Are your programs undermining your mission?

BowerPower Papers, a quarterly digital newsletter from Bower & Co. Consulting LLC, aims to inspire non-profit leaders and event/festival producers to think creatively about marketing, corporate sponsorship, events, and business development.

Volume 4 Issue 3

Fall 2009

Dear ,

If you're like many successful nonprofit, association, and festival and event leaders across the country, you've probably spent the last 6 to 12 months strengthening your operations to weather the recession. If you're really gearing for success, you are already thinking about the rebound and what you'll do differently in 2010.

There's no doubt we're operating in different times. Trust has been eradicated in our communities. People are anxious and exhausted of bad news. And guarded. If you haven't factored this new environment, along with ways to build new relationships, into your thinking for this year, you may be missing important opportunities to engage constituents and donors and to grow revenue. Read more in the articles in this issue of BowerPower Papers.

Wondering how your nonprofit peers plan to respond in 2010?
Are you curious about what your peers are doing, and how they may be getting ready for the recovery? I invite you to take this short survey, with only two questions, about your 2010 marketing communications strategy. I'll report the findings in the next issue.

Welcome to new subscribers and everyone I met at the Bridge Conference outside Washington, DC. If you find this issue of value, please share it with friends and colleagues.

As you enjoy these final days of warm weather and gear up for fall and recovery from the past year's economic trauma, spend time to reflect and consider how you want to go forward more boldly, more connected to your stakeholders and constituents, positioned with strength for the future.

Warm regards,

Gail S. Bower
President

ARE YOUR PROGRAMS UNDERMINING YOUR MISSION? by Gail S. Bower
Through my travels this summer, I visited several museums around the country, including three fantastic art museums in Fort Worth, Texas - the Kimbell Museum, the Modern Art Museum, and the Amon Carter Museum - and the year-old Museum of Bethel Woods, a multi-media timeline and exploration of the socio-political events surrounding the Woodstock festival. Kimbell Museum Around this same time, I also visited the Galileo exhibit at the Franklin Institute, featuring the scientist's telescope that enabled findings that would forever change the way we understand our place in the universe. My divergent experiences at these museums reminded me of something that David Ogilvy, the famous ad man, once observed - that there is no better way to kill a bad product than with good advertising. Here's how I'd translate that for nonprofit organizations: There's no better way to kill your mission, donor support, and constituency engagement than with poor program execution and good advertising. (Yes, I know; it's not as smooth as Ogilvy's line, but read on!) Excited to take in the Galileo exhibition in its only U.S. stop, we bound up the stairs to immerse ourselves. About three artifacts in, I yawned. What happened? Unfortunately, the execution of this premier educational opportunity at one of our foremost science museums had been stripped of its vitality. The overall design lacked progression, visual interest, and climax. The only way you knew you'd reached the end was by the lifeless security guard at the end of a gallery leading into a hallway. The guard, by the way, stood reading People magazine with body language that screamed complete disinterest. The labels identified what the objects were and the year used, but not much else. Just the facts. Like we were in an archive. Contrast this experience with that of the other museums. All three Fort Worth museums' exhibitions had labels that briefly yet colorfully brought the stories of the paintings, prints, and sculptures to life. I learned about the artist, the work, the socio-economic or cultural conditions at the time it was created, and sometimes some The Modern Art Museum, Fort Worth interesting tidbits that added delight and further interest. Consequently, I invested significant time and concentration to rooms of paintings or other works around which I otherwise might only have glanced. At the Woodstock museum, I relived the music, fashion, politics, and civic and global unrest of the day and connected with other museum visitors with whom I watched video snippets in little vestibules and even on the Magic Bus. I learned, reminisced, and experienced the sights and sounds (but no mud!) of the mythical musical event. Museum at Bethel Woods Don't get me wrong. Galileo had a couple shining moments, especially attempts to enliven with narration by Chief Astrologist Derrick Pitts obtained through cell phone audio tours (great information but cumbersome albeit free technology). I'm glad I saw it, and I'm grateful to the organizers and funders who made it possible. However, someone forgot to connect the exhibit to the organization's mission, inspiring us to learn, be curious, and wonder about science. At a time when our culture struggles to cultivate young scientists, when our scientific literacy is staggeringly low, this is a noble mission. Yet, the exhibition turned a celebration of one of the most important and revolutionary scientific inventions into a boring, lifeless display of objects. Your programs say more about your organization than your newsletter, your web site, or your annual report. They are the most important avenues for conveying your mission and should do so with gusto. What to look for. Here are just five areas for you to examine and immediately improve: Overall experience. What does the overall experience for your constituents, customers, or clients of your programs say about your connection to and passion for your mission? Does it entice, excite, or empathize? Or does it feel sterile, lifeless, and disconnected? Same goes for events, which also should foster measurable impact towards your mission. Staffing. When your customers interact with your staff - from the front line to the administrative phone lines - do they experience enthusiasm, knowledge, courtesy, and respect? Or automatons and time-clock punchers, just doing their jobs? Facilities. Take a look around at the facilities of your programs. What do they say about your operation and passion for your mission? I've been in some dreary offices of organizations whose missions are to inspire. I doubt that's happening. I've seen dismal, uncared for, and threadbare places run by people wondering why attendance is declining. Hmmm. I wonder. Operations. Why are museums only open from 9 to 5? Have museum administrators not noticed that most households for the last decade or two are headed by singles or couples who work those and longer hours? Your operations must be user-centric. Messages. How is your organization using every opportunity it can to connect all your audiences with your mission in ways that are most appropriate for each audience? I've read that the Galileo exhibit met or exceeded attendance goals, with tens of thousands of visitors, which is great news. What a shame, though, that the museum missed that many opportunities to inspire about science.
Concerned about the impact of your programs? Could you use a critical eye and some fresh insights about how to better and more strategically engage your constituents with your mission? Call Gail at 215/922-6937.

