n*mat logo National Marketing Action Team

Ready, Set, Go

An Introductory Overview of NMAT

How to Use Its Products, Activities and Services To Achieve Your Community Foundation's Asset Development Goals

To print all or part of this transcript, highlight the section to be printed and use the "Copy" function to paste it into your word-processing program. Presentation Sections:

  1. Seminar Introduction and Directions
  2. Getting Up to Speed about NMAT
  3. What's New: NMAT 2004 - 2005
  4. How the World Will See Community Foundations
  5. Resources to Maximize Your Efforts
  6. How to Get the Most Out of NMAT
  7. Wrap-up and Next Steps
  8. Helmer N. Ekstrom's Biography

PART ONE: Seminar Introduction and Directions

Helmer N. Ekstrom

Helmer N. Ekstrom: Hello. I'm Helmer Ekstrom. On behalf of the NMAT Readiness Committee, I welcome you to “Ready, Set, Go,” the introductory overview of the National Marketing Action Team, better known as NMAT. This seminar will tell you how to use NMAT products, activities and services to achieve the asset development goals at your community foundation.

I am pleased to be part of this important effort on behalf of the community foundation field. The NMAT Readiness Committee, my colleagues at Ekstrom & Associates and I look forward to working with you, not only with this seminar but throughout your marketing efforts.Let’s review what’s available to help you get the most out of NMAT. By now you have completed a readiness self-assessment. Thank you for giving thought to and taking the time to complete this important tool. The self-assessment is helpful in two ways: first, it will help us link you to the right resources and secondly, it will help you focus your learning goals.

Now, by viewing “Ready, Set, Go,” you will get an overview picture of NMAT and see how the products, activities and services can help you exceed your marketing and development goals.

After this seminar you will join a Peer Learning Group, a PLG, the cornerstone of the training and support program. These are small groups of colleagues organized among foundations with similar marketing capacity and experience with whom you will learn and share hands-on marketing experience. In your PLG you will learn to use the NMAT products to maximum advantage, tap expert advice and share hands-on marketing experience. This is where you will put knowledge and experience into action through a series of conference call meetings. I will talk more later in the seminar specifically about the PLGs and give you suggestions about how you can get the most from them.

Periodically you will receive “Bright Ideas Bulletins.” These bulletins will capture the lessons learned and successful practices across the field. In this way you will not only benefit from the experience of your individual group but from the ideas, suggestions and lessons of hundreds of colleagues participating in NMAT activities throughout the nation.

To help you get the most from all NMAT has to offer, you can access www. cfmarketplace.org anytime as your one-stop resource. You can get information about NMAT products learn the national advertising schedule, in addition to being able to exchange materials with colleagues.

Lastly, help is always close at hand. The technical assistance support desk is available to you via a toll-free phone number and email.

Let’s review the objectives for Ready, Set, Go. After participating in this seminar, you will:

Before I get into the program, let me take a minute to talk about this online seminar. First, if you are hearing me right now, you are all set to go computer-wise. If you are reading this but don't see a "Play" button above, click on the "Help" button to the left. The Help screen also has a phone number that you can call for assistance. While you can just read the transcript, with the multimedia features you will be able to hear my voice and interact with the seminar and follow the slides as they automatically change.

This seminar is only about 45 minutes long. It is broken down into seven (7) subsections, as you see on the left. It's best if you reserve enough time to go through the entire program in sequence in one sitting at first. Then you can go back to review specific topics by accessing each subsection separately. Just click on the menu button for the section you wish to review.

Please keep a pad and a pen or pencil handy. From time to time I'll ask you to jot a note or an action item.

By the way, if you would like to read the material, just press the button marked "Transcript" and follow the directions for a printing. Let’s go on to Part Two: Getting Up to Speed on NMAT.

PART TWO: Getting Up To Speed About NMAT

Helmer N. Ekstrom: This is Part Two of the on-line seminar, “Ready, Set, Go.” In this section, I will give you background about the National Marketing Action Team’s thinking, review the strategies and target audience, and make sure you know about existing products and know how to use them. If you are new to NMAT, this section will get you up to speed about NMAT and if you are already a NMAT user, this section might provide a good refresher.

