Chester’s Mentoring Initiative
January 2024
Member Announcements:
The PA primary is April 23. Voters must be registered at least 15 days prior. Contact Gerry Gonzalez at ggonzalez@cgrc.org for help spreading the word.
Many organizations are collaborating to build a street fair for Chester families as part of The Foundation for Delaware County’s Delco Gives Day. Details to come.
Laura Anderson of the Delco Health Department is looking to partner with organizations. She can provide screenings, information tables and education sessions on vaccinations, healthy recipes, and other important topics. Please check out their calendar of community events and clinics at https://delcopa.gov/health/calendar.html Laura can be reached at andersonl@co.delaware.pa.us
Our featured speaker was Simon Rogers of A Little Better Co, one of many companies supporting communities and the planet by helping to package, position and promote information to accelerate its impact. His organization runs The Unless Project in which they choose four organizations each year to support with over $500,000 in services and resources.
For our group, Simon pointed out the most common challenges nonprofits face when it comes to branding, storytelling, and marketing. Here are some key takeaways from his presentation and our resulting discussion:
Don’t focus on tactics over strategy. Before suggesting, “Let’s build a…” ask “What is the challenge we are trying to solve?” The tactics should be developed as a result of that consideration.
Always focus on your audience. Do you understand who they are and what they need?
It is important to understand your competitive landscape. Who else does what you do and how do they communicate? How are they successful (or failing) and what can you learn from them? Know your organization’s differentiators.
“The fastest way to make your life difficult is to be everything to everyone.” There is great value in focus and prioritization. Many organizations bounce between initiatives rather than clearly focusing on their own north star of success. Long-term, it is more strengthening to focus on a few key initiatives rather than multiple projects.
Consider: If in ten years your organization was successful, what would that look like? What can you do every day to get there? What is the #1 area to focus on? #2? #3? If you could only do one thing, what is it?
How can you solidify your message of strength, commitment and longevity?
Turn to the Nonprofit Center at LaSalle University for many resources including the development of metrics that can track your organization’s progress, helping define what can/should be measured and translating that into impact so that audiences can understand and buy in.
Can you partner with a well-funded institution that shares your values? This could help you grow your impact substantially. To find that institution, think about your mission and the words that define it. What large institutions use those same words? Their PR and HR teams likely run related initiatives.
Contact Simon at simon@alittlebetter.co with any questions.