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Brand Partner
The "Brand Partner" plays a crucial role in building high scale home food donation systems. This page will explain the critical piece they provide.
There are 3 Important Roles; Brand Partner, Operating Partner, and System/Methods
Our ambitious goal is to establish home-food donation programs in at least 70% of the country and to support the donation of 450 million pounds of food.
To do this we need "scale"; by this we mean we need 900 Chapters nationwide. A chapter is run by the 'Operating Partner'. They run the software, schedule the events, and provide the materials to the donors and drivers.
We also need "density", this means to have a lot of donors inside each chapter. Most Operating Partners that run the chapters run donor-drives to add more donors to the system. You can read much more about this in "Start a Chapter" (click the link).
These "Donor Drives" are the key to everything. A chapter usually starts out with friends, families and others tied to the Operating Partner. A Rotary Club, for example, may get their Rotarians and some of their friends and business connections to sign up. So how do we get from that starting point of 100 or so to the 1000's needed to create density? This is where the "Brand Partner" enters the scene.
A Brand Partner will....
At a minimum; which by the way is hardly fair to call 'minimum' since its a game-changer. They buy the bags, which is about 20% of the cost. The other 80% is what we call the "incentive campaign".
In short; an "Incentive Campaign" is where A Simple Gesture provides a donation to other organizations 501(c)(3) non-profit programs. For example, we might donate money to a church or the Humane Society or to a School Food Program. These non profits then do a great thing for us! They reach out to their network of donors and partners and ask them to register. Often times this incentive is around $10 per registered donor. Imagine a 4H program, with hundreds or thousands of connections, sending an email to their network. Each email contains a unique URL that tracks people that register from that specific email. We then write a check to the 4H, which can sometimes be in the thousands of dollars.
In many cases a Brand Partner will do much much more. They often ask their employee's to get involved. One of our donor drives is to set up tables to register donors. For example, if that church we just mentioned asks all their parishioners to register so they can buy a swing set for their play area, they will need us to be outside the church to assist in their registration. "Us" would be A Simple Gesture volunteers and employee's from the Brand Partner working side-by-side.
Brand Partners may pay for media. Often times companies have funds for media buys that they share with non profits. We would give them a QR code from our software to put in a media ad, asking the reader to scan the code and register. This code has an embedded special code so we know how many people registered from each ad. The QR code comes from our software; ASG Event Manager.
A Brand Partner will receive....
The #1 thing we provide is fantastic branding. We place their name front and center on our high visibility bags. We can even change the color from green to whatever they want. They get top billing!
Imagine this; in Ashland Oregon, one out of three households have that bag on their doorstep on that pickup event every other month. The entire community knows its "green bag day". Whoever is the brand partner is going to be recognized community wide 6 to 12 times a year. We've been told it's the best advertising value they have. Why? Because we don't need that much money. Our "near zero cost" system only needs money to build up the donor base.
ROI: Return on Investment is not a term often used in the non-profit world, but we love it. The reason is, for $1 we can return between $60 to $200. Most non profits can say $1 results in $2 to $4. Our ROI is fantastic because our system has such a low cost. That $1 goes to getting a new donor or to pay for the bag, and the average donor provides more than $250 in food value per year!
The Brand Partner engages their employee's. A Simple Gesture is a great way to get teams involved. Set up a "Pop up pantry" to directly hand the food to those in need on a Saturday; those employee's won't forget the experience. And they will see and feel the impact their company has on their community.
How to Find a Branding Partner
Try Many Ways!!
Finding a Brand Partner takes a plan and perseverance. It's as important as finding a great Operating Partner. There are many ways, and its a combination of luck and effort to get one of them to happen.
First, figure out what your operating expenses will be. We recommend to calculate this as a "First year on-boarding costs" (the cost to find a donor), and then a "maintenance cost" to keep that donor in your program. CLICK HERE to learn more about this calculation.
Second, map out a list of targets. We suggest to do some google searches to get the names of these companies in your area. What you're looking for are retail brands, those that get the most value by high visibility from benevolent people. Here is a list to search for;
- A retail company that produces their products or is headquartered in your area is fantastic! In our area there are some great brands, such as Amy's Kitchen and uncountable wineries.
- A large chain that has a regional base; for example in our area Friedman's Hardware and Lumber is in many cities across the North Bay. Hardware stores, Electronic Stores, Appliance Stores, Furniture Stores, Auto-Body Shops, Car Repair Shops, and many other retail brands will have regional presence.
- Financial Institutions; Banks, credit unions, financial services are all great targets. Many of these have regional structures.
