Marketing Vision

DEVELOPED BY JOSHUA DESHAIES FOR BIG MINDS

3 MAY 2021

This Presentation

1. Branding
2. Building a Brand Toward Thought Leadership
3. Enacting Thought Leadership for a Growth Model
4. Thought Leadership Strategy and Message
5. Building a Foundation for Sustained Coverage
6. Fundraising: Early Adjustments
7. Fundraising: Campaign Structure and Analytics
8. Possible Grant-Funding Organizations
9. Enrollment Initiatives
10. Planning for Sustainable Expansion
11. Moving Forward (Q4 2021, Q2 2022)

Branding: Why this first?

• Delivers a more direct message to our communities (students, families, greater community).
• Unlocks more opportunities for members who are not already engaged in our communities to become engaged
• Leads to increased engagement in fundraising, enrollment, and interaction (Network for Good, 2012)

What’s Already Going Well?

• Internal communities speak highly of nearly all experiences
• High confidence levels in Dr. Hayes as a trusted resource
• Authenticity in brand delivery
• High community confidence levels in Big Minds’ abilities to provide for 2e student needs:
• Student Choice
• Information, Material, and Technology Needs
• Safe Learning Community

Our Challenges

• Trust is high within communities that we serve. So, we have two main challenges:
• 1. How do we maintain these levels of trust to move toward expansion of both educational/digital presences and school sites?
• 2. How do we leverage the trust that we’ve built to provide more (and more accessible resources) for our communities (both current and potential)?

Building a Brand Toward Thought Leadership

Resource Accessibility: Website

• Website already includes great resources, but we can do more!

1. Translate Dr. Hayes’ research/ideas/info into a full Resources tab on the Website.

2. Group information by learners to develop a wider community of 2e learners

3. Transition to a monthly email newsletter (school and organizational news)

4. Transition to blog as culture/interest stories (open opportunity for storytelling from students/teachers/families)

5. Transition to an inquiry email address to help free up Dr. Hayes’ time

6. Include relevant social media links on home bar and in content footers

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What could this look like?

Social Media

• Twitter/Facebook: movement toward a space for information-sharing and networking.
• Share HTML version of Newsletter
• Interact with current audiences about how to make online presence more of a community
• Student/Educator/Community Voice:
• Begin by blog-linking on Twitter/Facebook for 1-2 years, then migrate content to socials for and by our communities
• (Possibly 2022 Recruitment Cycle) Begin leveraging LinkedIn

Why These Changes?

• Show proof of brand activity and identity to larger audiences
• Give our communities (student/parent/educator/global) more of a voice in information shared to larger audiences
• Build an increasing community centered around 2e culture
• Provide resources for 2e learners worldwide

Case Study: Bay Area Tech Workers

• 6% of the population is 2e (Hechinger Report)
• 831,700 tech employees in the Bay Area (SJ Mercury News)
• That means there’s an audience of 50,000 people that we could better serve.
• As we move toward online education and digital outreach, that number expands, which gives us more of a platform.

Thought Leadership: Growth Model

How to Begin?

• Leverage current resources (The G Word, Dr. Hayes’ new book) to continue messages of education, accessibility, and culture.
• Use digital content strategies and cross-media strategies to market Big Minds’ organizational work
• Good news: A lot of this work is already being done well – we’ll just have to be better about documenting and sharing this.

Thought Leadership Strategy and Message: What to Solidify

• Big Minds is one of the only organizations in the world dedicated to:
• Facilitating safe and heuristic learning for 2e students,
• Providing authentic support for parents and educators of 2e students
• Cultivating a community of 2e learners across education, opportunity level, and career level

• Twice-Exceptional (2e) describes individuals who have exceptional talent and one or more disabilities. Big Minds sits at the center of 2e education and culture

Building a Foundation for Sustained Coverage

• Consider press/outreach opportunities in tiers:
• 1: Local/Regional
• 2: State/National
• 3: Global
• (L3s may be difficult at first, but working toward them helps us build a body of work, so we’ll work toward them anyway)
• Current outreach is between L1-L2, so we’ll focus on building a foundation to consistently achieve L2s. (Metrics/ratios for model determined by 2021 Analysis)

Potential Press Outreach Goals

• Two-Pronged: Educational Spaces and Adjacent Spaces
• Two Sub-Strategies: Press and In-Person

Sample Outreach Strategies (L1)

Pitch stories to reporters like Judith Prieve at the East Bay Times, or Nate Gartrell at the Bay Area News Group, which leverage our in-house content for an educational/culture story.

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Coordinate a talk about 2e culture based on Big Minds Process for Berkeley’s Minor in Disability Studies. (Possible venues: SOCIOL 113AC: The Sociology of Education, GWS 111: Disability Justice, UGIS 113: Disability Studies in Practice.)

Pitch stories to local games spaces (Glitch City, SF Game Space) about the intersections of gaming and 2e identity

Partner with ZSCAPE Games in San Ramon to form a lesson about designing escape rooms.

Educational: Press

Educational: In-Person

Adjacent: Press

Adjacent: In-Person

Sample Outreach Strategies (L2)

Network with and subsequently pitch to Vanessa Rancaño (KQED) a story about how staying remote has become part of our new, educational normal – and how this has helped 2e learners to succeed.

Partner with local organizations that are already national-press vehicles such as 826 to develop a series of student-choice workshops focused on 2e students. At least one of these could be an opportunity for Dr. Hayes to speak.

Partner with receptive organizations such as the SF Film Festival to have students write and publish reviews of appropriate films through cross-media channels.

