Intersection Creative Strategies http://www.intersectioncreativestrategies.com Accelerating social ventures Sun, 27 Nov 2011 06:16:23 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 Fair Trade and Social Media http://www.intersectioncreativestrategies.com/fair-trade-and-social-media/ http://www.intersectioncreativestrategies.com/fair-trade-and-social-media/#comments Fri, 04 Nov 2011 18:35:06 +0000 Scott Overpeck http://www.intersectioncreativestrategies.com/?p=1295

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Last weekend I spoke at Green Festival at the LA Convention Center. It was scheduled as a panel discussion but the other panelist did not show and so the moderator asked me to speak instead (30 minutes prior to scheduled start time) and so I prepared some quick remarks and followed it up with a Q&A.  Below are my bullet points.

  • Most of you probably are at this talk right now to hear “ten easy steps to media guru-dom”
  • Thats BS. It doesn’t exist.
  • The keys to success in , advocacy, campaigning, fund development, etc are the same keys that have always been there adapted to a new communications platform
  • Fair Trade and Social Enterprise businesses should do better than their “less enlightened” brethren.
  • …tone…messaging
  • Don’t tell me your prices are not competitive. What does a coach bag cost?
  • Integrate, integrate, integrate. How do you determine where to route incoming phone calls? emails? Mail? etc?
  • Establishing a workflow
  • who is your audience
  • where do they “live”
  • what do they care about
  • how much time do you have?
  • what digital resources do you have

Tools

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]]> http://www.intersectioncreativestrategies.com/fair-trade-and-social-media/feed/ 0 Donald Bren in FORBES on THINK Together http://www.intersectioncreativestrategies.com/donald-bren-in-forbes-on-think-together/ http://www.intersectioncreativestrategies.com/donald-bren-in-forbes-on-think-together/#comments Fri, 23 Sep 2011 04:09:06 +0000 Scott Overpeck http://www.intersectioncreativestrategies.com/?p=1281

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Proud to work with these guys:

In my opinion, the person doing the best job improving education in California is Randy Barth, President and CEO of THINK TOGETHER in Santa Ana, Calif. He is the most dedicated and innovative professional in K-12 tutoring and mentoring education in California.

Donald Bren in FORBES

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]]> http://www.intersectioncreativestrategies.com/donald-bren-in-forbes-on-think-together/feed/ 0 Exciting new partnerships http://www.intersectioncreativestrategies.com/exciting-new-partnerships/ http://www.intersectioncreativestrategies.com/exciting-new-partnerships/#comments Wed, 24 Aug 2011 01:49:53 +0000 Scott Overpeck http://www.intersectioncreativestrategies.com/?p=1269

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You may have noticed we have been very quiet for a while on the blog. We are currently working with two new clients getting some projects put together in both the web and enterprise spaces. Cannot share with you too many details right now, but I did want to introduce you to Thomas House Shelter and Hands Together. Keep your eyes on these two organizations as they are doing great work and we are excited to help them meet their goals for the future.

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]]> http://www.intersectioncreativestrategies.com/exciting-new-partnerships/feed/ 0 June’s OC Partnership Homeless Service Provider’s Forum http://www.intersectioncreativestrategies.com/junes-oc-partnership-homeless-service-providers-forum/ http://www.intersectioncreativestrategies.com/junes-oc-partnership-homeless-service-providers-forum/#comments Mon, 06 Jun 2011 17:22:03 +0000 Scott Overpeck http://www.intersectioncreativestrategies.com/?p=1228

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I attend the monthly OC Partnership Homeless Service Providers Forum. This month the discussion was incredibly interesting and brought up a lot of questions for a lot of attendees, I believe.

I will be tackling it in two posts. This first part will be my notes with little commentary. The second will be my expanded thoughts after processing for a couple days with broader implications for all organizations.  Please note these notes are by no means exhaustive, but rather what stood out the most to me…

  • The count this year went down, but requests to providers went up by 43% ???
  • Orange County may have the veneer of glitz and glamour but we also have one city with the highest per capita language that is not English in the nation as well as a city with the highest population density in the nation
  • revelation is more interesting than concealment

Heard from Jeremy Sidell from Path, Paul Leon from Illumination Foundation,  Diane Shepard  from 211 and Larry Haynes from Mercy House.