HOW TO JUMP-START YOUR SPONSORSHIP STRATEGY IN TOUGH TIMES NOW AVAILABLE IN AMAZON

If you and your staff are walking around your offices in a daze, unsure what to do next with your corporate sponsorship program or scrambling because nothing is working, scramble no more. Check out my new guidebook, and you'll find plenty of tools and techniques to get you back on track.

"A godsend"
Visit Amazon to read Traci Browne's 5-star review and find out how using the book has helped her become "wildly successful in securing partnerships." She calls it "the Bible for anyone involved in securing sponsors."

You can pick up your own copy of Jump-start at Amazon or through the new store on my web site. If you're a member of the International Festival & Events Association (IFEA), visit the member bookstore and save $2 on your purchase.

How to Jump-start Your Sponsorship Strategy in Tough Times

by Gail S. Bower by Bower & Co. Consulting LLC

Check out these new posts on Gail's blog, SponsorshipStrategist.com:

Lots more to come, including excerpts from How to Jump-start Your Sponsorship Strategy in Tough Times and answers to questions that readers of BowerPower Papers asked me to answer in the book.

HI. JUST SEND MONEY.

by Gail S. Bower

We're heading into annual appeal season, the time of year when charities you may or may not have heard of ask for money.

One year, I saved all the solicitations I received from October through year-end. I lost count somewhere around 63. I'd neither heard of nor had relationships with 80 percent of these organizations. And among those groups to whom I had made contributions previously, some I'd heard from in the previous year only when they wanted money, just like politicians who send flyers outlining all their marvelous accomplishments weeks before an election. Some have a rather impersonal and haphazard ways of staying in touch, and the rest do a great job of inviting me to engage with their missions, to participate in their communities, and to understand their issues and successes more completely.

I predict that 2009 will be a challenging year for individual gifts for those organizations whose ongoing communications and relationships with their communities and contributors are sketchy to non-existent. We are overwhelmed by doom and gloom. News about two unpopular wars, weekly terrorist bombings, the implications of global warming, and the never-ending recession reports - layoffs, unemployment, business bankruptcies, corporate incompetence, the incomprehensibly swelling deficit, poor industrial performance reports, cities and states teetering on the fiscal edge, and worse - have engulfed us. Some people are in denial, others are tuning out, and most of us just don't want to hear about more problems. We're burned out on bad news.

How is your organization communicating to members, donors, constituents and the community at large? What's your plan to engage, to enrich, and to build meaningful relationships? How are you deepening your ties to your audiences? What are the messages you plan to convey as we head out of the recession? What strategies have you developed to help your organization stand out above bad news burnout?

Now more than ever, you'll need one heading into 2010.

Gail Bower, President, Bower & Co. Consulting LLC, specializes in raising the visibility, revenue, and impact of non-profit organizations and festivals/events. She's a professional consultant, writer, and speaker, with more than 20 years of experience managing some of the country's most important events, festivals and sponsorships. Launched in 1987, today Bower & Co. improves the results of clients marketing strategies, events, and corporate sponsorship programs. She is the author of the guidebook entitled How to Jump-start Your Sponsorship Strategy in Tough Times. For more information, visit her web site or contact her at 1-866/36-BOWER (1-866-362-6937).