Issues OR Opportunities? [The Introduction]

It sounds bad as it is but we need to face the truth that nonprofit sector is becoming competitive. I had conversations with a few of local nonprofit organizations, all of them were seeing other nonprofit organizations that are offering the same services/products, locating in the same area, targeting the same people, having the same value(s), as partners. My question was "How is the idea treating your organization?"

The results I found in those nonprofit organizations can be categorized into three main focuses, (i) lack of financial supports, (ii) lack of skilled labors, and (iii) lack of public awareness. I will briefly describe each of the issue in this posting.

As an MBA student and marketing apprentice, seeing the competitors as partners will not only limit the organization to differentiate itself from competitors due to lack of competitiveness, but also discourage the clients and donors to support the organization because they cannot distinguish the organization with the rest; hence, they tend to support those organizations they are familiar with or had been using the services or products.

Second issue is most likely to limit only to some nonprofit organizations, lack of skilled labors. My experience volunteering and working for nonprofit organizations, this seems to be one of the most important issue because without skilled labors, the organizations grow slowly, if lucky. In fact, not many nonprofit organizations see the importance of or cannot afford a professional marketing personnel or agency. Some perceive marketing activities as unnecessary expenses. Again, how is that idea treating your nonprofit organization?

Most nonprofit organizations I've been with did not have any issue regarding number of clients because they serve to the local communities where they are located and to a small portion of the communities. But that does not imply that the organizations have solid public awareness because the amount of donations received in the community is relatively small considering size and income of the people living in the area.

I will leave it here for this post as I am planning to write several chapters on these concerns. Although I mentioned these as issues or problems, I do not mean that they cannot be seen as opportunities. I will expand on those in the following postings.

Credit: Striatic

"Shaping The Future of Business"

Follow up with this topic on next Saturday 27th November, 2014

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"Goal of Life"

After half a year pause on this blog due to personal duties, I finally come back to write about nonprofit matters again.

Right now I'm studying master degree in business administration, I notice one common thing in my peers. They all want to work for $$$, and very small portion of peers really know why they are doing it, or how would it improve their society and communities. Only one thing they concern is "good pay".

I spent my time talked to many of my peers, I found out that they find a hard time finding what they like or want to do in the future; hence, "with money I can do anything I like" (quoted from a peer). It does make sense but would you live another 60 years having all the money you want, but still not satisfied because you have no GOAL in life?

Now, the question is, how to get to know your goal of life? This is probably one of the hardest question new generation is facing. Here is how I find myself in non-profit industry and communications.

First, ask oneself if there is one thing I want to improve about the world, what would it be? If you can answer that, you probably have the topic. Second, how can I be a part of change or improvement? Always remember to disregard the impossible and come up with the most viable method(s). Third, Am I on the path toward the change? Fourth, how much resources do I have? This includes your time (assuming you are 20 years old, then you have approximately 50 years of workable time), money, knowledge, etc. Lastly, What am I seeing after my time is done? This is simply your vision of your goal.

To wrap-up how to realize my life's goal:

1. What do I want to improve in this world?
2. How can I be a part of change/improvement?
3. Am I on the right direction toward the goal?
4. How much resources do I have?
5. What do I see after my time is done?

Hope this can be useful for everyone who is trying to find oneself.

"Shaping the Future of Business"

- Rathapat (Moe) Suwanaratana

Twitter: @Rathapat_S

LinkedIn: Rathapat (Moe) Suwanaratana

The Art Of Marketing, Vancouver

This is No Science

Recently I had a chance to attend one of the best marketing conferences in my life, "The Art of Marketing." I learnt numerous lessons from the six awesome speakers: Seth Godin, Nancy Duarte, Mitch Joel, John Jantsch, Brian Wong, and Keith Ferrazzi. And today I would love to share the lessons with you!

A quick summery of the summery...

The event was set in The Centre downtown Vancouver. The contents from the speakers were various from abstract to application. In general, they revolved around the networking, creativity, old VS new marketing, digital marketing, relationship, etc. That's not all! There was an illusionist performed a "dangerous card trick"! Overall, this event is not only educating, but also entertaining, a true "Edutainment event"!

Summary of the Event

Although I will share the experience and knowledge I learnt from the event, however, I will not provide information or photo of the speakers.

The first speaker, Seth Godin, gave one of the most memorable presentation I have ever been. He explained about different ways we can look at the world. The revolution of marketing in contemporary world, the "mass" population is decreasing, and the "weird" (as Godin called them) is increasing. Hence, marketers need to focus on the "weird" people, not the mass. 