The National Marketing Action Team is a collaborative of the Council on Foundations and Community Foundations of America. NMAT has the explicit purpose of helping community foundations build assets. Each of NMAT’s strategies, activities and products is intended to move the field toward this outcome.

Let’s begin by talking about what we mean by “marketing.”

When community foundation board and staff members are asked, “What is marketing?” as you would suspect, many answers are heard. But what do you think we mean by marketing? I’m going to pause for about a minute. Jot down, if you will, some words or phrases that in your view characterize marketing. We’ll just play some background music while you make your notes.

[PAUSE]

Let’s look at some of the common answers we get when we ask, “What is marketing?” Did you have some of the same ones?

Although these answers may sound right, they are only components of marketing.

Marketing is really about understanding. It is the continuous process of helping a community foundation understand its audiences and helping these audiences understand their community foundation.

Take a look at this illustration. When we talk about audiences on the right side of the slide, we are talking about:

When we talk about understanding community foundations, we mean understanding things such as:

In its simplest form, marketing is understanding our audiences and helping our audiences understand us. This understanding leads to audiences using community foundations to carry out giving and community foundations offering services that are more satisfying to their audiences.

Using a set of marketing messages consistently and repeatedly is an important part of effective marketing and will help prospective audiences understand how you can help them. The messages help distinguish community foundations from other entities that offer competitive products and services. You can see here a NMAT publication. It describes community foundations as “organizations that provide a simple, powerful and highly personal approach to giving” and lists the three key value statements that distinguish community foundations:

In concrete terms, NMAT’s objective is to increase market share among high net worth (HNW) households, both increasing the percentage of HNW households giving through community foundations and increasing the HNW charitable dollars directed to community foundations. We define high net worth households as those households that have $500,000 or more in investable assets. In fact, research shows that from 1995 to 2005 the number of these households will have risen from 11.2 million to 35.5 million. NMAT has compiled a lot of good research about this target audience, and we will discuss its characteristics and motivations more thoroughly in our Peer Learning Groups.

As we have discussed, there are many target audiences for your community foundation. Certainly your current donors and prospective donors are important audiences for you, and NMAT materials are helpful in making that direct contact with donors.

A major NMAT strategy is to market to high net worth donors through professional advisors. NMAT leaders have determined that advisors are the best channels to donors for at least three reasons. First, most high net worth people work with professional advisors; second, professional advisors are usually aware of trigger events for charitable donations, such as the sale of a business or a client’s unanticipated boost in income; and third, professional advisors are easier and less expensive to locate and reach than high net worth individuals. What better outcome can we envision than to have a prospective donor say, “Yes, I know about the Community Foundation” when her attorney suggests it as a vehicle for her estate giving.

NMAT has proceeded with a two-phased approach. In 2002-2003, it focused on nurturing and supporting local and regional marketing activities.

In the first phase, NMAT portfolios were produced. These CDs – Market Readiness, Professional Advisor, and Donor Advised Funds as well as the new Tools for Giving – are complete and ready-to-use tools for use by individual community foundations. The CDs are full of useful resources – they contain strategy documents such as a marketing plan, tactical resources such as pre-designed presentations to instruct or persuade audiences, and support materials you can adapt such as letters, pamphlets and event invitations.

For example, the Professional Advisor CD contains a marketing plan offering step-by-step assistance in marketing to professional advisors and several PowerPoint presentations - one to internal audiences such as the Board and staff, one educating professional advisors about community foundations, and one geared to the clients of professional advisors. There are also sample invitations, letters and evaluation forms. All for your use - at your community foundation, either as is, or customized with your logo and pertinent information.

Each CD contains two main folders: a Foundations folder for viewing and printing .pdf files and Microsoft Office-based files such as WORD and PowerPoint; and a Production folder containing Macintosh-based QuarkXPress files. These are the tools that your local graphic designer or printer can use for customization and print production. Any good-sized print shop can handle producing these very economically. And, if you do not want to get them printed outside a simple way to go is to print the materials from your computer, as is, and just clip your business card to them.

