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Thank you all for joining today’s webinar. I hope you all are relaxed and rejuvenated after the holidays. To start today, let’s spend a minute walking through the agenda for today’s webinar on engaging with faith-based and service organizations.

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For those of you who have not joined one of our webinars to date, let me quickly introduce the organization I represent: Community Wealth Ventures. Community Wealth Ventures (CWV) was launched on a simple core belief: Social sector organizations have effective solutions to the problems that challenge communities, such as those related to hunger, education, healthcare and employment. What they don’t always have are the resources and strategies needed to sustain and increase impact over the long term, and ultimately, to solve these problems on the scale that they exist.

Our bold ambition is to support others in solving social problems on the scale that they exist. Our work focuses on supporting partners in achieving, sustaining and growing their impact to eradicate or make dramatic improvement on a social problem. We provide services that enable change agents to bring about disciplined, systemic social transformation, with core expertise in social enterprise or earned income generation.

We have conducted research on why some movements have dramatic impact vs. incremental impact on a social problem, which we will be sharing with you today. We work with communities to make dramatic change as well as organizations to advance their mission. Our clients are typically nonprofits, government, foundations. We have experience with corporate interest as well.

We are specifically supporting 2 communities - Baltimore and Cincy/N Kentucky in their grade level reading campaign - and our work is structured to partner with leaders to achieve the desired impact.

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This is our third of 3 webinars on the topic of constituency engagement. We have had five primary objectives for the three webinars

we are conducting on constituency building.

During our first session, we accomplished the first two objectives listed here: identifying the importance of constituency-building and how to assess the power and interest of various constituents.

Our last webinar focused on the 3rd objective (identifying assets that may be useful in engaging constituents) and we will quickly review some of that today.

*click for animation* Today’s webinar will focus on the 4th objective (how to craft a value proposition for engaging constituents).

The fifth objective that you see here involves hearing how peer sites have effectively engaged with various constituents and has been accomplished across all three webinars. We will have a discussion during the second half of the presentation where we want to hear from you about your experiences and ideas for engaging the constituencies of focus for today in order to facilitate peer to peer learning.

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Today we will talk about how to craft a value proposition for engaging with constituents. This webinar will build off of our discussion last time where we talked about how to identify assets you may have as a collaborative that may be valuable in building relationships with key constituents. Once you have identified what your campaign can bring to the table to make a constituency engagement opportunity attractive to the targeted constituency, the next step is to craft a value proposition that communicates the value that you have to offer. This will be our focus today.

We will also spend time in discussion over how to effetively engage faith-based and service organizations in your community. How is it being done? Where have you been successful? Where are you struggling? So, start thinking throughout today’s presentation about questions you want to ask, perhaps regarding your peer’s ideas about how to best approach faith-based and/or service organizations for collaboration, how to engage them more effectively, or for advice on overcoming challenges you’ve had engaging this constituency. We’d love to hear how YOU have engaged with or collaborated with faith-based or service organizations in your campaign (i.e. what tactics you have used to engage them, what their response has been, how you have overcome any challenges, and why this engagement has been important in your community).

Finally, as always, we will provide you with a tool to think through as a community what we discuss today.

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As a quick recap, this is our third of three sessions on constituency building.

On our first webinar, we talked about how to engage with teachers and principals (the school community).

During our last webinar we were lucky to have two speakers with experiences engaging the business community, one from within the business community and one from outside.

Today will focus on engaging with faith-based and service organizations.

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In order for us all to better understand who is participating on the call today, we’d ask you to take a minute to respond to the following two poll questions. This will help to connect with each other over the phone hopefully making your peer learning experience more rich and will also help us to facilitate when we understand where the majority of people are from.

1)Which region are you calling in from?

2)What type of organization are you calling in from?

