The San Francisco Bay Area Council's objectives for the "Be a Part of It" project was to develop a DVD that could be easily shared with a variety of audiences as we explained the values of Scouting. The non-Scouting participants in our community were the first priority targets.
This DVD was the result of an 18-month effort that was begun by hiring a consultant to work with us. We began with a series of focus groups among the management staff of our council. Through this process, clearly defined objectives were established which concluded with the piece as it now exists.
This was the first general marketing piece of this kind that we have put together. Be a Part of It gives us the opportunity to share the true impact that Scouting has in our community on a large number of individuals who probably don't understand Scouting. The San Francisco Bay Area Council experienced our most productive fundraising year in the history of the council. Putting this DVD in the hands of many great individuals certainly was one of the reasons for our success.
We learned a number of things about ourselves and the community that we served through the planning and development of Be a Part of It. The most significant lesson that was learned was that our community is much more conservative than many people have thought and that Scouting is a key part of our area.
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Create creative and professional materials to honor the LBAC annual Shipping and Transportation Good Scout of the Year Award honoree. The 2006 honoree was Richard D. Steinke, executive director of the Port of Long Beach.
Develop a tribute DVD and program to honor Mr. Steinke that displays his sense of humor, character, and Scouting values.
Recognizing an outstanding individual in the Long Beach shipping and transportation Industry.
The committee decided on the questions to ask and the people to include in the tribute DVD.
We thought of creative ways to display Mr. Steinke's commitment to the LBAC youth, the community, the environment, his family, and his Scouting values.
We highlighted his integrity, character, and sense of humor.
Both the DVD and the tribute program were appreciated by all of the guests and Mr. Steinke's friends, colleagues, and family.
The event was the LBAC highest gross and net event ever!
The 2006 shipping and transportation event prompted four of our newest executive board members to join.
The event provided additional positive public relations for Scouting in Long Beach.
The council learned that our continued community involvement and positive relationships we have built with key community leaders has helped generate renewed support for our council. We believe that the honoree was not only a great Scouter, but also a great community leader, and this was a major part of our success. Also, we learned that involving as many key leaders as possible in the planning helps the event and the professional materials created for the event to be even better.
The distinguished citizen dinner is the largest annual fundraising event for the Santa Clara County Council. The 2006 event honored John and Christine Davis--two proud Americans who have a passion for youth and for auto racing. Our objectives for the creation of an event invitation and subsequent collateral pieces were twofold: 1. Capture our honorees' passions and interests 2. Appropriately represent Scouting
Through conversations with the honorees, we determined to utilize the American Flag to represent their patriotism as well as an appropriate Scouting symbol. When it came to capturing the couple's auto racing passion, we feel upon the idea of a "Davis Derby" --showcasing both racing and Scouting. This theme was then captured on the inside of the event invitation. On the night of the event, all sponsors raced a Pinewood Derby car--either one of their own creation or a "historic" car that was provided by Scouts.
As a result of tying the event theme so closely to Scouting, several of the major sponsors reconnect with their own Scouting experiences. Several individuals and companies came forward to express an interest in helping out our local council beyond the fall event. To date, we have recruited two additional board members and received a lead gift of $100,000 toward our upcoming capital campaign. A number of additional community leaders are likely to become involved as well in the months to come--providing an overall long-term impact for years to come.
Through this experience, we have learned the importance of showcasing Scouting at all of our major special events and taking an added step of establishing their Scouting experience through an activity. By tapping into the memories of their childhood, we can refresh their enthusiasm for Scouting and renew their involvement as volunteers.
To work with the national BSA on the national parent initiative in an effort to get parents more involved in Scouting with their child. When the parent understands what we do as an organization, how we operate locally and nationally and how their involvement will impact their child's experience in Scouting, we will get a higher retention of our Scouts, more funding and increase our registered volunteer base. The bottom line is our customer will have a higher satisfaction rate with the BSA.
The plan for ScoutParents started with Gerald Lawhorn, and executive board member of the Flint River council. He brought together a team of volunteers, the Scout executive and professional marketing people to develop a parent initiative to increase youth and parent recruitment, retention, advancement, participation, perseverance and passion in Scouting. In September 2004 at a meeting on his plantation in Albany, Georgia, the plan developed based on his thesis. A timeline was developed, the deliverables were set and the name ScoutParents was trademarked. The marketing team first went to four councils and did focus groups with the professional staff about the concept and met with the national office. Over the 15 months we have created one of the most innovative initiatives in Scouting. The ScoutParents website is by far one of the finest in Scouting, the concept excites volunteers, and the orientation guide, brochure, volunteer tool, and other material are in the trial distribution.
We have become one of the leaders in developing the materials for the national parent initiative. We have been contacted by many councils about the concept and interest in what we are trying. It has taken considerable time and funds to develop this project to date.