- Big Clubs; some Social Clubs like Rotary Clubs, have very large budgets. In our area "Active 20-30 Club" provides enough charitable donation to drive an entire program.
Third, find the right person. This is maybe the single most important thing. If you just send an Email or write a Letter you are one of hundreds doing the same thing. And, you will get routed to their community grant program which likely just puts you in a long queue. You need to find someone that can see this, because it's unlike anything out there. (Click Here to read "how to make the sale".)
The right person is the President, or someone that reports to the President. How to do this is a wide open question, but here are methods that can work;
- Network among your group of friends; "does anyone know someone that works at xxxx". We all this the '3rd layer of seperation', you know someone that knows someone that knows the President or Senior Vice President at every one of these opportunities. So start asking, and maybe even ask someone to ask their network. Bingo!
- Get your Friend to set up a breakfast. Most of these executives are busy from the time their day starts, the idea of a quick breakfast is appealing. Breakfast meetings are short, and it's unlikely they aren't available at that time assuming they are in town.
- Do goggle searches; there are tools out there to get phone numbers. Just keep in mind they get a lot of calls.
- Find someone 3-4 layers down, but has access. Sell them, truly get them to love your idea and buy in 100%. If they just go to that VP and say "Say, do you have time talk to this guy?", its not likely to work. But if it's where they find the right time to corner them, and really get them into a serious conversation, it can work great. Remember, the "let's just meet for a coffee in the morning" is all you need.
- Go to their events; often times, these signifanct leaders want to be at their events. They may sponsor a 10K race or any of dozens of other events. Their website probably lists the events. Go there and try to introduce yourself to a key person.
- Finding the right person is often pretty easy; many companies put their Senior Management Team on their website. many even include their email.
- If you are stuck having to email, figure out their format. This can be pretty easy if you get a mid level person on the phone. Usually its "name@companyname.com", Sometimes its FirstName.LastName, sometimes its first initial.lastname. This can be surprisingly effective. The problem is, you need to keep the email very short! Don't try to send them a book, they will scan it and delete it.
BE WILLING TO GIVE THEIR BRAND PRIORITY
The BRAND PARTNER ROLE, How It Fits
Clubs and organizations that run these Home Food Donation Programs want, and deserve recognition. They want the community to know who's doing the work. A Rotary Club that is going to spend a lot of time and effort wants the community to know the Rotary Club does good things!
The other thing these Operating Partners can do is bring credibility. As you ask people to give you their email and possibly their cell phone, they need to believe you’re not going to turn around and sell that. They also need to believe your food donation efforts are best for the community. When they see the Operating Partners Brand that adds instant credibility.
On the other hand, the Brand Partner also wants that visibility. That’s what they are paying for. When you talk to a potential Brand Partner you’ll want to get both their Community Outreach people and their Marketing People in the room. That’s how to get bigger dollars faster. If they can both see the value of your program you can then build the scale we’ve been talking about. But the marketing people are going to want clear and simple visibility. They know other brands can create that “Race Car” effect, where people don’t see any brand at all. If they feel that way the money isn’t going to be there.
The easiest solution is for the Operating Partners to agree to have a secondary branding; “Operated By” and smaller letters, smaller logo. Maybe this is stapled to the bag, or it’s just on the site page or information cards. Maybe the Branding Partner wants to be the only brand on the bags. This might be a necessary and practical compromise.
Just don't let the following happen; Less Food. This is the priority.
WORKING IT OUT: This partnership between the Operating Unit and the Brand Partner should be a partnership; meaning both should be heard. Without either one we will keep to the roughly 1% of America these Home Food Programs currently serve.
Yes, the Brand Partner may be insistent to get all the branding. That's how things work, especially if you did what we say, which is to get the Marketing Team involved. If you're getting funding from the Community OutReach, they may be wide open to your logo taking 1st position.
You can still work this out with a Marketing Vice President! First, be sure they are on-board to your mission. This goes into them understanding the impact of food insecurity and the value of your program. We will give you some resources to explain all this, CLICK HERE. The main point you're making is your program converts one of their dollars into at least $40 and up to $200 of food. They need to care about that. If they don't, you won't get very far in having your logo and name as prominent as you wish.
The key thing is for them to understand why your branding is also important. Your club or group may be associated with an important community brand. Communities love having people like you do the hard work, and as they see your brand they are more likely to join. Your brand may be the key to the credibility of the program!
Get the Brand Partner to see the value of the Operating Partner, and get the Operating Partner to see the value of the Brand Partner.