Access to NMAT products and services is related to your community foundation’s agreement to comply with the National Standards for Community Foundations.

Hundreds of community foundations have agreed to comply. If you are not sure or want more information about implementing the Standards, call the Community Foundations Service Department of the Council on Foundations. The CEO of every community foundation that has agreed to comply with the National Standards received these CDs. The Market Readiness, Professional Advisor and Donor Advised Funds CDs were sent in 2002 and Tools For Giving was sent in late 2003, right after the Fall conference.

Write yourself a note to review these CDs. Also, if you have questions about having these resources, what’s on them or how to use them, go to www.cfmarketplace.org and click on “Local Marketing Tools.” There you will find ordering information and the content description of these CDs.

In addition to these tools, www.cfmarketplace.org was launched in Phase One. The site has a searchable database of marketing materials used by the field. We will talk more about www.cfmarketplace.org later. Whenever you are ready to continue, click the Part Three button.

PART THREE: What’s New: NMAT 2004-2005

Helmer N. Ekstrom: In Part Two of this seminar, you learned about what NMAT has accomplished up to now. This section will tell you about the exciting new developments. I will detail the 2004-2005 NMAT marketing plan and how it will help you.

In 2003, NMAT received $1.4 million from the Community Foundations Leadership Team to drive and coordinate national marketing initiatives.

These resources allow NMAT to move to Phase Two during 2003-2005 and implement its Two Year Marketing Plan. We owe a debt of thanks to the generous support of the funders listed here for their belief in the collective efforts of community foundations.

The national Marketing Plan has four components, all of which can be aligned with local or regional work.

They are: first, a national advertising campaign in publications targeted to professional advisors; second, a new focused national effort to expand the presence of community foundations in the media; third, a program to reach out to national trade associations of professional advisors and educate them about community foundations; and fourth, a national presence for community foundations on the web at www.communityfoundations.net.

In addition to these national efforts, local marketing resources for individual community foundations have been added and enhanced. But more about that later.

First, let me tell you about the national advertising campaign that began in November 2003. The objectives of the campaign are listed here. They are first, to build awareness of community foundations; second, to increase understanding of community foundations’ unique value; and third, to improve perceptions of community foundations.

These are highly targeted advertisements to attorneys, estate planners and accountants, all of whom work with high net worth clients.

To execute our national advertising campaign, NMAT engaged a Cleveland-based agency and marketing consultancy Marcus Thomas. They compiled and reviewed existing professional advisor research, developed and tested key messages in a nationwide, online focus group of professional advisors. They then created and refined two new ad concepts under the direction of a committee of community foundation communications professionals.

The ads will be placed in Estate Planning, Probate and Property, Trusts and Estates, Bloomberg Wealth Manager, and Investment News throughout 2004 and 2005. A placement schedule can be found at the NMAT site, www.cfmarketplace.org, your one-stop, up-to-date NMAT resource.

Let’s consider for a minute how you might leverage this national advertising at the local level or work with your colleagues in the region in a combined effort.

The ads are available on the Tools for Giving CD and, just as with the materials on the other CDs, these materials can be customized easily with your community foundation information or, perhaps, information about all the community foundations in your state or region. Depending on your resources, you may consider placing the ads in local advisor publications, or printing them as handouts or leave-behinds after a presentation to a firm.

Take a moment to think about what your next step will be and make a note of it.

The second component of the national marketing initiative is a concerted effort to increase the media reporting of community foundations and to monitor not only the frequency but also the quality of the media coverage. The effort will be led by the Council on Foundations Department of Media Relations and coordinated with Community Foundations of America as well as with CommA, the group of community foundation communications staff members.

The top 20 newspapers and magazines will be the focus of this effort. Regular updates will be available at www.cfmarketplace.org.

Does your foundation have a plan to communicate with the media? Perhaps a simple way to coordinate with the national efforts is to add a paragraph to any press release you produce that directs people to the COF media relations department at media@cof.org. Other ideas are listed here.