We can act quickly, make mistakes, and regroup. We need a great deal of resources to make this project work at the unit level. We will have to conduct unit studies and measure the results of volunteer leadership registration, retention of youth and usage of materials. As we develop the material and distribute it to the parents and leaders, we find our mistakes and have to tweak the material to meet the needs. We also learned unit leaders are excited about this concept but getting them to implement it, come to trainings, and track statistics is more difficult than we anticipated. We also learned that many feel we are on track to aiding the Boy Scouts of America with an initiative that will change the way we deal with parents and volunteers in the future.
The council's objective in having this DVD made was to give a brief sketch on the life and accomplishments of our distinguished citizens dinner honorees. We desired this to be a high-quality piece that would take the place of some of the lengthy speeches that had been made at previous similar events.
Members of the distinguished citizens dinner interviewed both honorees and collected pictures from them to develop a script for the DVD. We then took the script and pictures to Hawaii Video Memories, a local company on Maui to produce the DVD. Members of the committee viewed the video at different stages of completion. When the committee members were satisfied, the video was shown to the honorees and their wives for their approval.
The showing of the DVD was very well received at the dinner by participants and honorees. We have had many positive comments for the council having a high-quality video produced for the event and encouragement to produce similar pieces for summer camp, capital campaign, Friends of Scouting campaign, etc.
The volunteers of the council learned several things from this project. A DVD of this quality is not very expensive to produce, is easily distributed to those that would like a copy, and can be produced on Maui. We also learned that we do not always have the right picture to go with what we want to say and that we need to keep more digital photos on file.
Our objective in this advertising campaign was to find a cost-effective way to reach a captive audience of parents. We have used a variety of mass media as a means to promote awareness and a call to action during recruitment times in the past. However, we find that person-to-person contact is one of the best ways to communicate our message.
The challenge was to find an ultra-low-cost means of marketing that was high impact with graphics and audio and delivered right to the target audience.
We decided on an e-mail message with a link to a two-minute, media-rich presentation that would attract parents to the qualities of Scouting for their boys.
The Twin Valley Council marketing committee wrote the script, designed the storyboard, produced the voiceover, and secured such assets as photos, logos, and illustrations for the project.
With the help of a local advertising agency volunteering its time, we secured the creative talent of a graphic design student--with extensive, up-to-date technical expertise.
The marketing committee then handled the proofing and distribution portion of the campaign.
The message was very well received by parents and, as hoped for, they forwarded the message to friends and family with boys of Scouting age. This method is a way to reach hundreds of people in a short amount of time. The flash technology allows the audio and graphics to run on any computer without having to download software, which greatly increases the amount of people who view it.
Because there was low-cost to no-cost production, the marketing committee had no delays or outside expenses, as if often the case with billboards and printing operations. The message could be sent out immediately.
This method of advertising enables the council to conduct peer-to-peer recruitment between parents without their having to take the time to make phone calls. It's easy, quick, and effective.
There is a strong message that can be retained from viewing both graphics and audio because the recipient is seeing what is being said. It is a powerful tool, and we have just begun to realize its long-term effectiveness.
Pass-along readership works. If the recipients consider the message to be quality, they will forward it on. Parents are much more likely to use this type of medium to reach other parents than more traditional means, such as telephone calls and mailing. It is also a budget-savvy way to take the place of person-to-person contact.
After the initial mailing, we found that there is more that we could do with the message. It is now sent out to every new Scouting family and is easily updated and customized.
In addition, we have realized the importance of requesting e-mail addresses on all forms to build a council database of current and prospective Scouting families.
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The objective of our theme of "Words to Live By" was a coordinated effort at tying our Scouting base to the youth of today. The financial and volunteer base of our council is somewhat distant from the youth and parents in Scouting. Using this theme to show that the words of yesterday are as valuable now as then helps us both to energize our base and to give our Scouts and parents some tradition.
This effort, an introduction of a new marketing theme, had its roots in a grant from a local foundation who believed as we did in our marketing theme. A small amount of seed money was designated and preparations began. With seed money and donated labor and materials, the leveraged results were meaningful. The time period for the preparation was about 18 months.
The materials, used in the annual dinner and as pieces in ceremonies in districts and units, communications pieces in malls and schools, recruiting materials for the year, and recognition items at dinners, expos, etc., kept a coordinated theme in front of internal and external publics during the year. Youth and leaders still request cards, and hopefully the words of those cards are ingrained in their hearts also. There were many comments and feelings expressed of gratefulness for tying the two Scouting times together.
The Las Vegas Area Council learned a valuable lesson about what our internal public thinks of what we are doing. The theme for the three years that is being followed is uniting a lot of our base in support of the council.
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A DVD was developed to effectively communicate the need for a camp development campaign in the Cape Fear Council which would provide Scouting's adventure for a new generation of young people in Southeastern North Carolina.
