Awesome partnerships
Media partnerships:
- Assign a person or Dean to manage and discuss projects and outreach with the media, contacts and whatnot
- Getting local media to announce every grant winner is difficult, finding interesting angles or to get them engaged
- Local bloggers with a large following
- San Antonio had a blogger / media partner who helped promote the events and winners
- People do posts on Linkedin to get more interested trustees.
- Write your own article about a winner, tag publications and they’ll sometimes pick it up (especially if it’s an interesting angle or story)
- Start with immediate circle of trustees and grant winners to see if they have connections to the media to help make connections with other media outlets
Local businesses & orgs for events: San Antonio has “SA 2020” partnerships to get the city to become more ‘world class’ by 2020, they are partners. Themed months for grants help a lot. Such as, “Urban parks of San Antonio” Go to the new places opening up/doing grand openings, “would you be interested in hosting us, we’ll bring in 100 people.” San Antonio next party is the largest event they’re having has like 800 people interested, 45,000 in the network to see it, free dj, free space, once you get the proven event, sponsors come to you Start building slow, bluff it till you make it, slowly build following Find some locally-minded events ahead of time (check eventbrite, facebook, find other groups to partner with) Get applicants to bring guests to help fill the venue Offering something different, use the 5 senses of experiential marketing: http://www.kelseyads.com/using-experiential-marketing/ “Must be present and pitch to win” Target off days and off hours, even if you offer 25 people, most will accommodate Pitch Parties or Past Trustee Winner parties type events Contact breweries or local reps for samples, granola bar people, snack people, etc.
Educational institutions: Find interns to help with social media or other tasks, for a great resume piece, give a vote for their work Swag donations: Screen printers or schwag like koozies Local printers for mini, large and vertical banner (with a little shout out at the bottom) “Friends of Awesome” shout outs through social media
Other challenges: Not having an official 501c3 or incorporated company hinders partnerships Partnering with a registered organization -- fiscal partnership or 501c3 partnership Try and stay away from organizations that are very small or very large (they have a philanthropic arm). For large organizations, go through the marketing arm instead of philanthropic arm. Ask for in-kind gifts instead of financial gifts For Summit, financial donations go through Institute for Higher Studies