Scheduled to begin in the spring of 2004, the third component of the plan is a program of outreach to professional advisor associations, which will educate advisors at the national level about the community foundation field. Certainly contacting your local and regional bar association, society of accountants or financial planners will augment this important national awareness-building effort. This is where the rubber meets the road – getting in front of those professional advisors who advise high net worth clients in your community. We will discuss this thoroughly in the Peer Learning Groups. Now we’re ready for Part Four which that takes a close-up look at elements that make up the marketing campaign.

PART FOUR: How the World Will See Community Foundations:
www.communityfoundations.net

Helmer N. Ekstrom: Let’s take a look at the site. It gives a simple yet distinguishing definition of community foundations. Use your mouse to left-click the “About Us” link on the left side of your screen. I’ll meet you there.

In the “About Us” section, the three unique attributes that NMAT has determined for community foundations are outlined. These reiterate the consistent marketing messages that we talked about at the beginning - personalized service, local expertise, and community leadership. Next, I’d like to show you the “Ways to Give” section. Go ahead and left-click that link on the left-hand navigation bar.

“Ways to Give” discusses and contains links to information and donor stories about Charitable Funds; that is, donor advised funds, unrestricted funds, field of interest and designated funds, scholarships and supporting organizations. The Charitable Instruments section gives brief descriptions of outright gifts, gifts by will, charitable gift annuities, charitable remainder, and charitable lead trusts. And in the Charitable Assets section, the site lists kinds of assets that can make up a gift such as appreciated stock, life insurance, and real estate. Okay, let’s move on to the “For Advisors” section. Left-click that link on the navigation bar and we’ll take a look at it.

There is a section for professional advisors that asks them to think of a community foundation as “your personal planned giving center” and links them to important resources for helping their clients practice charitable giving. Now, if you would, click the “Newsroom” link.

The newsroom links to various resources, press releases and fact sheets about community foundations. Finally, I’d like you to left-click the “Find Your Community Foundation” link.

As you see, the national link becomes local; there is a link to the community foundation locator on the Council on Foundations’ website.

I am sure you agree that this is a tremendous step forward in creating a clear identity and contact information about community foundations and yet links an advisor or a donor to their local community foundation. As the website says, this makes their community foundation “a local giving partner.”

Perhaps you can think of some ways you can use this national site to your advantage. Here are a few suggestions.

A simple thing to do is to link your website to communityfoundations.net especially if your site does not have much information for advisors. Or another relatively easy task is to take the resources for advisors cited here and use them on your website. Perhaps most importantly, you should prepare your plan for receiving inquires from advisors, prospective donors, members of the media, and others who will be driven to your community foundation through this website.

Your foundation’s plan should at least answer these questions:

But just to spur your thinking, I’m again going to pause and I’d like you to jot down who is responsible for each of those steps now and what materials do you have on hand to send out? We’ll resume in about a minute.

[PAUSE]

If you already identified some gaps in this short exercise – great! You are on the right track to improve your foundation’s performance. You should determine the answers to these questions as you contemplate the route a new person would take to learn about your community foundation.

And if your foundation works with other community foundations in a regional media or advisor market, you might consider developing a link to all the community foundations serving that area. Now we’re ready to move on to Part Five: Resources to Maximize Your Efforts. See you there.

PART FIVE: Resources to Maximize Your Efforts

Helmer N. Ekstrom: In Part Four, we have reviewed what is happening nationally. Now in Part Five, I will detail the new resources that have been developed for use at your community foundation. I already mentioned the newest CD Portfolio, Tools for Giving, which contains wonderful new material, including the new ads.

In addition, a new electronic newsletter geared to professional advisors is now available for your use. You can use it in its entirety or just use portions of its content for your own newsletter. As well, www.cfmarketplace.org has been enhanced for you.