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Partner with an organization like the Oakland Literacy Coalition to have students write to each other, and then partner with a library system (such as the Oakland Public Library) to exhibit student work.

Educational: Press

Educational: In-Person

Adjacent: Press

Adjacent: In-Person

Sample Outreach Strategies (L3)

Pitch a story to NBC’s Education Nation about Dr. Hayes’ work in founding, sustaining, and expanding Big Minds to create one of the only educational-cultural centers for 2e learners.

Pitch a presentation to the Learning Disabilities Association of America about the use of small classrooms and 1:1 instruction in supporting 2e learners. (Could also serve as cross-promotional opportunity for The G Word.)

Propose a feature on preparing workplace cultures for difference in learning styles for an outlet like Forbes, which seems to be receptive to cultural stories.

Pitch a GDC Talk on the use of videogame technology to democratize learning for 2e students.

Educational: Press

Educational: In-Person

Adjacent: Press

Adjacent: In-Person

Fundraising

Fundraising: Early Adjustments

• Create a branded donation page for 500% increase in donations (Network for Good, 2012)
• Use custom page to target both smaller donations (through ask buttons) and larger donations (visual storytelling, metric storytelling)
• From here, we transition into regular campaigns

Campaign Structure and Analytics: Overview

• Leverage revitalized branding to promote general fundraising across newsletter, social media, and blog between Q2 – Q4 2021
• From this data (KPI testing, a/b analyses), move into large-scale giving campaigns
• Two next targets for major donation campaigns: Q4 2021 (Holidays), Q2 2022 (The G Word)

General Fundraising Q2-Q4 2021

• Once the custom form is up, we run monthly general test campaigns sharing individual student stories that demonstrate financial impact
• Emailing rates and other metrics will depend on Salesforce data, but most will be communicated between 1-2 emails/month on Thursdays around 11AM

“Before she came to Big Minds, Mikayla struggled with speaking in school. Now, thanks to the continued generosity of donors that help us hire the best teachers for our students, she’s been able to work with instructors Emily and Tam to become a chatterbox in both English and Vietnamese. […] Like Mikayla, we’d love to offer you the chance to rise to the occasion. Make a gift of any size today”

Data → Large Donors

• Through a/b testing and KPI analyses, gain data about donor activity and develop donor profiles
• Schedule Year-End/Holiday Giving Drive (Q4 2021)
• Emphasize individual student stories based on donor profiles
• Include goal (“We are X amount away from…”) and metric (“$X provides…”) numbers based on donor profiles
• Research grants/large donors for matching
• Work with students/instructors to develop thank-you rewards (design logos for mugs/art prints/etc.)

Fundraising: Moving Forward

• Results of holiday campaign will inform strategies (content, ask, reward) for upcoming 2022 campaign (Target Q2)
• Will also incorporate content/rewards for The G Word and Dr. Hayes’ new book (raffle premiere tickets, offer signed copies)

Possible Grant-Funding Organizations

• Cisco Bay Area Community Impact Grants ($50,000-$75,000) [Open]
• San Francisco Foundation Community Leadership Awards [Rolling]
• Fleishhacker Foundation Educational Grants ($5,000-$10,000) [Yearly, request due December 7]
• Hewlett Foundation ($48,000-$75,000) [Rolling]

Enrollment Initiatives

Enrollment Adjustments

• Clarify situational language around school attendance policy for in-person and digital programming
• Create video about what distance learning looks like (once it’s safe to do so, and only if students/families are comfortable with filming)
• Leverage other educational organizations for recruitment
• Homeschool Audiences (Diablo Valley Unschool, DaVinci Unschool)
• Informal Ed. Audiences (Lawrence Hall of Sciences Summer Camps, Libraries)
• Bolster profiles of Educators, Site Directors, and other Educational Professionals to free up Dr. Hayes’ time
• Make others available to meet with parents/students during evaluations

Planning for Sustainable Expansion

Develop Scaling Models

• Determine who, at each school site, is meeting with parents during enrollment. Allow this to develop a structure of roles within each school. Then, develop profiles of these roles on the website.
• By 2025 (or earlier if available), investigate opening another school site
• In expansion models, combine current strategy of where our audiences live with a new strategy that allows for more social good as well.
• Example: cross-referencing areas where design executives live with areas where there are large opportunity gaps (Oakland, South Berkeley, Mill Valley) promotes opportunities for both continued growth and intersectional social impact (scholarships, partnerships, etc.)

Moving Forward

Q4 2021 Goals

• Begin stabilizing L2 Thought Leadership Opportunities for Dr. Hayes and the Big Minds brand in anticipation of Q4 2021 Fundraising Campaign.
• Develop custom donation form and integrate Salesforce (and possibly Mailchimp) analytics to begin KPI analysis on smaller donation campaigns.
• Coordinate all aspects of Q4 2021 Fundraising Campaign, including copy, graphics, and ask structure.
• Refurbish existing social media and website toward brand-as-resource content and community development. Double follower count on Twitter and Facebook.
• Talk to students and instructors about ways to integrate classroom environment with marketing (designs for gifts, video interviews, etc.)

Q2 2022 Goals

In addition to continuing goals from the previous waypoint, we will:

• Maintain stable L2 Thought Leadership Opportunities for Dr. Hayes and the Big Minds brand in anticipation of The G Word.
• Focus donation asks in Q1-Q2 2022 around both student/operational efforts (as before) and The G Word.
• Develop campaigns that specifically target donors in media and tech, look into possible campaigns on LinkedIn if money is available

Beyond

Thank You/Questions