Marketing Committee Notes

March 4, 2010

Attending: Stacy Ratner, Mike Ban

Stacy prepared an outline of topics for review by the marketing committee. The following describes items and conclusions to which we came:

  1. Why are we here? Why are we doing this? – The group discussed this at previous meetings, but we wanted to restate these points to be sure we are all in sync.
    1. Initially, improve communications with—
  1. i.     Our clients, current and prospective
  2. ii.     The community at large
    1. Help clients become aware of the broad scope of literacy- and reading-related organizations and the programs and services they provide.
    2. Help those clients better understand the programs and assist them in selecting and implementing those relevant to their needs (The Communities in Schools Chicago model).
    3. Identify resources one or some of us have that can be shared among us all.
    4. Networking.
    5. Experience-sharing – what we’ve done that worked…and that didn’t.
    6. Identify activities we can do jointly that will further the work of CLA and its individual members.
    7. Overall, increase awareness of our individual organizations to the general public and to clients, current and prospective.
  1. Name –We concluded the name should include the words “Chicago” and “Literacy.” Our current website is www.chicagoliteracy.org, consistent with that conclusion. We discussed the specific nature of our organization as outlined in 1. above, the nature of how we interact, and concluded we were an Alliance of organizations who are impacting on literacy – some focused on children’s literacy, some on adult literacy, some with literacy as part of their overall mission. Accordingly, we believe we should be the Chicago Literacy Alliance.
  1. Mission – as part of our marketing thinking, we sought a statement that embodies what we’re working to accomplish, a brief “elevator speech,” as follows:

Chicago Literacy Alliance is a group of reading-related organizations whose mission is to connect the capabilities of our members with the needs of the community.

We chose the language “reading-related” as being sufficiently broad to include organizations including libraries and, potentially, book publishers should they chose to join. While “literacy” is a touchstone word and important in the name of the group, the organizations within the alliance are typically dealing with providing resources and not necessarily directly impacting literacy as a teacher might. The mission statement as above should be incorporated into our website.

  1. Audiences and appropriate messaging for each –
    1. Audiences — over time we see seven discrete audiences to which the CLA should be directing its messages, as follows:
  1. i.     Current organization members
  2. ii.      “The Powers That Be” – CPS, City of Chicago, and State of Illinois high-level officials
  3. iii.     Clients of the member organizations
    1. Existing clients
    2. Targeted/prospective clients
  4. iv.     The media
  5. v.     Sources of funding (foundations, corporations, high net-worth individuals)
  6. vi.     Volunteers
  7. vii.     Prospective employees and board members
  8. i.     Regarding messaging, at this point, we believe our primary target is current (and prospective) organization members, as we are still in development. We believe the message should be:
    1. Keep coming to our quarterly meetings (or come to those meetings if you haven’t already)
    2. Get involved; join a committee
    3. Think about how this partnership benefits your organization.
    4. This is your chance to shape this cool new entity, the Chicago Literacy Alliance (perhaps the only organization of its type in the US).
    5. Participation will help you amplify your organization’s impact on the cause we all support – improving literacy
  9. ii.     We recognize we will all be in situations where we are asked about CLA and what we do. We visualize four key talking points:
    1. Literacy is the key to success in school and in life.
    2. We are a group of literacy organizations caring enough to work together as a group to make our impact singly and collectively felt more broadly and with more impact.
    3. We are working together for the overarching good of the cause in addition to the goals of our individual organizations.
    4. We are growing in size and impact (?).
    1. Messaging
  1. Marketing and Awareness Tactics
    1. To start with, we’re all agreed we should have a simple piece that lists the organizations which are part of the CLA and directs readers to our website and those of the individual organizations. We visualize a single 1/3 page card on which the organizations, their programs, and contact information are listed. This listing will be inserted in a bi-fold piece which will briefly summarize CLA’s broad mission and the missions of the various sub-groups – children, adult, broad-based.
    2. We will also set up Twitter and Facebook connections for future use. We note that these media will require more work and attention than we are currently prepared to provide.
  1. Branding – Stacy is designing a logo for CLA, which we visualize as being simple and basic in presentation to reflect the importance of our overarching goal – to improve literacy through our various organizations’ efforts. The logo will communicate business-like solutions, confidence, and strength, but will not shout.
  1. Next Steps
    1. Share Marketing Committee report with membership; solicit comments.
    2. Create the marketing piece above (5.a.); solicit pro bono printing services.