October 15th
In mid-October, I took on a position as the New Media Outreach Coordinator for an Illinois based non-profit organization.  I was familiar with the multi-centered, multi-million dollar organization and understood many of the challenges that I would encounter in building an effective online outreach program for such an organization.  Like many non-profit organizations, online outreach was an unknown endeavor and the value of such an effort was not fully received nor understood.  However, facing similar challenges in the past, I was confident that we could quickly develop an action plan and produce measurable results.

When I accepted the position, I had established three primary goals:

1. Develop a multi-faceted, but targeted presence online to increase community engagement and better control public information concerning our organization.
2. Build an online community of supporters of our organization that would readily support our organizations mission, fundraising and legislative advocacy.
3. Increase organizational revenue by implementing strategic online fundraising drives and non-fundraising revenue generating opportunities.

The good news was that the organization had previously built a nice website (with sub-domains for each center) and had created a footprint within Facebook and Twitter.  With a foundation in place, I was confident we could quickly build results. 

The Unexpected

After 13 years of experience in small business and organizational marketing, I have learned that there is only one certainty within any marketing plan: The Unexpected Always Occurs.  My new position with The Hope Institute for Children and Families would be no different, as I learned within minutes of walking through the doors. 

On my first day, after completing the usual catalog of employment and tax documents, I finally arrived at my office at 9:55 am.  As I arrived, I was not greeted with the typical introductions, tours and welcomes.  Rather, I was greeted with: "We are so glad you are here, I have a conference call in 5 minutes I would like you to sit in on."  What? Huh? And so it began, every preconceived plan I had naturally formed within my mind was put on hold as the unexpected took control.

A center of the organization was taking part in a national symposium consisting of 16 locations nationwide, all connected through video-conferencing technology.  The national meeting would consist of more than 1,000 participants nationwide and our organization was a sponsor of the central hub for the event.  As such, we had committed to helping fill the 350 participants of the central hub.  During the course of that first conference call our organization's team quickly recognized that a minimal amount of event marketing had taken place, there was a leadership by committee mentality that was creating no results.  In addition, we quickly recognized that event fell apart we would face heavy scrutiny along with a loss of substantial capital and resource investments in the project. With less than three weeks to accept registrations, our central hub had only 29 reservations, with less than 90 nationwide.  It was now apparent that my preconceived plans would have to be put on hold and our team would have to take an active leadership role in promoting the event and enticing participants.