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We’d also like to know who among you has already engaged with faith-based or service organizations or plans too in the future. For clarity, when we refer to faith-based organizations, we are including organizations that represent all faiths: churches, synagogues, mosques, as well as religious organizations like community centers and charity clubs run by religious organizations. Faith-based organizations are typically of three types: (1) congregations; (2) national networks, which include national denominations, their social service arms (for example, Catholic Charities, Lutheran Social Services), and networks of related organizations (such as YMCA and YWCA); and (3) freestanding religious organizations, which are incorporated separately from congregations and national networks.

When we refer to service organizations, we are talking about voluntary non-profit organizations that have members and those members meet regularly to perform charitable works either by direct hands on efforts or by raising money for other organizations. Some of the most well-known examples of service organizations include Rotary Club, Kiwanis Club, and Lions Club. We should note that there may be overlap between faith-based organizations and service organizations in that a service organization may be rooted or based in religion just like faith-based organizations often have members. In effect, there are faith-based service organizations. Given the charitable, member-based nature of these two constituencies, we have opted to discuss them together in this webinar.

With this in mind, let’s take a quick poll. Who is currently engaging with faith-based and/or service organizations? Please select from the statements which best describes where you are currently with engaging these constituencies or, if you actually represent this constituency.

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We have found it to be helpful at the start of each constituency engagement webinar to consider why constituency building is important in a community campaign. If you have been on our previous webinars, this slide will look familiar, but it’s important to reflect on once more why engaging multiple stakeholders in your campaign is important.

The African proverb you see here summarizes the importance nicely. The proverb says: “If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.” This quote really summarizes the importance of constituency building in the success of a community campaign. It is important to “open your circle” or to work closely with others as this is often the only way to make a dramatic impact on a social problem. Making a big dent in reducing or eliminating a social problem like grade level reading takes involvement and commitment from a lot of different actors. It is too big for any one individual, agency, or organization. Community Wealth Ventures has done a lot of research on the importance of opening your circle. In fact, we found that it is one of 10 best practices for having significant impact on a social problem. We found in our research that one of the factors of success for those campaigns and organizations that have had transformational impact on a social problem is that they have opened their circle and built relationships with a variety of constituencies. For more information on these best practices please see the blog on our website at www.communitywealth.com.

So who has a role to play that might be added to your circle? Improving grade level reading often involves the students themselves, parents, educators, and others, including libraries, the business community, and faith-based and service organizations (the focus of today’s webinar).

(STRESS THE FOLLOWING WITH PARTICIPANTS) Everyone who is affected by the social problem and can effect the social problem should be engaged. Many of you likely understand this point already and have identified the importance of “opening your circle” to advance your campaign by already partnering with some of these types of constituents.

So, when thinking about constituency-building within your campaign, consider the question: “Who has a role to play in solving this social problem?” Consider those who effect the problem and those affected by it. Note that this question is different from what we might more commonly ask, which is “Who do I know who can help solve this problem?” In order for us to address our most intractable social problems, we must engage a much broader cross section of constituencies (beyond those we already know and are comfortable with). It is at this cross section where true innovation can occur and bold visions can be realized.

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So when we are talking about assets, what are we really talking about? (click for animation)

Assets can be categorized in three ways: Things that you HAVE, Things that you DO, and Things that you KNOW.

Let’s take the first bucket or type of assets: Things you HAVE.

These could be:• Physical assets: for example, a building, a computer, a campaign vehicle, etc.)• Location or space: for example, a meeting space large enough to host events or positioning of the campaign office close to

the library or school)• Brand reputation: Maybe your strong brand name or reputation in the community is an asset. Maybe the

schools or parents respect and applaud your efforts which gives you credibility in the community. • Access to desired resource: Perhaps you have access to a large volunteer base, access to prime meeting

space, access to a funding source, etc. • Relationships: Perhaps you have strong relationships with donors, grantees, partners, or other influential

people in the community that can be called upon to support your efforts.

