Successful 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.

Websites That Work Seminar at United Way of Westchester

Nonprofits seek to improve their websites for many reasons:

  • Raising Money
  • Building a Community of Supporters
  • Improving Membership Rates
  • Increasing Participation in Programs
  • Promoting Events
  • Educating People About an Issue
  • Inspiring Action
  • Increasing Visibility and Clout
  • Demonstrating Viability to Funders

These were the key points I made at our Websites That Work seminar at the United Way of Westchester yesterday. The 3-hour session helped nonprofits to understand the essential steps in the website process which include:

  1. Determine your objectives.
  2. Assess your site.
  3. Identify your audience.
  4. Create your site map.
  5. Determine your budget and resources.
  6. Determine the features needed.
  7. Select your Content Management System (CMS).
  8. Determine your keywords.
  9. Develop your content – words and pictures.
  10. Install Google analytics.

Download a PDF of the Websites That Work presentation

Contact us if you need help in reviving your website: 212-673-9353 or howard@redroostergroup.com

Red Rooster Group IconRed 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.

Red Rooster Group Promotes Center for Non-profits Conference

As part of our commitment to the nonprofit sector, Red Rooster Group is proud to sponsor and promote the New Jersey Center for Non-Profits’ conference.

Red Rooster Group is providing naming, branding and promotional services for the conference including development of the theme, conference logo, and design of postcards, posters, and website graphics.

Titled, Ready, Set Recover: Succeeding in the New Landscape, theme is intended to convey the practical nature the sessions, with hands-on advice that nonprofits can use to improve their organizations.

The Conference will bring together nonprofits in the state to gain insight into big picture issues and learn practical tactics for 
improving their organizations. Sessions will address the issues of accountability, advocacy, boards of the future, collaboration, human resources, marketing, media, and technology.

The conference will be held on December 9, 2009 at the Crowne Plaza Monroe / Jamesburg, NJ. Other sponsors include JPMorgan Chase & Co., Novartis, Prudential, Bank of America, Mercadien Group and Nonprofit Central.

Howard Adam Levy to Speak on Nonprofit Branding

Learn how to effectively brand your business and gain a competitive advantage with this hour and half workshop.

  • Wednesday, October 21, 2009
  • 9:30 to 11 am
  • Brooklyn Creative League
    540 President Street (Btw. 3rd & 4th Aves.) Park Slope, Brooklyn, NYC
  • Free with RSVP to howard@redroostergroup.com

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