The Kelley Marketing Group News

Many nonprofits operate with a small staff and look to their employees to handle a number of different responsibilities within the organization. Having a dedicated marketing person, with the proper skills, is a luxury most cannot afford. Luckily, there is one resource in the area to help out. A group of local marketing and public relations experts, the Kelley Marketing Group, volunteer their time each month to help be a marketing resource to local nonprofits.
     
The Kelley Marketing Group was founded in 1980 by Winfield Peter Carlough, Fran Stoddard, and Paul Bortz and has been offering marketing advice to nonprofits for more than 20 years. Today, Jay McKee, Professor of Business Administration at Champlain College, continues the tradition and manages the group. McKee said the group started years ago because “these professionals heard many people from nonprofits say things like, I’m now in charge of marketing for this organization….Could you please give us some advice. Of course we have no budget for marketing.” The founders thought they could have some impact on the community and the program just grew. There was a need and it continues today.
     
Each month, the Kelley Marketing Group meets with a nonprofit or not-for-profit and provides marketing advice and guidance. Over the years, the group has refined the process, leading each organization through a series of steps, making the time together as beneficial as possible.
     
The first step begins with the nonprofit filling out a questionnaire developed by the group, asking them to evaluate and discuss their current marketing efforts. Questions include, “How do your services compare to those of your competitors in price, quality, feature, and name awareness? Who are your customers? How are you currently marketing your services to your customers and prospective customers?”
     
These answers help the Kelley Marketing Group comprehend the organization’s marketing efforts, and understand the challenges they are facing and the products or services offered.
     
Each member of the Kelley Marketing Group receives a completed copy of the questionnaire in preparation for sitting down with the nonprofit. The meeting lasts 90 minutes, with the nonprofit discussing its current marketing program, as well as receiving feedback, suggestions, and ideas from the group.
     
Professor McKee said the groups they meet gain the most from a professional outlook on marketing. Many lack a marketing plan and the group stresses the importance of developing a plan. With only a short time together, the group provides tips, contacts that they would consider if in the nonprofit’s shoes. McKee sees these nonprofits leaving with a number of fresh ideas that they might not have considered, and some of which they might choose to implement.
     
Priya Lapham, Senior Account Manager for KnowledgeWave training, has been actively involved with the Kelley Marketing Group since 2003, and enjoys volunteering time to help these groups. Recognizing that there are many worthy causes in the area, Lapham says that the Kelley Marketing Group “provides these organizations with the opportunity to share their story.”
     
Success is when they come away from the meeting with fresh perspectives. “For many, having an outlet for brainstorming with marketing and public relations savvy professionals, like the Kelley Marketing Group, provide and opportunity to really improve or make progress on an initiative within their organization.”
     
Lapham also notes a common theme for these organizations, most often that of having limited marketing budgets. The organizations are cutting corners in areas that affect their overall marketing plan and often the budget drives the marketing plan. Funds are very limited and things are compromised out of necessity.
     
The Kelley Marketing Group has helped many area organizations. A few of the recent groups they have worked with include the ALS Society, Lake Champlain Sailing Center, Good News Garage, Burlington and Shelburne Recreations Departments, Heart of Vermont Lodging Association, Women Business Owner’s Network, Campaign to End Childhood Hunger, The Lake Champlain Committee, and the Vermont Credit Union League.

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December 2002; by Art Edelstein, correspondent.

The Kelley Marketing Group Helps Nonprofits

The cost of the advice is nominal, just $25 for coffee and muffins, but the advice is priceless for those seeking help with marketing.

The Kelley Marketing Group, located at Champlain College, has been helping nonprofits with advice for 20 years.

In a monthly meeting at the Hauke Building, the campus' newest addition, six or seven professional marketers and the program organizer, Professor Jay McKee, sit down with a representative of a nonprofit for an informal look at marketing strategy. For an hour or more, they will help that organization with suggestions for putting its marketing house in order.