He further described his perspective on marketing as "making the one and only" It is not effective to create something using the existing; instead, create something that is not exist. An example was gave by Godin about the first fax machine. The key to success is to provide something that is not exist and benefit everyone.

It is all about taking risk. "If failure is not an option, then neither is success" said Godin. That is why marketing is like arts, because we need to keep trying until we get it right. We need to jump off the cliff and let the wings grow on the way down. The right time will never come, waiting will paralyze us from moving forward. 

Communications process today by Nancy Duarte

Second, the communications expert, Nancy Duarte, elaborated methods to create a successful story. Apart from the dramatic story structure (begin, middle, and end), she introduced "what is" and "what could be". Many successful speakers (Steve Job and Martin Luther King Jr.) used this strategy to give their speech.

Always remember who you are talking to, the audience. It is most convincing if you know your audience and craft the speech accordingly. If it is a presentation, utilize visuals to support your story. Visual is meant to complement your speech, not distracting the audience attention.

Additionally, digital marketing is BOOMING! Marketers are freaking out about all these technologies whether social media, mobile, or smart devices. Mitch Joel pointed out some of the funniest, memorable, and knowledgable topics: Direct relationship, Sex with Data, Create utilization values, and Once screen world.

To sum up Joel speech, we should focus on the relationship part rather than spending most of the time trying to be on the top of the technology chain. Although all those are important but down to the end of the road, only the screen that is in front of a consumer that matters. Every screen will link into one and there is no point to create many different screen for every device.

Brian Wong, to me, was another highlight of the conference. Even though he talked solely about his company and its history, I learnt that sometime you do not need to create a whole new world for consumers only if you know the missing pieces in their lives. I admire his company value, "moment" and "reward."

He made it seem so simple to see that there are gaps within consumers' daily life and that is what Kiip (his company) does, rewarding every achieving moment in your life. He believes that actions drive rewards, but not the other way around.

The last presenter, Keith Ferrazzi, provided us with a 360 degree relationship view. He said, a simple rule of relationship is that no one want to have one. And the best way to build a relationship is "generosity." According to a research he referred to, "the world is more connected than ever, but less related", which means, we know a lot more people but we are not really related to them.

Ferrazzi explained that many people jump into a pre-judgement that, "they do not like me" or "they do not care about me." Those attitudes will prevent your from building any kind of relationships.

Ferrazzi also demonstrated a different way to be efficient and effective with our time. People list, is to prioritize those who are important to us first and spend more time with them, and those who are less important to you, spend lesser time with them. Because at the end, you will have 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and 52 weeks a year.

I hope you get the essence of this awesome event by reading my posting. Please note that these contents are not everything from the conference. It will take me months to cover everything I take away from it. Maybe, I will see you in the next event!

"Shaping The Future Of Business"

Special Thanks to...

• Douglas College

my new friends

• @Beatler
• @MarStano
• @carlydancing
• @AviLambert
• @MNathanson
• @KarmynAyn
• @mccabep
• @hmcgillivray
• @Fairlite

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Twitter: @Rathapat_S

LinkedIn: ca.linkedin.com/in/rsuwanaratana

Marketing Agency for Nonprofit Organization

The Rise Of Nonprofits

As the number of nonprofit organizations is increased tremendously. This means that the competitive level in the nonprofit sector is becoming more important when it comes to marketing.

In today's posting, I would like to introduce two marketing agencies (in the US) that focus to serve nonprofit organizations.

Who are they?

1) Shoestring:

Shoestring is a virtual company established over ten years. The organization believes that "...nonprofit organizations should not have to rely on pro bono agency left overs." Hence, it offers an affordable price for nonprofit organizations. The company has marketing expertise in nonprofit sector serving anywhere between Maine to California.

2) Mission Minded:

Mission Minded is a niche marketing agency located in San Francisco. The organization is an expert in communications aspect of marketing. It focuses on the organizational branding for nonprofits. The organization "...believe that nonprofits, foundations, and other do-gooders can only have an impact if people understand the importance of their work—not just what they do, but why it matters."

There are many more marketing agencies that devote themselves to nonprofit organizations. Above are the two that I came across and interested in.

Although most of nonprofit organizations are aiming to improve our society, we cannot disregard the competitive level within the sector. There are numerous number of organizations promoting breast-cancer, wildlife, children & family, homelessness, etc. It is time to take marketing into consideration because "just doing good is not good enough to make people care".