Things you DO:

These could be:• Advocacy: for example, you are effective at reaching the right people and communicating the right message

to increase awareness of the campaign. • Continuously innovating: maybe you are very good at changing things up to keep people interested and

intrigued in the campaign cause. • Events/activities: Are your events particularly well attended? Do people look forward to your activities? Do

they draw a large number of participants?

Things you KNOW:

These could be:• Understanding of a specific issue/expertise: Maybe you know the insides and outsides of grade level reading

and what it takes to get there. Maybe people consider you the go to expert on how to advance literacy efforts.

• Community expertise: Are you a source of knowledge of all things related to your community? Do you know who to talk to, where to go, and how to get things done in the community?

• People/key decision makers: Maybe you have strong connections and relationships with important people in the community that would benefit others.

The overarching important question is: what do you have, do, or know that would be of value to the constituency you are looking to engage? What can you offer them to make them interested in participating? This question forces you to put on the “hat” of the constituent you are looking to engage. It is important to think about assets in relation to their potential value to the constituent.

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We can summarize the interest that faith-based and services organizations are likely to have when being asked to engage in an effort to tackle a social issue into two primary goals. These constituents will typically be looking for opportunities to engage their members in meaningful, exciting volunteer opportunities that lead to community improvement as well as opportunities to cultivate new members.

1.Opportunities to engage current members. Faith-based and service organizations are often looking for volunteer opportunities that enable them to mobilize their members in ways that positively impact the community. There is no doubt that these constituencies play a critical role in volunteer engagement in this country. The very purpose of service organizations is to serve, typically manifested through volunteerism. By offering an opportunity for service organizations to participate in your literacy campaign, you are offering a meaningful opportunity for them to fulfill this core purpose. For faith-based organizations, the US Department of Justice reported that in 2011, faith-based institutions engaged 45 million volunteers, nearly half of the total number of American volunteers. According to the Corporation for National & Community Service, one-third of American adults who volunteer learn about services through their congregation. Member engagement through volunteerism is a core function of these constituencies.2. Opportunities to cultivate new members. Both constituencies have a need to maintain a strong membership base. There are trends in membership for these constituencies that point to this need. For example, according to an article in Charity Village, a number of service organizations are seeing their memberships decline as older members leave the organization and are not replaced by younger members. For example, Lions Club International membership has fallen from 1.45M people in 1995 to 1.35M in 2012. The article highlights anecdotal evidence that there is a challenge recruiting people in the 20-30 age group who are hesitant to join a structured group and in the 35-50 age group who already have so many responsibilities leaving little time for volunteering. These trends highlight a need that service organizations in particular have for cultivating a younger base of members.

In thinking about the context of community-focused literacy campaigns, both service organizations and faith-based organizations will value the local, neighborhood focus of opportunities. A key area of focus of Lions Club, for example, is mentoring kids in local schools. The Rotary Club lists education as one of the key ways they are supporting local communities. Many modern day service organizations like the HandsOn Network provide skills-based volunteering opportunities for members, which means they are able to support a targeted effort for finding volunteers interested in literacy.

It is important to remember that the people who get involved in faith-based and service organizations do so primarily for the volunteering aspect. Volunteering is a key aspect of membership within these two constituencies. Within the GLR community, we need to think about what we can bring to the table in terms of making the members of these organizations happy. Because the members need to be happy for the two constituencies to be happy. When crafting engagement opportunities, keep in mind what you can bring to the organization that will help them to better engage with their existing members and/or help them to cultivate new members. There are lots of ways you can go about structuring an engagement that will ultimately contribute to these outcomes and we’ll speak to some of these tactics next. Whether you are offering volunteer, networking, community development, or services to members, etc. the point to remember is that ultimately, the end goals you should keep in mind when thinking how to engage faith-based and service organization is how their engagement in your campaign can advance these two primary goals.

Source: https://charityvillage.com/Content.aspx?topic=Service_Clubs_An_Optimistic_Future_

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This table highlights some examples of assets that you may have at your disposal that may be of value to faith-based or service organizations drawing upon research done by the Institute for Educational Leadership and drawing from anecdotal examples of faith-based and service organization involvement in community issues.

