need to be ready with the next thing, the explanation of your proposed idea for partnership.

3. Reel ‘em in smoothly, but firmly. A pitch to a corporate team - if you’re persistent enough to get the appointment scheduled - should be a thing of beauty. It should be very entertaining, and very visual, but not flashy. Have a descriptive presentation ready as a leave behind. Come armed with five or six really good questions to ask the prospect team that will set the stage for why they really need to partner with your cause and your organization to sustain the relevance of their brand with their consumers for the long haul. Don’t forget to actively listen to their answers, and probe strategically. After they’ve had a chance to give you all the information you need to set the right tone and lead with their interests, you can start talking about your plan. Have groovy visuals to support key points, but be conversational. Get to the point quickly, but not without setting a very strong emotional stage, with a very powerful combined cause and brand “hook”. Your whole spiel should last not more than ten minutes.

Then you can flesh out details as they ask you questions. If they don’t respond well, and don’t ask questions, they aren’t interested. Graciously bring the whole show to a close and leave quietly. Don’t bother those people again. Unless you met with the wrong audience - say, for example, middle to upper managers, instead of the top managers you were supposed to be engaging. Interested prospects will ask questions.

4. Bring them to dinner (but don’t cook them). If a genuine interest in further discussions is born from these initial steps, suggest that both you and the target organization take the opportunity to get to know each other very well before the actual strategy development and planning activities begin. You will need to become at least somewhat familiar with each other’s cultures, processes, histories, teams, etc. This can happen, for example, via involvement by the corporate folks in planning existing fundraising or community activities. There might be more than one strategic prospect. By getting to know each a little more intimately before truly engaging, you might discover which one is actually the best fit in practical terms. Then, once your organization has caught The Big One...

1. Make sure the Top Decision Makers are not only giving the relationship their blessing, but are actively engaged in the strategic decisions being made during the entire brand alignment and planning process. If you start dealing at the middle, you run the risk of being sidelined when a middle manager’s resources or priorities are compromised by organizational priorities and resource decisions made above them. You don’t want to waste your scarce resources there, including your time, so this one is of vital importance.
    
2. Identify the right process leaders. Ideally, you have at least one or two working on behalf of each side who understand the strategic branding and communications development processes, and who can really help coordinate tactical efforts and identify the right resources for each aspect of the relationship. Ideally, early in the process of building the relationship, you should engage one impartial relationship mediator who also has a rich background in marketing management, and who also brings to your team the personality and skills of seasoned diplomat and facilitator. This person should possess immense emotional intelligence, and personal charisma and charm won’t hurt, either. He or she would be the one to help the inter-organizational relationship navigate successfully through hiccups and hurdles of various kinds.
    
3. Build into the process some time for due diligence with respect for each others’ functional or department cultures, politics or sensitivities, ways of working and communicating, work processes and timelines, and so forth. Without this initial investigation and learning, the process of alignment on rather complex brand strategy and communications projects could get bogged down more than necessary in communications and process misfires that could have been avoided with a little more homework up front.
    
4. Plan to plan. Include entire work teams from both organizations in an initial discussion to determine from the outset how work will get accomplished. Set timing, process, communications, and resource expectations up front.
    
5. Your nonprofit or cause brand is the oxygen for this fire. Don’t let your brand partner soft pedal or downplay the relationship in their advertising creative and PR. It benefits both your mission and their brand to showcase the relationship. Otherwise, what’s the point? They might be nervous, or someone in your organization might pipe up, not understanding the new approach. If you haven’t joined forces for a common strategic audience it won’t last, so be firm about your prominence in their campaign.
   
   Remember that this is not one of those teensy corporate philanthropy or PR budgets you’re dealing with, that if you’re lending your name for marketing and sales promotions, the budget should be appropriate to these methods. Bring ideas for strategies and tactics that significantly lower your fundraising and administrative costs and deliver the most bang in terms of your ability to impact your mission. Bring this, but also bring respect for the partner’s processes and perspectives. This is first a negotiation, before it becomes collaboration. You bring something more important than dollars to their table. You bring a reason for their customers to believe in their brand.
    
