New KAH Program: Outreach Leaders

Posted by Gabe on April 20, 2011 under Kids are Heroes | 2 Comments to Read

Last night I was asked to be a guest on a popular Twitter chat session (#smmanners hosted by @DabneyPorte) which turned out to be very vibrant and engaging. I was relating our successes along the way, ROI and the best ways to leverage social media for charities. One of the questions asked was along the lines of “How long does it take to be successful in social media?” My answer was “Three years and counting” which means that although we have enjoyed many successes, we have a long way to go in order to realize our vision of being a well known global organization.

As I thought about this I realized that we have been depending on social media as the number one tool to help us grow. We figured that if enough people hear about us, or maybe even a few with just the right connections, then things will start to explode from there. Today I am facing the harsh reality that depending solely on social media for our advancement is not good enough. I have grown a non-profit before but its scope was small and local. Wags For Hope, a local pet therapy group started by my dog Charlie, grew rather quickly as there was a huge need for it in our community. Once we got the word out people came to help. The point here is that I don’t have experience growing a non-profit from nothing into something that has a global impact, as is our vision with Kids Are Heroes.

So I started thinking. The only way to grow to the level we are envisioning is to get other people behind the program helping us get the word out. Now we do have an Ambassador program where we ask people to use their skills in whatever way they like to help raise awareness for us. This has been very helpful but there is no real collaboration among the ambassadors as they live in distant areas. So I came up with the Kids Are Heroes Outreach Leader program. Volunteers who sign up for this will take it upon themselves to grow our concept within their communities. I will develop presentations, press release templates, marketing pieces and any other resources they think they need. I will train them individually in social media on an as-needed basis. I will assign territories so that if more than one volunteer wants to do this in the same area they can join forces. We will ask them to spend at least 2-3 hours a week on this effort. They will recruit volunteers, speak to local civic groups, get local press, and help us identify more heroes for our web site.

As you can tell this is in the infant stages as I am thinking out loud and writing at the same time, so if you would like to offer some suggestions or apply to be an Outreach Leader, please let us know in the comments.