Part II: Discussion about a Case Statement for Corporate Sponsors
Heidi said this session is about how to pitch a corporate sponsor campaign.We need new revenue sources. We rely heavily on member donations and the Print Show. We would like to get more corporate sponsors.
The question is what is the most persuasive way to ask a corporate sponsor to donate to CWAJ?
The Development team is asking for assistance to develop our pitch. Our mission statement is listed in different places and in different ways. Who are we helping and why? Why should anyone give us money?
Kristen Hughes prepared a slide about a case statement, which is a short statement to inspire a donor to join our cause. A compelling argument needs to be specific and explain why we are unique and the impact a donor would have. Currently, as we describe CWAJ, it is hard to connect with donors because we do so many things. The conversation goes in lots of different directions. We need to tighten up our vision so that we can explain it to donors.
Kristen said that what resonates the most with new potential donors is that CWAJ supports Japanese women, however, that is not CWAJ’s mission. Our mission statement says that we support cultural exchange and education. What is our core mission? Do we support women? Can we add a “why” to inspire donors?
Discussion:
- Inna asked if anyone thinks a change is needed? Do we need to redefine our mission? Why do we need more money right now?
- Naoko said that she feels that with Print Show the reason for starting it was to help students who were going abroad to study. We raised funds for students to travel abroad to learn. Everyone supported it, then the Print Show became a success. Naoko said she has been a member for around 20 years and has always been told that CWAJ meets the needs of the community at the time. Is CWAJ still doing that? Supporting women’s education is great, but Naoko often feels that many of our scholars have already achieved a high level of success. Maybe they can do without us. Some people really need our support.
- Heidi said Naoko is raising great questions and those questions are now being distributed to small groups for discussion. Catherine said because of rising costs, Print Show does not provide all funds to the scholarship fund. Most funds have come from donations in recent years. Print Show pays expenses for CWAJ, but not a lot goes to scholarships. Catherine said we want to raise donations for scholarships. We have more costs now.
- Suz said it is important for the members to have a clear idea of what we are so that we can tell others who we are when we recruit new members and sponsors. It gets confusing. A tagline would be nice. An explanation that is easy to understand would help. Suz said she agrees with Naoko’s thoughts. Maybe our focus has changed? So, we need to talk and think about it to be clear together.
- Inna said we have to look at our business model and look at how much we are spending and how much we are giving back.
- Kristen said this isn’t just about finances, for today, we wanted to discuss our primary driving reason. Why are we doing the work we do? World peace? Empowering women? Education?
- Inna said the problem we are facing now with explaining this is we have grown so much in many different directions: Community Service, Print Show, and Scholarship are three important components and it is hard to find a common denominator to present ourselves as a single focused entity. Inna finds herself often saying “and also we do this…” “and we also do this…” It can get overwhelming. Each area has grown. How do we approach the integration?
- Momo said that in support of Kristen and Inna’s work, she wants to comment on how we communicate ourselves to the world. Our website could be simpler. Our value in today’s world should be clearer at a glance. This conversation will help simplify our narrative and website. Momo works at a startup and helps the CEO when he pitches the company. Every startup uses this formula:
- Today’s problem, our solution, the market. Here is why you should give us money.
- What is the problem we want to solve? What is our solution? How big is the market?
- Carol said we are one of the only organizations that reached out to the visually impaired community historically. We need to include this.
Questions for discussion:
What do we do?
Whom do we serve?
Why does our work matter?
Everyone broke up into small groups and discussed these questions for twenty minutes. Comments were collected and read aloud as a way to enter the results into Chat GPT as a quick way for obtaining an initial summary of the opinions in the room. See below. The comments will be reviewed and compiled and sent to Development for further refinement.
This was the end of the meeting.
