This is pretty amazing and we think speaks to the power of our model and the benefit to nonprofits.
We have 9 Gannett markets scheduled for launch on May 12th. In advance of those launches we have to aggregate nonprofit content. Never before have we had such a short period of time - less than three weeks - between 'yup, this is cool, let's launch Do Good channels' and the date those channels have to be up and running with nonprofit content. Never ever. And to boot, it's not one market, but nine!
Our team (that sounds more impressive than it is, it's Amy!) put together the target list for the nine markets - a total of 116 local nonprofit aggregators; food banks, volunteer centers, foundations, and more - who can help us reach out to other nonprofits and get them on board.
So late in the day on Monday 4/27 an email was sent to all 116 telling them about what's coming - here's the opening for Indianapolis:
Every day, thousands of people in the Greater Indianapolis area visit the web site of The Indianapolis Star, IndyStar.com, to get their news and local community information….THOUSANDS! How powerful would it be if they could find information about your nonprofit; your programs, your volunteering opportunities, your events and your in-kind donation needs? What if they could find other great local nonprofits and ways to get involved?
Starting on May 12th, nonprofits in the Greater Indianapolis area are going to be able to do exactly that. On Thursday May 12th, The Indianapolis Star will be launching Do Good Indianapolis.
It's a powerful message for nonprofits - especially in these challenging economic time; use the largest local media partner to reach more people to engage them with your cause.
And now it's Thursday morning and about sixty hours or so since the emails went out - how are we doing?
- Of the 116 organizations targeted, 16 have already signed up for a webinars. That's 13.8%.
- Of the 116 organizations targeted, 26 have already joined the good2gether network. That's 22.4%!
Nearly a quarter have already signed up. In less than three days. That's pretty amazing.
The next step is to have these aggregators reach out to their constituency nonprofits and spread the word. And that's already happening:
- Earth Share of New York is reaching out to their 70 members.
- And the New York Council of Nonprofits is reaching out to their 1,400 members.
- The Nonprofit Center at La Salle University will be telling their 2,000 members about the Do Good channel launches.
- Community Health Charities of Maryland will reach out to their 34 member organizations.
- And Community Health Charities of the National Capital Area will ping their 80 members.
- NPower DC will include information about the Do Good channel launch in their May newsletter to their 150 nonprofit partners.
- And the Nonprofit Roundtable in DC will do the same thing - talk about the Do Good channel in their newsletter going to 140 nonprofits.
- The Center for Nonprofit Management in DC will be sending out a communication to their 650 nonprofits.
- And Second Harvest Food Bank of East Tennessee will communicate out to their 400 food bank and food pantry partners.
Just through those nine launch partners our Do Good messages will be delivered to nearly 5,000 nonprofits. Scalable and frictionless nonprofit aggregation - it's an amazing thing.
We have this launch process down to a science - we will launch dozens and dozens of new channels and markets through the year and aggregate tens of thousands of nonprofits and their cause engagement content.
