REAL Women: A Refined Marketing Approach · Revamp the organizations website up to modern standards, using blogs and newsfeeds to generate public interest and segregate issues to

Title Page

REAL Women: A Refined Marketing Approach

Submitted By: Amarinder Marock

Susan Robertson

Kyle Darvasi

Ekaterina Bregman

ENTR 3000 S50

April 1, 2009

NOTE: For Confidentiality Purposes, Company Financials

& certain information have been blocked out.

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Letter of Transmittal

April 1, 2009

REAL Women Board of Directors

Dear Mrs. Doris Darvasi,

Attached is the REAL Women: A Refined Marketing Approach, which includes marketing

recommendations for your not-for-profit organization.

The report will identify problems within the organization, offer solutions and an implementation time

guide.

The study included both primary and secondary research. The primary study focused on members and

Board of Directors in REAL Women and some community members in British Columbia.

After conducting research on internal operations of REAL Women, their financial history, marketing

strategy, and collecting data from various sources, we have illuminated the following constraints:

The organization does not have a clear vision.

The organization needs to set priorities for activities.

The organizations web site is outdated and needs to be fixed.

The organization is lacking skill variety and human capital.

We are grateful to you for authorizing this project and for your assistance you provided by answering

our questions. The team is also very grateful for the support offered by David Wiens, Communications

Instructor, during the research stage of this project as well as during our analysis phase. We would also

like to thank all of REAL Women’s board members for answering our team’s questionnaires. Lastly we

would like to thank Non-for-profit Marketing guide for all its valuable online resources.

Please consider implementing our recommendations by November 2009. For further information,

questions or comments regarding this report, please contact our team member, Kyle Darvasi via phone.

Sincerely,

Kyle Darvasi Amarinder Marock Ekaterina Bregman Susan Robertson

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Executive Summary

The REAL Women: A Refined Marketing Approach is written to provide the REAL Women Board of

Directors with recommendations for improving their marketing ability and effectiveness. Over the

last decade REAL Women’s membership has fluctuated and they have not always able to draw

attention to its objectives. As a consequence, the organization has found itself unable to generate

enough revenue to cover all its activities. This report offers a marketing approach, that if adopted

will enhance REAL Women’s marketability and thus result in revenue and organizational growth.

Specifically, this report provides recommendations to the board in areas of: renovating

organization’s operational plan to match its capabilities, resource management, gaining human

resources, networking and establishing effective communication channel and techniques to

generate awareness and interest. Furthermore, the report is accompanied by a nine month long

implementation plan.

By implementing these recommendations, the organization will be able to market itself more

effectively, allowing it to attract and retain more members and increase its organizational

effectiveness in bringing about a change.

Research methodologies adopted:

To derive the conclusions and recommendations, the report group followed the following research

methodologies:

In person interview with the president of REAL Women to understand the history, mission,

activities, problems and goals of the organization.

Phone-Interview and e-mail questionnaires presented to board members of Real Women in

order to understand company’s vision

Consulted several secondary resources to obtain information crucial information. These

resources included REAL Women’s Website, Online Non-for-Profit Marketing Guide, Leadership

Richmond’s Youth Now program, social advertising aspect of Facebook and various online

publications about establishing a clear vision.

Costs associated with website consulting and redesigns were obtained from David Miller, a

webpage designer for Split Mango.

Member’s first hand knowledge as a former participant of the Youth Now program.

Used findings from these various sources to come up with conclusions, recommendations and

implementation plan.

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Conclusions formulated from research and analysis:

After conducting our comprehensive research and analysis, our team derived the following conclusions:

REAL Women does not have a clear vision for the future that it can market to its audience.

Because its vision is so broad, it’s hurting the organization’s marketability by causing confusion

towards its purpose and what it actually does.

The organization’s lack of prioritization for its activities and its inefficient use of resources

towards numerous activities is hurting the organization’s ability to produce results.