Please feel free to comment and suggest marketing agency that you like as it would help the readers to expand our knowledge.

"Shaping The Future of Business"

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Generating Funds Is Fun: Visual Matters

Youtube Campaign? Great Idea, Let's Make It Effective!

Posting a video on Youtube is not a difficult task. A successful video however, can be puzzling. How many people recall, share, embed, subscribe the video (channel)? How long people stay on your Youtube page/channel? Those are some of many ways to measure your video's success. I would like to share knowledge and opinions from what I have been taught by a few people about how-to create an effective video.

8 Steps To Success

1. Take a brainstorming session to identify goals, concepts, and ideas of implementing the video. Always remind yourself on the budget and timeframe of the video.
2. After you have a solid goal, concept, and idea, compare them with your organizational message, image, and position. You do not want a successful video campaign to reposition your organization (except it was the goal).
3. Designing ad script - this step requires you to determine the locations, time, characters, and budget of the video. These assessments will allow you to create a video script.
• Location - A specific place and time of the day/night to shoot the video as well as the number of scenes and setting of the scenes.
• Time - How long will it take for planning, shooting, and editing processes?
• Character - Who are the actor/actress for your video? 
• Budget - A video production can cost a fortune depending on the plan you create. As a nonprofit organization, use the advantage of sponsorship from students, other nonprofit organizations related to film, etc.
4. Designing storyboard - is the most indispensable step among all. Storyboard gets your script into action. It looks like a comic strip in a way that it should give a full understanding of the video from opening to closing details of a scene. Here is 8 steps to creating a great storyboard by Jake Knapp.
5. So far, you would have everything planned and ready to shoot. You will need to contact people for location, actor/actress, etc. This will take a while to complete, plan it well and have plan B and C.
• I advice to create another script for each shooting location. It will save time and cost.
• Expect the unexpected - Anything can happen, if it does, act fast. it might not be the best decision, but it is better than no reaction.
• Just in case your video might go on broadcast channels, it is a good idea to have a video shortening plan (from a minute to 30 seconds).
6. After your video is shot, update your script and rearrange all the files into proper place that is easy to find. A small tip from an instructor of mine, "never let the shooting team edit the video". Because they do not want to remove anything off the film.
7. Find some time to sit together in a room and watch the video. This aims to improve the message being delivered to the audience by giving feedbacks and comments to the video editor.
8. Final touch - the final step after adjusting the video from the feedbacks and comments. And you are ready to post it on Youtube!

Although...

your video is great, everyone is happy with the video; however, there are a few unexplainable reasons about social media. Nobody can guarantee the success of a social media campaign.

All in all, Youtube is one of the social media tools; for that reason, it has to integrate with other media platforms to maximize the result. For now, I hope this helps.

"Shaping The Future of Business"

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Time Management: The Irreversible Treasure of Life

Irreversible Treasure Of Life

"I have no time!" or "I am too busy" are two sentences I often heard from my peers. It is true that we cannot bring back time, but we can use each second ahead of us to its best. Today's posting I would like to share with readers how do I manage my time using several books I read.

Sunday night is the time for me to sit for about 30 minutes to manage my schedule for the following week. First, I setup objectives for the week (the lesser the better). From those objectives, now I follow five steps.

Five steps to setup a schedule: 

listing, ranking, separating, plotting, and reorganizing.

Listing

Listing is the process of noting down everything I think it is required to achieve the objectives. In this process, I keep on writing rather than trying to figure out if they are important or not.

Ranking

Now, I have my list but I don't know which one is important. The next step I do is to categorize the items to each objective and see if they will lead to the objectives. The purpose of ranking is to put number in front of each item in the categorized list according to its importance.

Separating

I would have a cleaner list that will lead me to the objectives by now. This step is the most challenging among all because many people cannot separate between "action" and "activity". Action will lead me to the goals, and activity will make my life easier to achieve the goal. However, I am looking for "action" rather than "activity". I put activity items aside and focus on action items.

Plotting

Plotting involves a two-dimension graph. On x-axis labeled "least important" and "very important", and y-axis labeled "least urgent" and "very urgent". Simply plot down the action items from the list and I see what should I concentrate on for the following week.

Reorganizing

Just before packing up and get ready for Monday, it is a good idea to look at the list and the graph again to make sure I understand everything correctly. Sometime I have to readjust and reorganize the items (often because there are too many of them).

