Marketing Your Heart Work
Introductions and Lead Up
Hello, all! My name is Yasmine Smith and I have the honor of being the Chief of Development for a non-profit named MEASURE. We turn data into social justice reform by using numbers as a common language between community members and the systems that are there to serve them. What does that look like, you may ask? Well, our most recent example would be our annual Big Data Community Policing Conference (BDCP) which took place in August.
At our annual BDCP conferences, MEASURE partners with a police department and activist group to spark dialogue and create better communities. This year, MEASURE partnered with the Dallas Police Department and Next Generation Action Network to begin a road to solutions created by dialogue built on data. The two groups hadn’t always had the best relationship to say the least (literally). The tension between the two groups was evident but malleable. During MEASURE’s three day conference, the community and the police department were provided with panels, training, healing, and a guide to partnership.
Though MEASURE’s strides be large, framing these successes in a marketable format came as a difficulty to me this week. Sometimes, even though your organization is doing great work, it may be hard to articulate this in a medium that draws potential funders in and gets them to only open their hearts but their pocket books too.
But how can I express the impact of police officers and activist coming together to talk to each other rather than yell over each other? How can I put into numbers healed hearts and relationships?
How can I say all this and still sell MEASURE as something that is worthy to be invested in (which it most certainly is — please consider donating here)?
You may find yourself in a similar situation: you have a great idea, but it doesn’t look like what’s been done before. You want to expand, but you can’t compare your venture to another and so it makes it hard to get buy-in from potential funders. As I was trying to create a marketing tool to reach potential funders I ran up against this same problem and I hope the meat and potatoes of this blog will help you out as well.
Meat & Potatoes — Marketing Your Heart Work
- Be Honest
The first step to actually creating something was being honest with myself about our hurdles and not beat myself up about this being difficult. Anything that is an evolution of the status quo is going to be hard. That doesn’t mean solely that the action of the procedure is going to be difficult — no, *everything* about the venture will be difficult— including marketing.
2. Ain’t Nothing To It, But To Do It
Secondly, it’s about using what you’ve got and making the best out of it. MEASURE, has done some pretty amazing things, and just because I can’t articulate those accomplishments in a normal format doesn’t mean that I can’t portray them in their best light and sell the crap out of the differences we are making.
3. Believe In Your Venture
Third — and this one comes directly from my Chief of Operations, Mr. Eric Byrd — believe in your venture. I know that MEASURE has the ability to change the world, I wouldn’t be investing so much into it if I didn’t believe that with my whole heart. However, sometimes, especially when you are confronted by other amazing ventures who seem to have a more streamline process, you can get insecure about what and how you’re doing things. Allow others to act as a sounding board, but never disregard all the work you’ve already put into your venture and your gut instincts.
4. Keep Going And Growing
Last and certainly not least: allow yourself to make mistakes, but never stay stagnant — you’re doing fine, just keep going. In this world where your heart work is what your trying to “sell,” sometimes we can stop ourselves from doing things because we’re so worried about the end product. Being cautious of your long-term goals is important, but you can’t let the fear of “messing up” stop you from just putting something on paper. Remember, you can always modify later.
Hope this helps. When the product has been approved, I’ll edit this blog to include our lay-out!
MEASURE’s Highlights For This Week
- Rough draft of tri-fold for marketing purposes complete.
- Ben & Jerry’s letter of Intent drafted.
- An amazing blog posted (*toots own horn*).
- Final touches on The Central Texas ISD Convening Event in partnership with the Austin Area Urban League. Anyone interested in education — parents, administration, teachers, students, and everyone else (because let’s be honest, the kids are our future and we should ALL be interested in the education) — should come to this event. HUGE shout out to Ms. Mercedes Perry, MEASURE’s Chief of Human Resources, as project lead for this event. Great work, girl!
MEASURE’s Hurdles This Week
- MEASURE is one blog behind for Impact Hub’s accelerator program (sorry, guys). It’ll be up to this gal to make sure we close the gap.
- Attendance at MEASURE’s last All Hands Meeting was low. Time to solidify a volunteer retention game plan (*scribbles on to-do list*).
- We could always use some funds . . . (I’ll just drop this here just in case the mood strikes you, dear reader.)
