Ask the Expert: How do you pay for fundraising consulting?
Panel Discussion Explores Urban Agriculture
Will urban gardens save America? This lofty topic was taken on tonight by a panel of experts representing different aspects of the urban agriculture movement that provided an interesting overview of the issue.
Continue readingMeasuring New Criteria for Nonprofit Effectiveness
How do you measure the effectiveness of a nonprofit organization? In my post, Attributes of a Successful Nonprofit, I argue that low spending on overhead is not the way to measure the worthiness of a nonprofit, and suggest new criteria for donors to use in evaluating a nonprofit organization. A reader asks: “How would you objectively measure attributes like “lifecycle preparedness” and “organizational authority,” as just two of your 12 criteria?“
Continue readingStewarding Your Brand
The Board’s Role in Managing Your Nonprofit’s Brand
If you have heard of the Red Cross, then you know the power of a strong brand: instant recognition and strong fundraising appeal. But powerful brands don’t just happen, they need to be nurtured. And boards can play an important role in building their nonprofit’s brand so that it engenders trust, inspires donations, and can be leveraged for corporate sponsorships. This article describes the 4 roles that your board can play in managing their nonprofit’s brand.
Continue readingFundraising Brochure Helps Social Service Agency Tell Its Story
CLIENT: Jewish Federation of Greater Middlesex County, NJ
We helped a local Jewish Federation transition their organization to address the changing needs of their community, update their mission, and develop new fundraising messages and communication tools.
Brochure
How do you help tell a cohesive story for an organization that works in so many areas? We created a compelling fundraising theme, brochure and materials to promote this Jewish Federation. With the headline, “Why should I support the Jewish Federation?,” the inside panel of the brochure answered with, “For the good you can see around every corner.” This was used as the overall fundraising theme to show the impact that the Federation has in many areas around the county. The inside of the brochure presents a virtual walk through the community, visually showing all the ways in which the Federation was supporting the institutions that people rely on.
Ad
The ad presented the concept in one panel – a visual reminder of all the institutions that the Federation supports and a powerful appeal for support.
Presentation
We then created a presentation that allows the organization to delve into the story at a more personal level, exploring the impact based on the values and institutions that donors could identify with.
Brand Manual
While the national organization, the Jewish Federations of North America, had developed a new logo, we adapted it for local use. To help the staff implement the brand successfully, we adapted the national Federation’s brand manual. The manual contains all the messaging elements, shows all the versions of the logos – with and without the tagline, in color and grayscale, and in print and web formats — along with guidelines for logo usage, typefaces, colors, stationery items and other marketing materials.
Email Newsletter Templates
To help the Federation’s recipients quickly identify emails, we created a consistent system for the email templates, with headers for a general, news, and events emails.
Related Stories
Read the full case study and get the inside scoop.
Read “Lessons from Branding a Jewish Agency”
Links
Red Rooster Group is a New York based graphic design firm that creates effective brands, websites, and marketing campaigns to increase your visibility, fundraising, and communications effectiveness. Contact us at info@redroostergroup.com.
Monmouth Custom Builders Magazine
Promotional magazine improves credibility for home builder.
Continue readingSeeking Top Talent
Red Rooster Group is bursting at the seams with good work and we are looking for passionate people to join our growing staff. We are currently seeking graphic designers, web programmers, social media experts, marketing experts, social media gurus and business development pros, as well as freelancers and interns. Check out our Careers section for job descriptions.
Continue readingRed Rooster Group Wins MARK Award
Find out how this innovative direct mail kit caught the attention of prospects and won a cable industry award for best promotion.
Continue readingAsk the Expert: Media Sponsorship Expectations
What should be expected from a media sponsor when asked to sponsor an annual gala fundraiser? When it comes to local TV, radio and newspaper sponsorships (if your sponsorship levels range from $600 to $10,000) what is reasonable to ask in return? It doesn’t seem like 10k would get you much air time if you were buying it outright. We are hoping to raise $30-50k in our second year and have 250-300 people attending. — Walter R.
Continue readingWork Hard. Be Nice. Lessons for Nonprofits
How can two young teachers, fresh off stints from Teach for America, create what has become one of the most successful models for a charter school in America? Work Hard. Be Nice. is the story of hard work, persistence, and above all, a deep-rooted commitment to helping kids in the face of an educational system that denies has written them off.
Continue readingSuccessful Seminar at the Foundation Center
Howard Adam Levy spoke about Nonprofit Marketing on a Shoestring at the Foundation Center yesterday. He described the process for updating Friends of Karens’ brand and website and then interviewed Jill Gold, Friends of Karen’s Communications Coordinator. Marketing Consultant Nancy Schwartz opened the session with an overview of marketing for nonprofits.
10 Ways to Save Money on Your Marketing
1. Be consistent to foster recognition. This will save your audience from having to “decode” your message every time they encounter your organization.
2. Conduct your own research – do interviews over the phone and surveys online with Survey Monkey.
3. Have a Brand Manual that features your message points and design templates so that you are not constantly re-inventing
the wheel when it comes to grant applications, newsletters, and other marketing.