Let’s begin with the professional advisor newsletter. We all know how important it is to reach professional advisors. A new tool – NMAT Publisher – is an electronic or print newsletter, published bimonthly. The newsletter will include two new NMAT-written articles as well as three syndicated items per issue. You can easily customize it with your logo, newsletter title, contact information and more. It has a low implementation cost and will require minimal staff time.

Newsletter content will include wealth management tips, news about tax planning and information about philanthropy. All the information will emphasize the value of community foundations and reinforce key messages of the other marketing vehicles for professional advisors.

And if you already produce a newsletter for advisors, the NMAT-written articles are available to you free. These articles, as well as a year-long calendar of content, will be posted on www.cfmarketplace.org.

Now, let’s take a look at the new and improved cfmarketplace.org.

As you know, this has been a peer-exchange repository of communication and marketing tools and ideas. Enhancements have been made to increase your ability to search for topics and to increase the frequency of postings.

For example, you can search for resources addressing a specific topic such as community giving.

Then you can request a particular resource type such as a report or research,

Your Search results will give you a full description of the results.

Click to download the report.

Besides the Market Exchange, cfmarketplace is “Resource Central” and as such, it is your one-stop source for information about NMAT.

Wow, what a resource! A wealth of information for everyone’s use! But remember, your experience is important to others too, so please share and post your ideas and materials on the marketplace, too! Just go to “Submit A Resource” in the Market. Okay, now that you have mastered cfmarketplace, let’s move on to Part Six, where we discuss how collaboration can help all of us involved in the marketing initiative.

PART SIX: How to Get the Most Out of NMAT

Helmer N. Ekstrom: If you have been following along in sequence, you now know there are a large number of NMAT products and services. In this seminar segment, Part Six, we will cover how you can get the most out of all of these resources.

So, if you are like me, you are probably already exhausted with all that is available and you are excited about the possibilities. Therefore, let’s discuss how we can help you and we can all help each other.

First, remember that cfmarketplace is your one-stop source for all information about NMAT and the place for support and help. This is where you should download NMAT’s Two-Year National Marketing Plan, find the national advertising placement schedule, make sure you have all the Portfolio CDs you need, order and receive instructions for using the professional advisor newsletter and get updates about new offerings and developments. To get the most from NMAT and always be up-to-date, check in at cfmarketplace on a weekly or biweekly basis.

A crucial component of support is your participation in a Peer Learning Group.

This is a peer-based learning program that was designed with the following premises:

The Peer Learning Groups, or PLGs as they have come to be called, are groups of 15 or so community foundation staff members who have primary responsibility for reaching HNW donors through professional advisors. There will be five conference calls within each group over a four-to-six month time period, and each call will be organized to deliver practical information about how to reach advisors and increase your foundation’s share of the high net worth donors practicing philanthropy.

The calls will not simply rehash NMAT content, but will illuminate it through interactive discussion of effective practices and practical applications. Groups will be organized among foundations with similar marketing capacity and experience and among those who wish to work within a geographic region. The curriculum for each group will be custom-designed and conducted according to the readiness and wishes of the group. Peer learners will also be encouraged to work together between calls and will receive preparatory materials and be expected to do work in between sessions. You will also receive the ideas and lessons learned from the other groups through the “Bright Ideas Bulletins.”

The peer learning group presentation and discussion will answer questions such as:

Support is also offered through email and a toll-free number. So, please call if you have a question, comment or problem. NMAT support will give you an answer or find out where you can get one. Well, you’ve been terrific learners so far. Our final section, Part Seven, wraps up this seminar and asks you to fill out a brief evaluation – the final step to becoming a Peer Learning Group member.

PART SEVEN: Wrap-up and Next Steps

Helmer N. Ekstrom: The National Marketing Initiative is an important step for the community foundation field. It is a comprehensive and holistic approach to marketing to high net worth clients through their advisors on a local, regional and national level.

Remember that your ability to benefit from the NMAT work is related to your community foundation’s agreement to comply with the National Standards for Community Foundations.

Hundreds of community foundations have agreed to comply. If you are not sure or want more information about implementing the Standards, call the Council on Foundations‘ Community Foundations’ Service Department at 202-467-0292.