One of the best assets you may have are meaningful volunteer opportunities. This asset may appeal to this constituency because it is an opportunity for them to call upon and engage their members in something important. A church congregation or the members ofa service organization may be looking for meaningful activities that they can participate in as a group to build and strengthen relationships. Volunteer opportunities can be a social and networking platform for meeting new people and cultivating new relationships that can lead to new members joining the organization.

Another asset you may have in engaging this constituency is an appealing cause. What value does this asset provide to faith-based or service organizations? Why would this asset make them want to get involved? By participating, the constituency has an opportunity to play a direct role in an initiative that will strengthen and improve the community. This is particularly true if you are thinking about engaging faith-based or service organizations in areas where grade level reading is particularly low and the members of these constituents are directly impacted by the social issue.

A third asset that you may have that could be of value to these constituencies is access to influential community leaders. Community leaders, such as local politicians, have a similar ability as the leaders of religious organizations to rally and connect diverse groups of people. Through your connections, you may be able to rally and bring together a wider range of diverse groups to work together on the issue. Secondarily, you would give the leaders of these constituencies an opportunity to connect with theseinfluential community leaders on other issues of importance to them.

A fourth potential asset is if you have literacy activities, workshops or other educational programming that you could bring directly to the constituency. For example, if you could bring literacy programming to a large congregation in an area of the community with particularly low literacy rates, you are giving the constituency an opportunity to provide a service to their members that meetsmembers where they already are.

A fifth asset that may be of value to these constituencies are communication or media channels through which they can increase awareness of their organizations and potentially attract new members.

These are just a few examples of assets that you may be able to bring to the table to engage faith-based and service organizations. Remember that you want to articulate a clear benefit for or value to the constituency for the partnership to be successful (it’s a give and take!)

Later, we’d love to hear from you during the discussion what assets you have that you have used to motivate these constituencies to join in your effort.

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Once you have identified the asset or assets that you have to offer that will motivate your target constituency to join your effort, the next step is to craft what is called a “value proposition” that will communicate the value of those assets and the benefit to the constituency for engaging with you.

What exactly is a value proposition? *click for animation*

A clear statement of how you will leverage your assets to provide a tangible benefit to a constituency that will incentive their engagement.

By starting from an asset perspective, you will be able to craft a value proposition that articulates the unique value that you have to offer the constituent and why what you are doing is important with the goal of enticing them to join the effort.

An important thing to note about value propositions is that you likely won’t use the same one twice. Value propositions should be uniquely tailored to the interests of a specific constituency. The statement that you use with a business will be different than the statement you use with a teacher or student or church group.

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So how do we actually craft an asset-driven value proposition statement?

There are 4 parts to every value proposition: the constituency, the offering, the benefit, and the differentiating factor. All four components of the value proposition should be included in your value proposition statement. Let’s talk through each component of the value proposition before showing an example. We want to note that this process for crafting a value proposition applies to any and all types of constituencies (business community, teacher/principals, etc.), not just faith-based/service orgs.

1.Constituency – your value proposition statement should clearly state who the constituency is that you are targeting. You may think of this as your “market” or your “target audience”. Ask yourself, “who is the specific constituency we are targeting or seeking to engage in our effort?”

1.Offering: your value proposition statement should also clearly state what you’re offering. This is what it is you are DOING (not how it will benefit the constituent…this comes next). Think about what programs, services, or other offerings you are delivering to achieve your desired social impact and be sure to also mention who the ultimate beneficiary of that offering is. So for example,maybe you are offering a summer-learning program that will benefit all area 1st grade students by reducing the summer reading gap.

1.Benefit: The third part of your value proposition should identify the benefit to the constituency for getting involved. You’ve identified what you are providing and who is ultimately benefiting, but you also need to identify how this potential partner will benefit as well. Here is where you entice them to join your effort. Consider how your offering delivers value to the constituency.

