Event 1: BRAC’s Friendraiser

Last Wednesday I headed over to BRAC’s Friendraiser at the Edwynn Houk Gallery. I was invited to the event by my friend Laina–who is always up to good. My hat goes off to the BRAC Host Committee, who organized the free event, as it was truly a great way to introduce new “friends” to the organization’s mission and activities. There were a bunch of things about the event’s structure itself that I really appreciated. Some Friendraising tips to consider for your organization’s next Friendraiser:

Price: The event was free. While fundraising and/or off-setting costs are definitely important and events can be a great opportunity for such a thing, free events are a great way to encourage new attendees. In NYC especially, everything seems to have a dollar sign attached to it.

Free for all: Rather than having a panel or guest speaker discuss the organization’s community development work around the world, guests were encourage to mingle and visit informational stations throughout the venue. There are obviously pros and cons to either a formal speaking event or an informal mingle event, but its a good idea to keep in mind the other types of engagements your audience is likely participating in…an over-indulgence in either type of event can be a little daunting.

Creative: BRAC’s Host Committee definitely gets kudos for being creative and fun. Guests were given a “passport”–a booklet with information about BRAC–and asked to visit “countries” (high tables with laptops displaying powerpoint presentations) scattered throughout the gallery space. At each “country” you were able to learn more about BRAC’s involvement in that region as well as receive a “passport stamp”–a sticker with more facts about BRAC’s work. Friendraisers are a great way to show people what awesome things your organization is up to, but it’s good to keep in mind that the way you present your information can impact people’s perceptions. Being innovative in your presentation shows people you are innovative!

Friends: The best part about a Friendraiser is the friends part. While I wasn’t particularly familiar with BRAC before receiving an invitation to the event, I respect and admire the people I know who are involved with or connected to BRAC (in addition to being very impressed with those Host Committee members and staff that I met at the event)–which, by default leads me to respect and admire an organization they believe in.  Friends of your organization are a great resource as they can advocate in meaningful ways on your behalf…remember to cultivate these relationships!

All in all, it was a creative and fun environment to learn more about a great organization that has a lot of  advocates within the NYC community.

Now how does this apply to a “cause”? Let’s look at the environment, for example. In addressing environmental issues, a direct and literal way to help the cause would be by planting trees. In order to help this cause, I could literally plant trees for 40 hours a week. The question is: Is this the best use of my time? and, Does this maximize results? The answer to both of these questions is “No.” Despite my green interests, I am a plant killer. Cacti included. Putting me to work planting trees would probably be a disaster and would definitely not lead to maximized benefit for the environmental movement as a whole.

These guys would definitely be better tree-planters than me

(via Hadfield Infant School)

This is why comparative advantage becomes important: you are looking at a big picture--an entire system. In a world without trade, you are operating your own Little House on the Prairie–churning the butter, sewing the clothes, home schooling the kids, growing the vegetables, slaughtering the meat, etc. In a world with trade, you are a magazine editor who goes to the grocery store, sends your kids to school, and you cook your food if you feel like it, otherwise you order delivery.

If planting trees is the 1st degree of environmental action, a 2nd degree would be being the bookkeeper for the tree planting company. This would be an indirect way of contributing to the cause. You aren’t exactly planting the trees, but you are helping that operation run well by providing your expertise with accounting and management. The company is able to plant more trees because you are a great bookkeeper and have saved them money.  If this were me, I would probably be more successful at this job than the tree planting job so there would be a marginal (well, let’s be honest, maybe a massive) increase in efficiency and corresponding increase in overall benefits to the environmental cause. But would this be the best job for me? No, probably not, because I am not a bookkeeper.

So let’s skip a couple of degrees to the main question: “What if what you are best at is dancing? How does that help the environment?” The sky is the limit. If you are a great dancer, you could use dance as a medium for educating others about the importance of trees for carbon sequestration, volunteer performances for climate change fundraisers, donate earnings to environmental nonprofits, or serve as the spokesperson for an organic ballet shoe. These efforts may be 5 or 6 degrees separated from a direct service to the environment, but they are no less important. They may even have greater impact than a direct action. If George Balanchine wanted to help save the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge would we have told him to quit dancing and camp in the tundra? Maybe, but that would not really be leveraging his comparative advantage. Instead, he could use his celebrity and influence as a great dancer to bring attention to the issue in other ways.