Jeremy

  • Permanent supportive housing…
  • community based solutions
  • Path Mall–refer people across the hall, not across town
  • Co-case
  • Partner with the best, don’t reinvent the wheel
  • Convene stakeholders

Diane

  • Centralized intake…
  • increased cooperation
  • interoperability between records management systems
  • printing paper is inefficient

Paul

  • IF’s recoup program
  • http://www.nhchc.org/
  • harm reduction…

Larry

  • Common Ground — housing first model
  • None of us can solve these problems alone
  • None of us are clever or original
  • Is my life’s work ending homelessness or advancing my agency? Mutually exclusive goals
  • how to get things done: have an advocacy that focuses on self interest not lofty ideals

Stay tuned for a more thorough unpacking of this and some themes I think all organizations can benefit from gaining a clearer understanding of.

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]]> http://www.intersectioncreativestrategies.com/junes-oc-partnership-homeless-service-providers-forum/feed/ 0 Jeff on Cultivate11 http://www.intersectioncreativestrategies.com/jeff-on-cultivate11/ http://www.intersectioncreativestrategies.com/jeff-on-cultivate11/#comments Fri, 20 May 2011 23:32:47 +0000 Scott Overpeck http://www.intersectioncreativestrategies.com/?p=1196

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Our writer, Jeff Jordan, wrote about his experience at Cultivate11.

The idea of is specifically crucial in the area of nonprofit work. If you are part of an organization making a difference in somebodies life or community it is the stories coming out of it that will drive interest in your organization. People actually do want to hear stories about the good in the world and so it’s up to groups like us to get those stories heard by as many people as possible.

Check out the rest of it on his personal site.

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]]> http://www.intersectioncreativestrategies.com/jeff-on-cultivate11/feed/ 0 Cultivate11 http://www.intersectioncreativestrategies.com/cultivate11/ http://www.intersectioncreativestrategies.com/cultivate11/#comments Mon, 09 May 2011 17:09:35 +0000 Scott Overpeck http://www.intersectioncreativestrategies.com/?p=1182

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This last week, Jeff and I made it out to Cultivate11, a communications conference. I was speaking on a couple panels and leading an offsite.  It was a great experience and I am grateful to the Cultivate team for having me out. Several posts will follow but I wanted to start with some overarching themes that stood out.

  • The pace of change continues to increase. The key to success is not having all the answers, but being adaptable and watching trends.
  • The tools are such a small part of what constitutes great communication. The message is number one.
  • FOCUS FOCUS FOCUS
  • None of us has all the answers. Work together.

I will delve further into these and other topics soon. Lots of great content in the notes from this conference. Just have to translate it to the page…

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]]> http://www.intersectioncreativestrategies.com/cultivate11/feed/ 0 Winners http://www.intersectioncreativestrategies.com/winners/ http://www.intersectioncreativestrategies.com/winners/#comments Fri, 22 Apr 2011 15:38:32 +0000 Scott Overpeck http://www.intersectioncreativestrategies.com/?p=1176

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The winners have been notified by email. If you did not win, please head to the Cultivate and sign up using ‘insider11′ for a discount. Additionally, a huge thanks to Random Number Generator and Cultivate for making this contest happen!

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]]> http://www.intersectioncreativestrategies.com/winners/feed/ 0 Cultivate 11 Ticket Giveaway http://www.intersectioncreativestrategies.com/cultivate-11-ticket-giveaway/ http://www.intersectioncreativestrategies.com/cultivate-11-ticket-giveaway/#comments Tue, 19 Apr 2011 20:49:38 +0000 Scott Overpeck http://www.intersectioncreativestrategies.com/?p=1166

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*update: winner will be announced Thursday*

 

The good folks at Cultivate (the great non profit communications conference we talked about a while ago) have generously given us a few tickets to give away. If you want to attend please fill out the following form. Winners will be picked at random.

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]]> http://www.intersectioncreativestrategies.com/cultivate-11-ticket-giveaway/feed/ 0 How to survive the budget crunch http://www.intersectioncreativestrategies.com/how-to-survive-the-budget-crunch/ http://www.intersectioncreativestrategies.com/how-to-survive-the-budget-crunch/#comments Sat, 05 Mar 2011 00:12:45 +0000 Scott Overpeck http://www.intersectioncreativestrategies.com/?p=1137

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First and foremost, a disclaimer:

This is not a political post.