Shelburne Museum was the most recent nonprofit to seek the Kelley group's advice. "We have some questions pertaining to marketing and visitation, and getting our message out," said museum marketer Sam Ankerson of his reason for coming. "The Kelley Group is a free service and they are local folks. They are familiar with our situation."

Ellen Rubenstein, who does marketing for the Good News Garage, visited the Kelley group in the spring of 2000. "I was fairly new on the job and was looking for ideas on how to promote the garage," Rubenstein said.

Opportunity
This service, named after a former marketing professor and business division chairman at Champlain College, Michael R. Kelley who died in 1989, has attracted many marketing professionals since its inception. "This is a great opportunity to get to know about the nonprofits in the area," said Ann Curran, the community relations director for Vermont Public Television. She has been a regular of the group for 15 years.

"A lot of the nonprofits have so few resources they are in need of all the help they can get," she said. "They don't have advertising budgets and they can have very small staffs and are doing amazing work." McKee, who teaches marketing, has kept the group going since the late 1980s. He said the interest among marketers in helping nonprofits stems from a sense of community.

"People in marketing kept hearing from nonprofits who wanted to know more about marketing," he said. "Marketers knew there was a need and wanted to give back to the community." Professionals come and go attracted by word of mouth or interest in nonprofits. The marketing group helps because nonprofit people are production-oriented, McKee said. "They want to do the best job at what they do," he said. "Marketing people think about how they can promote something such as, will names be confusing, will clients understand the logos and the communications?"

"Nonprofits don't know how to sell themselves," he said. Jane Doherty, volunteer specialist with the Red Cross, joined the group this fall. "Nonprofits often have a hard time marketing; they are trained to think like nonprofits," Doherty said. Doherty said she can lend her expertise because the Red Cross "is trying to think as a for-profit."

Practical and general
The advice a nonprofit gets at one of the monthly gatherings can be useful on both a practical and general level, McKee said. "Not only do we give advice on brochures, marketing plans, and logos, we also give them names of people to contact in the media or other specialists."

McKee said if a non-profit had to pay for an hour's help with marketing from this group of professionals it would cost hundreds of dollars an hour.
With so many non-profits needing help, the Kelley group has some criteria for choosing whom it will see.

"The criteria we use is what we feel the impact on the community will be," McKee said. "I make the decision as to who we will work with. We work only with nonprofits based in Vermont." The worse off the better, McKee said of the clients chosen. "We choose based on the need of the organization. If they have a very low profile or a terrible logo, or seem to be in need of marketing assistance, they are a prime candidate," he said.

The wait for a session is "a couple or few months at the most," he said.
In order to home in on a particular nonprofit's problem, the group requires the person attending the session to fill out a questionnaire about his or her organization. "We found we could land on our feet and make the most of our time if they filled out the information before hand," McKee said.
Each session is recorded on audio tape so the participant can concentrate on what is being said at the session and use the tape for reference afterwards.

Brainstorm
The process is not at all one-sided, the professionals said. "It's fun to get together and brainstorm," Curran said. "You usually learn something from the other members of the marketing group and learn about the work being done in the community by the nonprofit."

"Sometimes you can come up with simple ideas you can actually implement," Doherty said. "It's manageable and interesting hearing what other organization are up to and you can bring this back to your own organization."

"For us academics it's important to keep our hand in current marketing and work with our colleagues in the field," McKee said. "It also provides me with examples to use in the classroom." The group provides ideas and advice the nonprofits can incorporate into their marketing plans. "I wanted general input, I hadn't done actual marketing," Rubenstein said. "I came away with a bunch of notes and ideas to explore."

"They made me think. They absolutely helped," said Paul Lamberson at Recycle North in Burlington. "They made me a little less attached to the way we were doing things and challenged everything from our name to how we were positioning ourselves. We've been making changes ever since."

"They emphasized the importance of partnerships with local businesses," Shelburne Museum's Ankerson said. "They also emphasized the importance of communicating our price discounts more effectively and doing, new and entertaining programming each year."

McKee thinks the Kelley Group concept could expand.

"This group could be a model for export to other parts of the state and the county," he said. "I'm not aware of this being done elsewhere."

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