George Balanchine being George Balanchine

While this has been hypothetical, I have a real life example that I think personifies the case. Last week I saw comedian Nick P. Ross perform at I Like You Maude at Bar 4 in Park Slope, and later learned of how he turned his experience with Hodgkins Lymphoma into a comedic performance. He paired two seemingly incongruous elements, comedy and cancer, and found a new and interesting way to address this issue and serve as a source of validation for others who have endured similar experiences. In this Newsweek video Ross explains that his show, “Highly Evolved Human,” walks a fine line between serving as an outlet for his experience via his medium of comedy:

“I don’t think a lot is funny about cancer. And it’s a fine line because what I wrote isn’t making fun of cancer, it’s not saying that cancer is a topic that should be joked about. I’m using more the absurdity of my experience of interacting with people, of stories that I went through, the absurdity of the experience in general.”

Not only is Nick Ross contributing to cancer advocacy through “Highly Evolved Human,” but he is also offering an honest portrayal of his experience by doing what he does best: comedy. While sports training organizations, like Team in Training, provide great opportunities for the general public to fundraise for cancer research and increase cancer awareness and cancer centers, like Siteman Cancer Center, are doing great research on cancer prevention and treatment, Nick has carved out a meaningful niche by just being himself. He offers those affected by cancer an honest portrayal of a difficult and life changing experience.

As Nick shows, you best help the cause by doing what you do best…no matter what that may be. Doing the things you are great at or, better yet, the things you love will always yield the greatest results for a cause you care about no matter how unrelated or indirect they may seem. So go ahead! Get creative and make great things happen!

The bottom of the ad reads: "Your City. Your Drugstore. DUANE READE." As seen on the M train

I was sitting on the M-train crossing over the East River and looked up to read this sign. I thought it was a really clever, public health-related ad that incorporated the City as part of its campaign.  It is so effective, not just because it makes you stop and feel a little grossed out, but also because it makes you feel as if you are part of something unique, special and personalized: the New York City subway system. It’s “Your City. Your Drugstore.” It makes me want to go out and buy Purell right now.

The company [Duane Reade] understands two important things: New Yorkers are uniquely harried shoppers, and the whole ball game comes down to real estate. Duane Reade has used its skill at that quintessential New York blood sport to cut rents by shoehorning its stores into bizarre locations other chains wouldn’t touch.

The article goes on to give some specifics about Duane Reade’s real estate strategy:

While most pharmacy chains run in fear from multi-floor, non-box layouts, he embraces them. Forty-nine of his stores have two floors, and they come as small as a studio apartment (under 500 square feet) and as large as a suburban supermarket (a 17,200-square-foot box in Flatlands, Brooklyn). Odder spaces include a store at 62nd Street and Broadway with a basement described as “kind of a triangle with a leg on it,” and an old theater on East 86th Street with 1,300 square feet on the ground floor and 12,000 upstairs.

Duane Reade’s flexibility in terms of their space requirements has given them a substantial edge on other NYC pharmacies, who were much slower to adopt this practice. However, the payoff for the company has been substantial. According to the article, when Duane Reade acquired a space in Times Square in 2000 the going rate was $250 per square foot in that neighborhood. However, basement retail space was going for $85 a square foot–and that is where Duane Reade located: in the basement.

Tom Bow, senior vice-president for the Durst Organization, which leased the space [to Duane Reade, said:] “Most tenants wouldn’t be able to take that space, but they could,” says Bow. “They understood that Times Square was a 24/7 location. They just knew the local market.”

The moral of the story: Well, there might be two morals. One: Understand your audience and understand your market. That may sound pithy, but you may be sacrificing opportunities by not accurately understanding people’s interests. Take time to do this important research. Two: Break out of the box! Blaze your own trail! Find creative and new solutions to your problems or to your existing strategies…you never know when you could be doing something better if you don’t investigate new options and test them out.

RT @UNEPandYou: Today is World Environment Day -tweet 4 trees and help us reach 10,000 followers! We’ll plant one tree for every follower

This introduction is clearly not for the internet/social media/tech geek savvy among us…but for the rest of us, and just illustrates how social media works and how effective it can be. Here is a screen shot of @UNEPandYou’s page on Friday June 5th, World Environment Day:

9,752 followers and counting...

@UNEPandYou increased their audience with their “Tweet for Trees” Campaign by providing “match” (in the form of trees) for the number of followers they had at the end of the day. This campaign was a great combination of social media marketing (by utilizing Twitter), constituent engagement (by encouraging their Twitter followers to retweet about their campaign), audience expansion (via many, many retweets), and match (10,000 new trees! Who wouldn’t want to participate?)! Now, at the end of their program, UNEP has: (1) a much larger audience and (2) done some great PR.

For more info on re-tweeting, check this out: “HOW TO: Retweet on Twitter” (via @mashable).

