To:		Neil Lindeman
From:		Philippe Van Lieu
Date:		May 18, 2008
Subject:	Non-profit strategy memo

The Tuolumne County Green Cross of California is the largest non-profit organization in Tuolumne County, headquartered in Moose River, California. Originally founded in 1867 as the Tuolumne County Red Cross, today the Green Cross not only provides the same kind of humanitarian services typical of the American and International Red Cross, but it also provides services and resources more aligned to the needs of the local neighborhood where each Green Cross location finds itself in.

The main point of this memo is to share and discuss the plan to generate publicity and soliciting membership and contributions.

Objectives
The ultimate objectives is to create a plan and execute it, a plan that allows us to generate publicity and solicit new memberships and contributions. The plan will involve various means and actions we need to undertake that not only allows us achieve our goals, but does so in an efficient and expedient manner.

Audience analysis
The target audience for us to properly execute our plan and to achieve our objectives are varied, but are specifically any one of the following: potential members with money to contribute, potential members with time to spare towards our cause, and potential members who are willing to spread our good word to other potential members. All of these kinds of potential members are necessary for us to be able to achieve our goals. Here's a quick breakdown of what each of these potential member types means to us, with data on each of the three collected from various surveys and random interviews we've conducted over the past month.

Potential Members with Money to Contribute:
This potential member is probably the most important out of the three, since the one thing we are in most need of is money. Fortunately Tuolumne County is one of the richest counties in California, and so there are plenty of potential members out there with money willing to contribute to the Green Cross. In the various surveys and interviews conducted, we've learned that most of these kinds of potential members have heard of us through out various television campaigns, especially when we fund various PBS and NPR programming. However, most of them aren't interested in joining the Green Cross, or at least contributing to us, since they don't feel we provide any services that need—possibly because they believe everything we offer is already covered by their work's health insurance. Obviously this is not true, as we provide more kinds of services than what any health insurance provides; therefore we need to make sure these people realize that there is more to the Green Cross than they realize, most likely through the means we already use that they know about (television, PBS/NPR contributions, etc). For the ones who have already contributed to the Green Cross that we've surveyed and interviews, they are motivated to contribute because they realize the good we do for the communities we are in, and also realize that we're not in as good of a shape as we ought to be. Ultimately, if we are to make any headway in increasing our membership of people specifically with money to contribute, we need to make sure we focus on getting their attention through means already available to us, and to tug on their heart strings a bit once we do have their attention. In the end this shouldn't be too hard to accomplish.

Potential Members with Time to Spare
The second most important kind of potential member are the ones who have time and energy to spare at the Green Cross. Either because they wish to volunteer, or because they are the ones who are actually in need of our services. These are just as important at the potential members with money to contribute, though money has the edge. In the surveys and interviews we've conducted, most of the people who say they would have time to spare say they know us through some television (and even then, most of it was due to when the Red's Corporation sued us in 2005 which forced us to become the Green Cross), but mostly it's through the various stories and tales of how their friends or family were helped out by the Red/Green Cross in the past. If they are interested in joining us, either as a volunteer or as someone in need of our services, it'll be because they need something from us. However, most of them didn't think we had anything to offer them, or didn't feel that they needed anything from us at this point in our life. Unlike the potential members with money to contribute, these potential members just didn't need what they though we provided, as opposed to their work's health insurance covering their needs. Therefore if we are to increase membership of these kind if potential members, we also need to advertise to them ways they can benefit from joining the Green Cross, either through television or possibly through actual humanitarian acts in visible locations; the actual acts might help encourage others to share new stories about the Green Cross, similar to the stories they're sharing right now.

Potential Members who'll Spread the Word
These are the least—yet still—important potential member. They may not have time or money to contribute, but they are at least willing to tell others about what we do. Frankly this is still better than nothing. Their key motivation, as we've discovered, is their willingness to do “a good job” and to help others, and spreading the word about the Green Cross is their way of doing it. If we are to add these kind of people to our ranks, it might be best that we provide them with Green Cross documentation for them to hand out to their friends or to put on car windshields (through we'll research various options which are least likely to offend), maybe pay them a nominal fee to also help motivate them to share information about the Green Cross to others.

Strategy and tactics
The various means available to us for us to increase membership and encourage others to contribute time and money to us are limitless. However some are more effective than others to accomplish our goals. Above I discussed the different kind of people who are most willing to contribute, as well as ways we can get to them which are most effective. Here are some other ways we can attract attention and contributions:

Television Advertisements:
We current contribute to various PBS and NPR programming, which is where a majority of people have heard of us. We may need to ramp up these contributions, or to maybe increase our presence in those contributions; both PBS and NPR allow a short, few second-long “commercial blurb” about us that follows after each program's contribution announcements. We can create a small commercial which quickly expands upon the kind of services we provide, especially the ones that people's health insurance and/or common sense doesn't already provide. We could also just start creating commercials for regular television programming, much in the same way the Church of Latter Day Saints or the Methodist Church have created commercials advertising their... well, existence.

A Solicitation Letter:
Possibly more aligned for potential members with money to contribute, we can begin a solicitation letter campaign and send it out to the more well-off towns and neighborhoods in Tuolumne County, like the Hood District in Sonora, Mi-Wuk Village and Twain Harte. This might just be enough to tug on their heart strings and get them to contribute, or at least let them know we exist and we need their help.

A Brochure:
We can also create a colorful and visually stimulating brochure which we can leave at book stores, hospitals, grocery stores and the like which might make their way into the hands of people more willing to contribute their time as a volunteer or because they are in need of our services. To which, the brochure itself can focus more on our need of contributions and volunteers, as well as cover the kind of services we offer that people might not be aware of.

A Press Release:
Last of all, we can also release a press release of one of our more noteworthy events, like a “open house” faire or whenever we partner up with one of our partner non-profit organizations with a more focused dedication (like the Tuolumne County Association of Alzheimer's Sufferers or the Autistic Students Alliance of Tuolumne County) for an even greater cause or drive, which is something we've rarely done in the past. Press releases isn't anything that takes any sort of effort to do, and once it makes its way into the newspapers, usually the people who like to spread good news are the first ones to pick up on it and tell their friends about it.

When these four tactics are finally executed, they will undoubtedly help increase the potential for new memberships across the board, as well as simply increase awareness of the Green Cross and everything we can do for the community. And most of all, these four tactics will cover all our bases and help attract each of the above listed potential member types.

Conclusion
Through our various surveys and interviews, we've determined that there are three kinds of potential members who are in some way interested in the Tuolumne County Green Cross. Likewise, we've also discovered in which ways we can advertise or raise awareness of the Green Cross to those types of potential members. The next step is to basically begin to execute the above tactics, making sure they're tailored to focus on all of the potential member types and to encourage them to donate their time, money and energy to the Green Cross. In the end we can only go up from all the hard work we put into this.

PS: I apologize for not making this a mere 700-words long. There was just so much I wanted to add to this, I don't think I could have been able to do this is under 700 words without losing a lot of information and value.