4. Use colors wisely. Digital printing typically becomes cost effective at quantities of 1,000.
5. Get support online. Join a discussion forum on LinkedIn.
6. Talk to your printer before you start your project — or better yet, at the beginning of the year, so they can find efficiencies.
7. Tap into volunteers for marketing functions such as photography. You won’t know what you can get until you ask.
8. Empower your board as brand ambassadors to speak about your organization. Give them the tools and make them aware
of this role.
9. Make your fundraising event budget go further by adding “mission awareness” as part of your events so that donors
are aware of what your organization does.
10. Plan your marketing for the year. It’s worth taking the time to determine your goals and the best way to reach them.
Howard Adam Levy discusses how Red Rooster Group developed Friends of Karen’s website. and then interviewed Jill Gold, Friends of Karen’s Communications Coordinator.
Read the full Nonprofit Branding Case Study on the Friends of Karen branding process.
Awnings & Banners on 23rd, Oh My!
A passionate plea in preservation of our street life
Are awnings and banners awful eyesores or useful necessities? Red Rooster Group’s take on the Flatiron’s District’s Master Improvement Plan.
Red Rooster Group is active in improving our world, creating a better city and safer and more livable streets, examining the issues in the world around us. Since our office is on 23rd Street and Madison Avenue, the heart of the Flatiron District, we are interested in the what the local BID had in mind for the area, so we took a look at the Plan, prepared by Starr Whitehouse, landscape architects. Here is what I wrote to them.
As a business owner on 23rd Street, I was reviewing your Master Plan for the Flatiron District and was quite impressed. I think that the guidance and recommendations you provide will create much needed improvements in the area. However, I would like to point out two aspects that I believe require further consideration.
Awnings
As a designer, I can fully appreciate the concept of “cleaning up” the streets to convey a less cluttered, more unified streetscape. So I can understand your suggestion to clean up the clutter of awnings on 23rd Street. (My office is on 23rd between Madison and Park Ave South between the Radio Shack Awning and the new Press awning.) However, I urge you to reconsider the role that awnings play on a practical and communal level.
First, they provide needed shelter. The front door to our building is locked, and there are many days when it is raining (as it does in New York), and the Radio Shack awning provides some cover as I get the key into the lock. Also, I often go outside to pick up something for lunch and can take refuge under the awning when it is raining (I and I am sure I am not alone in these two matters given the abundance of both small, locked building on the south side of 23rd Street as well as the abundance of food venues).
Awnings are useful cover in inclement weather, as you can witness people huddling under them when it’s raining. In fact, the awnings lining the south side of 23rd Street are very much used as cover by many to get to the two subway stations on either ends when it’s raining.
My second point about the value of awnings relates to their social function as facilitators of street life. In addition to awnings being a place for people to gather under in inclement weather, they provide mini focal points for street life, fostering discussion among people that may not otherwise meet. I think that Jane Jacobs would agree that awnings signal a vibrant street life. Compare the vitality of streets with awnings to those that don’t and you will typically find a more robust street life.
Thirdly, awning aid in navigation since they are dominant features on the street — I can tell a cab driver to stop at the black Radio Shack awning that can be seen from a half a block away.
This is of course, in addition to their function of advertising the existence of businesses (which is what the BID supports). By the way, I say this as a service business with an office on a third floor with no connection a business with an awning.
I am not by any means arguing that awnings don’t clutter the block or are ugly, crass and commercial, however absent them, I believe we lose something of the vital nature of the street and the district.
Regarding poles that hold up the awnings. Granted these do take up sidewalk space, which can block traffic, which is not good. I also noticed that they are used as a bike racks. Given the dearth of bike racks in New York in general and 23rd Street in particular, that is not a bad thing. Perhaps instead of banning awnings, there are guidelines for where poles touch down on the sidewalk, or even designing them to hold more bicycles, serving as benches or other purposed to double their function.
In your recommendations for what gets adopted for 23rd Street, I would urge you to take these views into consideration. Perhaps there are other means of providing shelter and fostering a vital community.
Banners
Another issue I would like to comment on are banners. I find it ironic that you suggest eliminating the visual clutter of competing awnings and signs, only to replace them with banners that feature advertising on them.
The utilitarian and decorative functions of street lamps are marred with commercial messages that add no value to the neighborhood (especially since the banners don’t actually contain any information other than identifying the area as the Flatiron district and some advertising).
If the BID’s ultimate goal is to increase consumer awareness of the district as a shopping destination, it is misguided to think that eliminating awnings, which indicate the presence of businesses, and replacing them with banners with general advertising, will foster more street traffic. People respond more to the businesses they see, and not banners.
In fact, I would argue that the banners with advertising add to the confusion, and send the wrong message to the public that public space is sponsored by private entities. I find this trend scary and abhorrent. More and more of our public space is being sponsored by private corporations (Bloomberg had even suggested that subway stations could be sponsored by corporations). This is definitely a step in the wrong direction and I would urge you to reconsider your recommendation to put up advertising banners throughout the district. I understand that this is a source of advertising for the BID, but I am sure that there are other, less obtrusive ways of bringing in revenue.
• • •
What do you think? What elements of street life are worth preserving as the city becomes more gentrified.