6. Don’t neglect your own internal PR. Explain the relationship to stakeholders in both organizations, including all employees and business partners. Do it early and often, and do it carefully and thoroughly. Solicit feedback, and address it. For the relationship to be successful, it needs to be transparent, unencumbered by the resentments of those who might feel “left out” of the arrangement. One or two announcements in key internal media, even emails, won’t do it. It would be best to set up a website (great as a working draft for the one you’ll need later to make the program or relationship transparent to consumers/clients), a newsletter, events, and perhaps to incorporate partnership updates in the day to day business updates of each organization. Everyone, including your current donor base, needs to understand why the relationship is being sought, and how it will ultimately benefit your organization’s stakeholders and cause.

Lauren Romero is the founder and principal of Philanthrobrand LLC, dedicated to facilitating nonprofit/for profit brand partnerships. She acquired her extensive corporate marketing and marketing research expertise while working in the sales and marketing trenches on behalf of The Coca Cola Company, Masterfoods, Inc. (Mars, Incorporated), Whole Foods Market, and Nestle. Her industry experience spans manufacturing and distribution, retail, foodservice, advertising, and research consulting. Lauren received her M.B.A. from The University of Texas at Austin’s Red McCombs School of Business. She once caught a spectacular and delicious rainbow trout while hiking in Montana. Contact her at .

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1. Failure to plan ... and not following the plan.
    
2. Promoting the event and not the reason for the event.
    
3. Picking the wrong date and time - conflicting with other major events.
    
4. Making poor use of the location or the having the wrong location all together.
    
5. Not engaging the attendees in the event.
    
6. Boring ... if the event becomes predicable, why go if it’s not fun?
    
7. Staff and volunteers are not engaged and supportive of the cause.
    
8. Making it difficult to accept money… donations, buying tickets, accepting money at the event.
    
9. Not saying THANK YOU! to donors and volunteers...especially in a timely and meaningful way.
    
10. Skipping the Debrief ......takes you back to #1.
     

Would you like to find out more? Details on all the above reasons are available.

Contact Karen Patterson at .

Karen is a veteran special events organizer and volunteer based in Albuquerque, NM.

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Do you approach grant writing strategically or are you using a shot gun approach? When you see a grant announcement, do you begin writing immediately and simply take into consideration the amount you can request? If so, you are setting yourself up for disappointment and frustration, as well as wasting precious resources (yours and your staff's).

Think and act strategically when grant writing and you can almost guarantee an increase in the number of grant awards you receive. Below are a few key steps for strategic grant writing:

DO YOUR HOMEWORK. Confirm that the funder’s focus, priorities and areas of interest align with your organization’s mission, services and geographic area. In some cases, funders have pre-selected the organizations they will support and do not accept unsolicited applications. Take time to make a phone call and talk to someone about the funder’s priorities. Do not assume a website is correct.

CONFIRM THE DUE DATE. Do you have the time and resources to submit the application by the due date? It is okay to pass up a looming deadline and wait until the next time an application will be accepted. Be aware that some foundations may review applications only one time per year.

CONSIDER THE AWARD AMOUNT. Is the amount of the award enough to cover the expenses and provide the services? Just because your organization is a 501(c)(3) doesn’t mean you cannot cover your costs. Is there a required match? Is so, can the match be in-kind or cash?

KNOW THE APPLICANT/LEAD AGENCY. Are you the correct applicant or lead agency? In some federal applications, the required applicant might be a school district, government entity, or faith-based organization. In most cases, a foundation will not accept an application from an individual.

RESEARCH REPORTING REQUIREMENTS. Are the reporting requirements within your capability and are they reasonable considering the amount of the award? If the reporting requirements are extensive and create more work for you and your staff, passing on the opportunity may be a better decision.

DEVELOP RELATIONSHIPS. If you don’t have a relationship with the funder or potential funder, establish one now. If you don’t know anyone inside the foundation, does a board member or volunteer know someone to provide an introduction? Invite funders for a site visit; send them invitations to events, newsletters and your annual reports.

CONSIDER COLLABORATION. In some cases, the strength of a grant application is enhanced when two or more organizations collaborate. You write the application together, highlighting the strengths of all involved.

Homework and Relationships are the most important keys to strategic grant writing. From my experience, more time is saved and more grants are awarded by doing your homework and developing relationships.

Contributed by Cindy Kane, consultant with the GW Group in Tampa Florida. Cindy is a grant writer and nonprofit consultant who also teaches social enterprise through Social Enterprise Ventures, LLC. Contact Cindy at .

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Through my other training company, Social Enterprise Ventures, LLC (SEV) we are teaching a program in social enterprise. We realize we are often encouraging participants to apply the earned income principles to current programs, services and agency operations ... and an idea was born...