Remember that this method works for me but it may not for everyone. After all, we are humans, we cannot work more than our body and mind can. If it is too much to handle, it is always a better idea to hand some works to your colleagues or put them down for now.

This method can be done in day, month, or year scope as well.

I hope this technique will help manage your time.

"Shaping The Future of Business"

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Selling The Impact of Your Nonprofit Organization

The End of Fundraising By Jason Saul

Today I would like to introduce a book I read long time ago written by Jason Saul. In his latest book "The End of Fundraising: Raise More Money By Selling Your Impact", Saul emphasizes on how the social capital market impacts nonprofit sector.

The book is divided into three parts: Capturing Your Impact, Marketing Your Impact, and Selling Your Impact.

Here are what I leant:

Capturing Your Impact

Sale is one of the most important skills to have in everything we do. It is even more challenging for nonprofit organizations, because what they sell is intangible. Nonprofits must convince the stakeholders with "value" that is hard to measure. However, it can be done and I found that in this section.

Marketing Your Impact

People do not care what you do, if you cannot give any benefit to them. The obvious benefit ones can see is the economic benefit. Impact buyers - "those who are willing to pay for the outcome you produce" - are the most likely target to purchase your impact. This book taught me how to find them and add values to the organizations for Impact Buyers to see.

Selling Your Impact

Similar to business, nonprofits need to sell and consumers (donors) need to buy. Take contemporary salespeople for example, they do not sell the products to the customers, they sell "solutions". Thus, nonprofits are the "solutions" to many problems, but how are you going to relate the problems to each one of the customers.

Overall, I love the ideas written in the book. I do believe that nonprofits have to be inside the business world if they want to be success in the contemporary world. I recommend this book to everyone who are interested in nonprofit sector.

"Shaping The Future of Business"

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Road to The Future of Nonprofit Sectors

The Destination We Should Look For

As a student in public relations and marketing communications, I'm fortunate to witness and involve with many nonprofit organizations.

According to my experience, nonprofit organizations are short of professional marketers to be able to communicate and bring change to our communities. 

This is a great opportunity for students to get a hand-on experience in real practice. Through volunteer as a marketer, students can learn much more than books and professors can possibly teach.

For that reason, nonprofit organizations should connect with college and university students, and give the students a chance to work with the organizations. That way, not only the organizations can learn from the students, but also serve as a foundation of the students' attitude and behaviour toward the future.

I always believe that one day society will not need nonprofit sectors. It is the day that our world is at peace and people are helping each other at our own time and will.

What Do You See In The Future of Nonprofit Organizations?

Share and leave comments as you please.

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Fundraising Associate

A New Job Position For Nonprofit Organizations

"Fundraiser As a Sale"

Many nonprofit organizations are facing financial difficulty. It becomes first and foremost for the organizations to prepare a sustainable plan.

Several books published to guide nonprofit organizations to operate as if they were a business. Without doubt, in business world, the biggest portion of revenue comes from sales department. Nonprofits call it "fundraising" team.

Building a relationship requires time and sincerity. Customer relationship management (CRM) tools can be an essential tool to assist fundraisers with their "leads". Many CRM software products are available online with minimal to no cost, for instant:

• DonorPerfect
• NeonCRM
• eTapestry
• Trail Blazer
• Donor Pro 
• NonProfitEasy

There are many more software programs facilitate nonprofit organizations for utilizing database management. If the programs were to use efficiently, they could save a fortune and generate stable income for the organizations.

From my experience, many nonprofit organizations are lacking of donor database. It is near impossible to acquire sponsorships and/or big gifts without personal touch and relationship.

I hope this will help grow your nonprofit organizations. 

Best wishes.

Think Ahead, Think New West

Think Ahead, Think New West

"Building a Brighter Future For Foster Kids"

Secure Future For Foster Kids - turning 19 years old is one of the biggest celebrations for stepping toward the next stage of life; but for foster teens, it could be a major pit-point.

Most of the kids who left foster care faced uncertainties in their lives. Without proper support these young people can go astray. This can cause societal problems and lead to more detrimental issues.

Aunt Leah’s is a nonprofit organization established to provide assistance for individuals in foster care as well as teen moms. Its programs cultivate self-sufficient that enable foster kids and teen moms to grow into successful adults.

The organization is located in New Westminster, offering safe place to live, essential life skills, and career training programs for foster kids and teen moms.

For more information visit: http://www.auntleahs.org/

Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/Auntleahplace 

Twitter - @AuntLeahs