This web seminar, “Ready, Set, Go,” is just the beginning of your training and support, and the exciting possibilities that the NMAT initiative provides.

Here are a few suggestions for next steps.

First, bookmark cfmarketplace.org since, to repeat, this is the one-stop place to get all information about NMAT products, services, activities and resources.

Next, make sure your community foundation is up-to-date with compliance and implementation of the National Standards. If you are not sure, call the Council on Foundations. The number is listed here.

Also, review, and perhaps consider creating a link to www.communityfoundations.net so you can immediately reap the benefits of the national outreach and advertising.

After completing the evaluation at the end of this “Ready, Set, Go,” online seminar you will receive notification of your membership in a Peer Learning Group (PLG). Get the most from this peer-based learning program by allocating enough time for this important program. We estimate in addition to hour-long conference calls five times over a 10-15 week period, you should devote another 1-2 hours between calls.

And, although we must limit active participation on the PLG conference calls to one representative per foundation, we suggest creating an “internal team” because we know the job of marketing is shared among several staff members or volunteers. Therefore, you may want to have your team members also view “Ready, Set, Go,” – they can access it any time – and listen in on the PLG conference calls with you.

After the PLG calls, have your team meet to discuss next steps and make assignments for the next call. Building internal awareness and enthusiasm will go a long way to your success. And, the success of these groups is vital to the success of the NMAT initiative so your foundation’s participation is key!

Finally, do not hesitate to ask for help, to give suggestions or to pass on your enthusiasm.

Thank you so much for your time. I really hope this seminar has been helpful. Please fully complete the evaluation form that is on your screen. Simply click on the button beside your responses. You may also give us your thoughts by clicking in the dialog box and typing your comments. After you are finished, please press the “Submit” button and wait for an on-screen confirmation. If you need to review any parts of this seminar before submitting the evaluation, just leave the evaluation form window open while you review the transcript or replay any sections. You also can fill out and submit the form later by clicking the “Evaluation” link in the navigation bar. We really value your candid feedback. It will take about two minutes to complete the evaluation form.

Thank you. We look forward to working with you.

Helmer N. Ekstrom

Helmer N. Ekstrom

Helmer N. Ekstrom is founding partner of Ekstrom & Associates. Ekstrom & Associates serves as consultants to National Marketing Action Team providing training and support to NMAT participants. Members of the firm have extensive experience as consultants to the field and previously as CEOs and senior staff leaders of community foundations.

Helmer Ekstrom’s career in the field of philanthropy is an eclectic roster of local and national posts, including foundation and national association chief executive, publisher, grantmaker, spokesperson and fund-raiser. This experience provides him a rare perspective that he puts to work in his consulting practice furthering philanthropy; whether advising foundations and organizations, guiding special projects, or writing and speaking.

Helmer served as president of the American Association of Fund-Raising Counsel (AAFRC) and its public service foundation the AAFRC Trust for Philanthropy. AAFRC is the standard setter for ethical practice and professional conduct for fund-raising consulting. In addition, he was publisher of GIVING USA, the authoritative and most quoted report on philanthropy, published annually since 1955. For nine years he was chief executive officer of one of the nation's oldest and largest community foundations, the Community Foundation for Greater New Haven. This followed five years as its associate director during which time he served as chief financial officer and chief program officer. Helmer also served as a consultant to community foundations for the Council on Foundations' Organizational Development Program. Prior to that, he organized and served as chief executive for a consortium of United Ways and service agencies in Connecticut. Earlier he had a number of assignments as a YMCA senior director, including field consultant for the National Council of YMCAs.

His various leadership roles have included chair of the National Committee on Community Foundations for the Council on Foundations, chair of the Connecticut Humanities Council, and member of Independent Sector's GIVE FIVE National Advisory Committee, the Council on Foundations Program on Family Philanthropy Resource Materials & Programs Working Group, and the World Fund Raising Council CEO Group.

Helmer holds a BS in business administration and an MBA from the University of New Haven. He is a native of Connecticut, where he currently resides.

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