In January 2009 SEV will launch a new program called
Exploration™ - Management By Assessment.

This program will offer nonprofits the opportunity to review, evaluate and assess all aspects of their nonprofit business through detailed worksheets that outline best practices. Participants will evaluate themselves against the best practices and develop a plan to enhance or improve where weaknesses are uncovered.

The full program will involve four days over several months. Or, agencies can opt to participate in the module or modules they believe is most needed to enhance their nonprofit’s management.

Day 1:	Organizational Focus; Board Governance and Management; Human Resources.
Day 2:	Programs and Services; Messages and Marketing.
Day 3:	Fiscal Management; Resource Development.
Day 4:	Tactical Planning; Reporting; Next Steps.

We are very excited about this new program and hope you will want to take advantage of it!
To learn more, contact me at .

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Now you can add two great books to your agency library. The ABCs of Building Better Boards is just what you need to improve your Board’s potential. It includes ideas for recruitment, retention and recognition and has some great forms for you to copy and use.

The Association of Fundraising Professionals says of this book: “Here is a book that every senior fundraiser responsible for board recruitment and development should read once and then review annually...takes up where books full of theory fall short...give it a chance and you will discover a gem to be treasured.”

Learn how to deal with unproductive Board members and how to better define the roles of staff and Board. There is a chapter on financial and fiduciary facts, one on simple parliamentary procedure and much much more.

Discover how Board Job Descriptions and annual Commitment Letters will dramatically improve your Board’s effectiveness. See how a truly effective Nominating Committee will lead to a better Board.

Get good ideas for more efficient Board management and administration, including how to set up and manage effective committees.

It’s only $24.95 plus shipping and handling. Take advantage of a volume discount of up to 20% and give this book to all new Board members as part of their orientation.

The 3rd Edition of Fast Fundraising Facts for Fame & Fortune is full of ideas to improve your fundraising, including how to ask effectively, special events essentials and new ideas for fundraising.

Help volunteers get over the fear of asking for money and in-kind resources for your organization. Learn how marketing principles will make fundraising easier.

Learn about Jean’s Ten Rules for Fundraising Success and apply them to your organization immediately. This book puts the FUN into FUNDraising and gives good examples and ideas that really work, rather than using hard to follow formulas and theories.

It’s only $24.95 plus shipping and handling. Take advantage of a volume discount of up to 20% and give this book to all new Board members as part of their orientation...

Or buy both books for only $45.00 plus shipping and handling. Order your copies today!

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Please give me a call if you want to turn any NO into a YES. I can help with:

• turning your Board into a dynamic group of volunteers,
• facilitating a strategic planning session,
• analyzing your current fundraising and suggesting some new ideas, and
• training volunteers and staff in becoming more effective fundraisers.

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Here is what people have said about my training and facilitation:

“You certainly shifted my paradigm. After hearing you last Friday, it is the first time in 11 years as an ED that I was excited abut fund development. And you got my Board members to that point as well.

Kay Hopper
RDC for Children, Richardson, TX

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“Your seminar in Dallas was the best I ever attended. You are wise and hilarious.”

Mary Jo Dorn
Catholic Charities of Dallas

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"Jean conducted an extremely well organized and productive [Board] retreat, one that I can say with confidence that our members count as the finest ever conducted for us. Jean's follow-up report was in-depth and meaty, and both Board and staff have referred to it time and again. The knowledge of boardsmanship the members took with them has made a remarkable difference in their levels of commitment and support."

Eileen Cook, Executive Directorr
Casa Esperanzaa

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“Your training was invaluable to me. I dreaded doing this because I couldn’t even sell someone a candy bar in the past but I was inspired by your advice to try. I raised about $377,000!"

Joan Shepack
Keystone Botanical Garden, El Paso, TXX

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"I attended the Corporate Sponsorship Workshop - WOW! You were amazing! What an OPPORTUNITY for me!!

Your presentation style was EXCELLENT. By far the best workshop I've been to in a long time (content and style both!)."

Vicki Kopplin
Epilepsy Foundation of Minnesota

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"As a senior-level development officer, I have a hard time finding useful workshops. Jean's programs should be required for even us old CFREs."

Trisha Dunbar
Visiting Nurse Association, Dallas, TX

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Jean Block Consulting, Inc.
7915 Cliff Road NW
Albuquerque NM 87120

(505) 899-1520
Fax (505) 890-5285
Email:

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