Exactly. The article points out that “international visitor arrivals [in Australia] were expected to fall by 4.1 percent this year.” So what did Tourism Australia do? They partnered with Aussie director Baz Luhrmann (of Moulin Rouge and Romeo + Juliet fame) for the release of his film Australia.

The country, which relies heavily on tourism, is aggressively marketing its vacation value with a campaign linked to the movie “Australia.” The film’s director, Baz Luhrmann, also produced a weighty tourism video, in which a stressed-out Manhattanite on the verge of a breakup is visited by an Aboriginal youth who magically transports her to Australia. There, in a “walkabout,” she presumably reconnects with herself and her partner.

I am fascinated by this for a couple of reasons. The first of which is that I think Baz Luhrmann is awesome–but that is besides the point. Or is it? Of course it is not besides the point. The whole reason Baz Luhrmann’s name is being thrown around in the NY Times article and on the Tourism Australia website is because his involvement in a national campaign is anything but irrelevant. He brings with him his personal brand, which involves (1) being Australian and (2) being a highly successful director of international box office hits.

The second reason I find this fascinating is how this partnership has used the brand of “Australia” as a movie title and then reconnected it back to the government’s tourism activities. An interesting and audacious marketing move, but also very clever. With a rare opportunity to showcase their country in an epic blockbuster film with A-list Aussie actors, Tourism Australia knew that they would have a large audience whose heart-strings they could pull on and have hopping onto Quantas flights and drinking Tooheys New before you could say, “Crocodile Dundee.”

Thirdly, Tourism Australia  did something new. Not so new in the sense that movies are frequently partnering with sponsors to promote products, but new in the sense they took advantage of a one-time market opportunity (the release of “Australia”), partnered with a reknowned expert who added another layer of attraction to their oroduct (Baz Luhrmann), and created a unique platform to link their message with the film (the creation of a film-like commercial).

The moral of the story is: “There’s no business like show-business. ”

Or,

“When times get tough, rely on your celebrity friends with strong–and relevant–personal brands.”

This is the reason why I am particularly interested in organizations that have inserted “coolness” into their equation for addressing youth development. Being cool does two things: (1) It’s great marketing. Everyone wants to be a part of something that is cool. (2) It’s great program development. It shows that your organization is carefully listening to its audience. Things are considered “cool” because people are interested in them and therefore more likely to be invested in participating, resulting in service delivery and mission fulfillment.

I first read about Stoked in Time Out New York’s Cause of the Week (which, as a side note, I think is an awesome feature). Stoked is a “nonprofit action sports organization for at risk youth with the mission of developing successful teens with opportunity, knowledge, experience, and determination through the use of action sports, mentoring, and coaching.”

Stoked offers a one-year program that matches pre-screened mentors and mentees–who agree to meet a minimum of 4 hours per month and receive ongoing training and coaching by Stoked Program Managers. During the year, mentoring pairs skateboard, surf, and snowboard–what could be cooler than that? Operating out of both Los Angeles and New York City, Stoked gives urban American youth an opportunity to participate in very cool, skill-based, and age-appropriate activities that often have barriers to entry (i.e., equipment, transportation, knowledge).

On the other side of the Atlantic Ocean, a 34-year-old Aussie skateboarder, Oliver Percovich, unintentionally discovered, while skateboarding around Kabul, that Afghan youth think skateboarding is cool too. The New York Times article, “Skateboarding in Afghanistan Provides a Diversion from Desolation,” describes Percovich’s mentorship to Afghan youth who have shown an interest in skateboarding. After a couple years of showing up to an empty concrete fountain with half a dozen skateboards strapped to the back of his motorcycle, Percovich started Skateistan, Afghanistan’s first co-ed skateboarding school that “engages the growing numbers of urbanized youth through skateboarding and provides new opportunities in cross-cultural interaction and education.”

The construction of Skateistan’s 1,750 square meter indoor skate complex is underway and will include professionally-manufactured ramps, two classrooms, girls’ and boys’ locker rooms, an office, and a canteen. Skateistan’s “About Us” page is particularly impressive and clearly outlines the organization’s mission and philosophy as well as the need for youth development programming in Afghanistan. They also nail the question “What are the benefits of skateboarding to youth?” right on the head:

Skateboarding in a non-competitive global sport requiring minimal supervision and resources. Achievements in skateboarding are individual and depend on balance, creativity and personal expression. Skating can be practiced anywhere there is a smooth surface and gets young people active and engaging with each other.

Both Skateistan and Stoked are using skateboarding (and in Stoke’s case snowboarding and surfing) as a means to an end: the positive development of youth. And, much of the brilliance in this approach is its irony: that skateboarding for a long time was associated with a subversive, delinquent and rebellious subculture–which made it cool.