Is "Run It Like A Business" overrated?

Recently there is a boom on social media about the Flint water crisis. The town saved over $5 million with this bid; however, the problem does not seem to be the money at all. 

(Read the wrap-up story about the Flint water crisis here)

A few blog articles I've read regarding this very matter pointed the root cause of the crisis is the government was trying to run it like a business. In nonprofits as well, I like to think that many nonprofits should adopt business models to be able to sustain in this environment. This including my nonprofit marketing agency for nonprofit organizations idea posted earlier as well. I believe, many have missed the point!

Run It Like Business?

This does not mean "become" business. It is true for us, nonprofits, our goals and objectives are often subjective, which make it hard for us to measure... really, anything. Numbers are easier in every way to determine the effectiveness of our operation.

NEVER FORGET WHERE WE CAME FROM AND WHY WE ARE HERE

In educational institutions, if you had a chance to take a business program. They teach you, the ultimate goal of all businesses is "to generate shareholders' wealth". This got in my ears for years, and I always have the question, why? Until today, I cannot really figure it out why... of course for more investors, business growth, retain earnings, etc. but why? Yes, many people think I'm naive, maybe I am, but have you ever asked yourself why you do anything you do apart from just knowing "that's how things work".

Credit: Clker

All in all, I'm trying to say that, use business tools to improve your organization but never use business mindset to run your charity. If you don't get it, see this in an extreme way, you use a hammer smashing a nail into wood boards. Great! you are using a tool to make things more efficient. But you don't think to become a hammer, a nail, or wood boards. Of course, that's stupid and it's impossible, well, look at this, I believe we are trying to say, be yourself, use business tools that's it. Don't try to be a business person to use the tools.


A little note I'd like to add. If you are running a business, try to consider your business to run like a charity as well. How? I'll come back to that later.

"Shaping the Future of Business"

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The Big Idea for Nonprofits Marketing

Each and every year charities in Canada receive less financial supports from the government sector. If this pattern keeps going where would the charities end up? In my prediction, we will see more and more of larger charities 'acquire' the smaller charities forming a larger organization with boarder scope of work. There is no certainty of the circumstances if it happens. “If they are doing exactly the same thing (eg. breast cancer related charities), wouldn’t it be better off to have a single organization to handle the subject?” I do not know the answer to that; what I know is that larger organizations require lots more processes and procedures before one action can take place, smaller organizations have much flexibility to act upon needs. For this reason, I believe the combination of both large and small(er) organizations would be more effective for social needs.

I’m all for the small to medium size nonprofits, not because I do not like the big guys, but I believe thousands of small guys can make a great impact no lesser than a big guy, beyond that, much faster (if integrated well). The idea here is how to make the small guys sustain themselves in this competitive and blood-sucking environment? I say, marketing, market your impact, market your cause, and ma[r]ke[t] the difference. Above other important things needed in the organization, you need marketing.

What Am I Saying?

Here’s the click, marketing is so expensive! Oh, yes, it is. What if there is a nonprofit organization professional in marketing that works for nonprofit organizations? That’s the idea. I am an apprentice in marketing/public relations and I can see this is possible.

How?

By connecting small businesses those depends their revenue from communities with charities those are the centre of communities. Charities have much to learn from the business perspectives and vice versa. That’s the basic concept; however, it will get lots more complicated in term of how the organization runs: revenue model, managements, board governance, etc.

If this is a nonprofit organization, does it mean, it cannot make profit? No, it doesn't mean that it cannot generate profit. Many people misunderstand that a charity cannot make profit. The difference is that charity does not pay dividend (nor have shareholders in this regards). The income is used and the profit is return into the organization. The excess income will be used to train and educate the other nonprofit organizations for self-sustaining as well as to expand. 

I believe the goal of all nonprofit organizations is to solve the social imperfections and cease to exist due to their services are no longer required (very unlikely, but that’s the goal). Once the small guys have the skills to maintain or even better, grow itself with minimum support from the government sector; then, the organization achieve its objective.

I am currently an MBA student working on a research project on effective nonprofits management, partially to find the best way that would make this type of organization works. If you are interested in further detail of the organization I am planning, let me know, maybe we can make an important change for the charities in Vancouver, and perhaps, Canada.

"Shaping the Future of Business"

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Anyone Can Be A Marketer, Can you?... Really?

As I am writing this, I am constructing another blog for the idea mentioned in the previous post; thus, unfortunately this post is not it. However, to give a quick idea, it is the 'nonprofit marketing agency for nonprofit organizations'. It sounds straightforward and clear, but is it?

Since I was pursuing my bachelor degree I decided to major in Pubic Relations, which I believe many PR skills are interchangeable with marketing (especially in promotion aspect). Many people told me that anyone can be a marketer or public relations practitioner. I agree! and you know what? Every one can be a doctor, a pilot, a scientist, an astronaut, you name it. The only impossibility here would be we cannot be non-human (genetically).

The big idea today is marketing is not for everyone, or you think it's for you, your personality may prevent you from being good at it. And here is the twist, the awesome thing about marketing is the field is so large that it can fit any personality you may have. If you are an introvert person, welcome to marketing analyst. You are a planner / thinker, well, marketing strategist seems to be for you. You enjoy dynamic working environment, then event marketer is sound for you. You get my point. So again, yes, anyone can be a marketer. Let's take an extreme example, leave a comment if you prefer a creative surgeon over the stick-to-the-point kind of surgeon.

Apart from theories, processes, and systems that a marketer needs to know (and yes, anyone who study them can do that). I believe that being a marketer is being a nosy explorer full with curiosities and the why not attitude (what picture popped in your head just now? I was thinking of a Beagle). We take (necessary) risks to see what works and what's not. Are you that type of person?