We visited 65 civic organizations in an effort to educate each community. We held a press conference involving all media outlets, who provided coverage of the event. There was a tremendous response to our need to raise $5.5 million dollars over a year. Our campaign was successful because the communities understood the need to support the Scouting program.
Membership--Cub Scout, Boy Scout, and Venturing--has been a challenge for the Great Trail Council over the past four years, as it has with almost every council in America. As a result of discussions among the council's professional staff and volunteers from the membership and marketing committees and the individual districts' commissioner staff, retaining current youth and families became a focus in addressing the membership challenge. Developing a way of educating unit-level volunteers about the importance of membership retention was the objective --and success would be measured in the reception the education components would be received in the field as well as the possible residual effects of concentrating, not only on recruiting new youth but in insuring we keep the current youth members previously recruited.
Using the theme of "Every Kid Counts," a task force of volunteers and council staff was charged with developing an educational program for rollout at the opening general session of the council's annual University of Scouting, the year's single-largest attended event with 400-plus participants.
The program needed to have multiple components--a video featuring youth and volunteers sharing Scouting's impact in their lives and how "making every kid count" is so important; a live presentation by a well-known, respected volunteer who could speak to the message of the video and share with peers how important they are to making "every kid count;" a small handout as participants left, highlighting the major points of the retention presentation; finally, a follow-up mechanism that could be used with unit leaders later in the year, calling them to action in making youth retention happen.
Immediate impact in sheer retention numbers will be a few years away, but already this campaign has brought to light the importance of youth retention for the future of our individual units as well as for the Scouting movement as a whole.
Today the council's retention campaign, titled "Every Kid Counts!", has helped in increasing youth retention in 2006 by almost 5 percent compared with 2005, has led the council's volunteers to form a permanent Youth Retention Task Force, and has spawned a more in-depth follow-up mechanism, a book for leaders titled "Re-TEN-tion: The Ten Defining Moments in a Scout's Life Where Retention is Critical and What You Can Do About it." This book is being distributed to unit leaders in all programs throughout the council and another presentation has been prepared for 2007.
Not only did the council learn that a vast majority of unit-level leaders never took youth retention seriously, we also learned that retaining youth in Scouting has never really been discussed, focused on, or made a priority at any level throughout the council. Constant follow-up programs and tools must be developed and rolled out in order to keep the campaign visible at every level.
It was also learned that the issue of youth retention, and addressing the reasons young people and their families leave Scouting, will have a spill-over impact in almost every area of the council--training, program, camping, facilities, fundraising--retaining youth and families could impact everything we do and how we do it. This will help us keep everyone's eye on making the "Every Kid Counts!" campaign a major focus for the next several years.
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To find a new funding source for the council finance team. The medical profession was an untouched resource in the council. To put together a dinner recognizing doctors and generate support for council medical program in supplies, equipment, and housing.
Recruited three great Scouting volunteer doctors to head up the event. They in turn recruited two other doctors each, building the doctors' dinner committee to nine. They worked with their associations, hospitals, pharmaceutical suppliers, and healthcare providers.
Next year we will have the event at the council training center to cut down costs. We will develop a larger dinner committee.
The objective of this DVD project was to provide positive, professional pieces to be used at community fund-raising breakfasts, family Friends of Scouting presentations, and school nights. Our goal was to have the two videos and two slide shows cause the adult audience of business leaders and parents to act, either to donate funds toward Scouting or to sign their family up to join Scouting, as well as to build awareness of our organization's mission and brand identity. In particular, we took the opportunity to introduce the local community to our Scoutreach initiative.
Members of the council marketing committee collaborated with Garrigan Lyman, who has generously donated countless hours of pro bono work, to plan the direction of these pieces. Emphasis was placed on shooting a diverse group of youth and adults who are prominent in our community and involved in Scoutreach. Part of the planning process was deciding how the pieces would be utilized. The first video shown within the first 10 minutes of the event, the second video viewed just prior to the results were overwhelmingly positive.
The end result of this project was that our council had a 13.5 percent increase over 2005 in our Friends of Scouting campaign, totaling more than $2.2 million raised for FOS, which was 112 percent of our goal. Numerous viewers remarked at the quality of the pieces and indicated that tears came to their eyes because the videos reminded them of their own Scouting experiences. We also fulfilled requests from dozens of units to show "The Scouting Experience" video at Eagle courts of honor and other Scout functions.
We learned that videos and other visual images can make an enormous impact on people during events. Creating pieces and selecting music that invoke laughter, nostalgia, tears and other emotional responses and using them at strategic times can help make fundraising events very successful. We also learned that our members enjoyed them so much that they wanted to see them multiple times. One of our challenges became having enough copies of the DVD on hand to keep up with the unanticipated demand from volunteers and other community organizations.
The Merits of Marketing (marketing.scouting.org) is a resource for local
councils, developed by the Marketing &
Communications Division of the National Council, Boy Scouts of
America.