 

We are not debating or discussing the proper role of government or picking sides in any budget debates. We are evaluating the landscape in which we all find ourselves in and trying to determine a wise course of action.

We have been receiving a ton of calls the last few weeks from who are afraid. Afraid of impending budget cuts from federal, state and local governments. Afraid from foundations shrinking endowments. Afraid from major donors who have lost their shirts and are scared of the financial uncertainty current conditions are holding tighter to their purse strings.

Many of these organizations are 75%+ government funded. Many of them have no formal fundraising strategy. Most of them live in a world of stats, graphs and charts. Government agencies and foundations love pie charts. Its a scientific fact.

In this time of uncertainty, in the time of cuts, layoffs and closures, we don’t have a pep talk. We don’t have an easy answer. An we don’t have a background in political maneuvering. Nope. None of that. We just have a single piece of advice, and honestly, it seems there has never been a better time to consider it (you know, because you sort of don’t have a choice).

Diversify your funding.

 

You probably have a laundry list of reasons why you currently have one revenue source comprising 75%+ of your budget. Fine. The fact remains you are hostage to that funding source and if it dries up, you are toast. is subject to whoever is currently in power and budget concerns. Foundations and major donors have finite resources and are also heavily impacted by the market.

So where should you find funding. Everywhere of course!

 

Some options and ideas (which we can certainly explore more one on one with your organization if you would like) include:

  • Grassroots fundraising strategies
  • partnerships
  • Multiple smaller in lieu of focusing on one large
  • Online strategies
  • Events
  • Rent out any pertinent properties you might have anytime they are not in use

Additionally, you should also look to see where you can cut costs or reduce resistance to receiving donations

  • Using like Volunteer Match, CauseCast, Jumo, etc to reduce reliance on paid staff. There are a ton of talented folks who are just waiting to be asked to change the world.
  • How many clicks does your online donation process involve? A small percentage of donors will give up on each click.
  • Ensure regular folks (and not just your peers) perceive you as the experts in your field through earned media, media, etc.

There are hundreds of opportunities that we mention pretty frequently around here, but the point is, please, diversify. Your organization is doing too much good, for too many people to have to close the shutters because one politician or changes their mind.

One organization we partnered with previously had written into there by laws that no single funding source could ever comprise more than 25% of the budget. Don’t get trapped in a box. Be entrepreneurial, innovative, creative.

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]]> http://www.intersectioncreativestrategies.com/how-to-survive-the-budget-crunch/feed/ 0 How to grow your organization on a shoestring budget http://www.intersectioncreativestrategies.com/how-to-grow-your-organization-on-a-shoestring-budget/ http://www.intersectioncreativestrategies.com/how-to-grow-your-organization-on-a-shoestring-budget/#comments Mon, 07 Feb 2011 13:04:13 +0000 Scott Overpeck http://www.intersectioncreativestrategies.com/?p=1086

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Here at Intersection, we love any organization or company with big dreams that wants to change the world. And we’ve been priveleged to have many opportunities to help bring those dreams into reality through our work in strategy, , fundraising and event production. That said, big dreams do not keep the lights on at the office nor do they put rice on the table at our modest homes. So we can only help a limited number of organizations that are not able to make the investment in our . Mostly these price breaks and pro bono gigs are reserved for organizations that our team sits on boards for or volunteer at.

So here is a secret. Many great consultants and leaders regularly give away their smarts for dirt cheap at conferences. So going forward we will be having our strategists spend more time at conferences.

We are super excited that this spring Scott Overpeck, our lead strategist, has been asked to be a part of some panels at Cultivate 2011. Its a great line up of speakers and panelists that anyone from the faith based or sectors can learn a ton from. Many of these speakers regularly charge way more than the cost of the conference for a phone consult and so the value is just phenomenal. And beyond that the good folks at Cultivate told us that our friends (and that means you) can get in at a discounted rate by simply typing insider11 in when you register. Plus its in Huntington Beach, Ca!!!

We cannot stress enough the importance of developing a cohesive 360 degree communication strategy no matter what type or size organization you lead and this conference will give you a great start. Please consider bringing several members of your team so you can take back and develop implementation plans with multiple perspectives.

What conferences have you been to that were really useful?

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