1.Differentiation: The final component of your value proposition should be identifying what differentiates your effort from others. Understanding how your approach is different requires an understanding of what others in your area are already doing to address the social issue. Consider how your campaign or your approach to the social problem is different or unique from what others are doing. There are a few questions that can help you think about whether your offering is unique: you should ask yourself: 1.) is our effort sustainable in a way that others may not be? 2.) is our approach difficult for other groups to replicate? 3.) are we offering something that is known to be valuable to those we are engaging or serving? When thinking about the differentiation component of your value proposition, you want to reflect on your strengths as a collaborative and how those strengths position you to be able to provide unique value. With this part of the value proposition, you are making the case for why the constituency should join YOU instead of another collaborative or organization in this effort?

The answers to these questions should be compiled into a concise 2-3 sentence value proposition statement. We have provided a worksheet that you may use as a guide in crafting your value proposition(which we will discuss at the end of the webinar today and will be posted on the Ning community site post webinar).

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Here is an example value proposition for Habitat for Humanity, a nonprofit that engages community members to build houses for families in need. Habitat for Humanity could use this value proposition to engage faith-based or service organizations to rally their members in Habitat’s effort. All 4 parts of the value proposition are represented here, which we’ve highlighted in 4 colors.

Habitat for Humanity’s value proposition is as follows: READ FROM SLIDE.

•The orange text highlights the targeted constituency: in this case, community members from diverse backgrounds.

•The red text highlights the offering: what is being offered is decent, safe, and affordable homes to low-income families. Notice how both the specific service offered and the ultimate beneficiary are identified.

•The blue text highlights the benefit: Remember, this is the benefit to the targeted constituency (community members). In this case, the benefit to the constituency is to be involved in a meaningful volunteer effort to build homes together with other community members and alongside the families in need.

•The green text highlights the differentiation: The differentiating factor of this effort is that it draws on volunteer labor and contributions from the community in order to effectively raise people out of poverty and eliminate homelessness. It’s a collaborative approach to a pressing social issue.

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Let’s take a look at how a service organization AND a faith-based organization worked together on a literacy initiative in collaboration with other organizations in Louisiana.

The Rotary Club of Golden Meadow Louisiana and Rotary District 6200 recently partnered with International Orthodox Christian Charities, an international organization that works with churches to provide emergency relief and developmental programs to those in need across the globe, on a literacy initiative to gather and distribute educational reading material to area children to fight illiteracy. International Orthodox Christian Charities was identified as a key constituency to engage in this effort given the fact that it maintains a working relationship with a number of textbook companies that also happen to support the mission of the Rotary Club. Through this initiative, they were able to gather and distribute reading kits, flash cards, classroom libraries, reading books, textbooks, workbooks, and computer programs to over 1,000 children in the area. It was a broad collaborative effort, with the YMCA, education departments of universities, community and day care centers, and Rotary Clubs throughout the district helping to get the materials into the hands of children. The Rotary Club and International Orthodox Christian Charities helped to engage volunteers for the distribution effort by soliciting the support of their members. Some of the materials went to literacy projects the Rotary Club sponsors while International Orthodox Christian Charities distributed some of the materials to children in their homeless shelters.

This is a great example of a literacy effort led by a service organization that recognized the importance of engaging the faith-based community. The Rotary Club was able to leverage International Orthodox Christian Charities connections with printing companies in order to secure the educational material, while International Orthodox Christian Charities benefited from being able to engage their network in a meaningful volunteer opportunity, as well as leverage some of the materials themselves within their homeless shelters.

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As a tool for action in follow-up to this webinar, we have created a worksheet for you to use to brainstorm around your value proposition. (Read from slide).

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Feel free to reach out to us if you have any questions about how Community Wealth Ventures has supported organizations and campaigns with their strategy and growth in the past and currently. We would be happy to discuss how Community Wealth Ventures may be able to support you in your efforts.