Credit: Micah Brian Riddle

If you are a marketer and you are not being a Beagle, be one. If you are already being a Beagle, keep going, be there, show up, anywhere your legs can take you.

"Shaping the Future of Business"

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Is Marketing Important For a Charity? If not, What is?

Is marketing important for a charity? When I was in class I learned that many organizations (particularly nonprofit organizations), marketing department is a prey for annual budget cuts - so no, it's not important...? Many do not have an in-house marketer at all. The mindset is like, anyone can do it or we cannot afford it; and everyone in the organization sort of contribute in a marketing campaign... How many messages would a public receive then?

Out sourcing sounds very tempting, but again, that would incurs big amount of dollar and it won't look good for our annual report. What next? What are the options? How can get public trust and create positive reputation without spending that much? Let's go on social media.

The Art Of Marketing, 2014

Social media in my opinion, are awesome tools... "tools". I said this to everyone, if you don't know how to utilize a tool, someone is going to get hurts. I talked to my old friend who is currently working on a social media campaign. After I listened to her, there is a pattern of social mediagaphoning. "Social mediagaphoning" (Adj.) - yes, I made it up - is the action of shouting information on the social world regardless of the listeners. Well, we got the information out but... who is listening? Is this what we want? How loud should we shout until someone notice?

My point today is, marketing is an investment. An investment contain risks, and risks can be minimized. Everyone can get into stock market, but how many make fortune out of it? Same thing. You required knowledge, experience, and guts to invest in marketing. Perhaps, risks were always the reason why small charities choose to avoid (similar to someone with small budget trying to buy a stock).

But! this is not our last hope. We can turn this around. I had this idea for 3 years now; unfortunately, my situation did not allow me to move on with the idea. I think it is time to share it to everyone; in case someone can start or share with me the viability of the idea. I will share this idea in my next post because I think you have enough today. Let's close the page and we will continue later.

"Shaping the Future of Business"

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Revival of What The Blog!: The NonProfit Marketers

It has been over a year I was apart from this blog. Now I assuming that everyone who was reading this has long forgotten this blog already. My apologies if I disappointed you, but disappointments come with learning, I learned a lot during the missing period and I would love to share with you still.

First, HAPPY 2016! well, that's done. Many nonprofit organizations I tried to talk to in Metro Vancouver were incredibly busy during the year ended period. It was very interesting that some organizations were providing me supports in a short interview. I thank you.

Financial Post published one of its findings over the 2015 from the top 25 charities in Canada regarding the amount of donations received. The leader this year goes to the World Vision Canada, followed by Salvation Army and Plan International Canada respectively.

Who are they?

World Vision Canada -
The organization is commit to develop a long lasting change for children, families, and community away from poverty and injustice. By providing supports to children around the world, the organization is able to create positive impacts in eight major areas including: health, food, water &hygiene, education, economic development, child protection, humanitarian assistance & emergency response, and Canadian program.

For more information about World Vision Canada please visit the official website

Salvation Army -
If you are in Canada during period prior to Christmas, then you cannot miss the Salvation Army people. They wear red vest written Salvation Army on the back and have a red poll attached with donation box, and of course, the bell. Those people together all over Canada raised over CAN$22 million over the Christmas period, thanks to all the supporters. I'll not go into deep about the organization due to certain reasons; if you would like to know about Salvation Army, do visit the official website

Plan International Canada
Another awesome charity that bring positive changes for children all over the world. The organization aims to create the world that children can meet full potential in societies. In 2015 Plan International Canada implemented over 4,000 projects in 52 countries, and that's over 85,000 communities OR 214+ million lives.
For more information about Plan Canada, do visit the official website

Today post I'd like to share a story from the World Vision. This is a story of Sonia, a 12 year-old girl living in Burundi, Africa. While education is unreachable for her, she needs to work hard AND long everyday hoping to fill a tiny potion of her stomach. Above all, she wishes "to have a pen and notepad and to go to school".

I never have an intention to move your emotion for Sonia. Everyone has different standard of living, where do we draw the line of "standard"? Yet, standard has never been a standard, has it?

"Shaping the Future of Business"

My A Day in The Life - 2015 New Year Eve Edition (just for fun)

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4 Criteria of Personal Core Competencies

Have you ever wonder how a person get paid so much for their career while you believe the job is not extraordinary? Well, I do sometimes. 

Recently I learned an corporate internal environment analysis in my master and came across the core competency criteria. It was nothing particularly new or unique, but at a closer look, I tried to apply to myself as a person. 

It WORKS! Let's see how...

What is Core Competency?

Following the concept by Coyne, Hall, and Clifford proposed that the core competency is "aggregates of capabilities, where synergy is created that has sustainable value and broad applicability." 

The 4 Criteria

A core competency must be:

• Valuable
• The set of capabilities should help the person in the process of finding opportunities and create value, or preventing threats from surrounding.
• Rare
• The capabilities are possessed by few people, or none.
• Costly to Imitate
• The capabilities should not be easily copied due to 3 main factors:
1. Experience- Rich or extraordinary personal experience
2. Causal ambiguity
   - Unique ways of doing things that no one can understand
3. Social complexity
   - Network and relationship of the person
• Non-substitutable
• The capabilities that is invisible to others; thus, make it difficult to substitute.

Core competencies are the reason behind the differences between individuals which create competitive advantage that makes others perceived you are an important person that cannot be substituted.

I hope after reading this article you can find your capabilities and create your own core competencies.

"Shaping the Future of Business"

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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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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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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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