The current website’s layout and content is inadequate in its ability to communicate information

about the organization.

Lack of skills diversification among the organization’s board members is depriving the

organization’s ability to make effective decisions. This is the reason REAL Women have not

ventured in significant marketing enterprises in the past.

Lack of community presence is the reason why people are unaware of the organization’s

existence.

Our recommendations to improve Real Women’s marketability:

Based on the conclusions mentioned above, the report team has made the following recommendations:

Establish a clear vision by re-evaluating/ focusing company’s values, identifying target audience

and by setting short term and long term goals.

Set priorities for its activities by pursuing issues that fall within its refined vision and aggressively

pursuing issues that arise from events or news.

Revamp the organization’s website up to modern standards, using blogs and newsfeeds to

generate public interest and segregate issues to provide keywords for search engines to target.

Participate in the Youth-Now program to gain volunteers, develop members’ skills and gain

valuable networking opportunities with other organizations with similar mission.

Use Social Advertising ability of Facebook to reach hundreds of people by tailoring its message

towards a selective group of individuals.

Gain community presence by establishing a centre of operations with another organization

thereby sharing costs.

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Table of Contents

Title Page ....................................................................................................................................................... 1

Letter of Transmittal ..................................................................................................................................... 2

Executive Summary ....................................................................................................................................... 3

Research methodologies adopted: ........................................................................................................... 3

Conclusions formulated from research and analysis: ............................................................................... 4

Our recommendations to improve Real Women’s marketability: ........................................................... 4

Table of Contents .......................................................................................................................................... 5

List of Illustrations ......................................................................................................................................... 8

Introduction .................................................................................................................................................. 9

Situation: ................................................................................................................................................... 9

Message: A guide to more effective marketing practices ...................................................................... 10

Audience ................................................................................................................................................. 10

Response ................................................................................................................................................. 10

Scope ....................................................................................................................................................... 10

Procedure & Resources ........................................................................................................................... 11

Organizational Plan for the report .......................................................................................................... 11

Conclusions & Recommendations .............................................................................................................. 12

REAL Women: A Refined Marketing Approach ........................................................................................... 14

Background on REAL Women ................................................................................................................. 14

Company has no marketing budget ........................................................................................................ 15

Falling memberships and revenues ........................................................................................................ 15

Lack of awareness regarding company’s existence ................................................................................ 16

An outdated website ............................................................................................................................... 16

Lack of Volunteers................................................................................................................................... 16

Strong opposition from competing organizations .................................................................................. 17

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Organization’s vision is too broad in scope ................................................................................................ 18

Broad vision cannot communicate values effectively ............................................................................ 19

Lack of prioritization is hurting organizational performance ................................................................. 19

Declining Memberships and Revenues ................................................................................................... 19

REAL Women’s website lacks transparency ........................................................................................... 20

Website does not provide keywords for search engines to target ......................................................... 20

Not segregating issues has lost REAL Women possible members .......................................................... 21

Lack of Community Presence hindering their public relations ............................................................... 21

Board members lack necessary marketing skills .................................................................................... 21

Lack of Financial Resources: ............................................................................................................... 21

Lack of Human Resources: .................................................................................................................. 22

Clarify the company’s vision ....................................................................................................................... 23

1) Explore and illuminate core values ................................................................................................. 23

2) Envision a future for the organization’s target audience ............................................................... 24

3) Create a mission statement that defines organization’s activities. ................................................ 24

4) Set Short term goals and timelines ................................................................................................. 25

5) Communicate the progress to public ............................................................................................. 25

Set priorities for its activities .................................................................................................................. 25

Revamp REAL Women’s website ............................................................................................................ 26

Use of Blogs to provide information, resources and generate active discussion ............................... 26

Using News feeds to inform public about relevant changes .............................................................. 27

Using stories to share experiences ..................................................................................................... 27

Using Fact vs. Fiction to clarify public misconceptions ....................................................................... 27

Segregate activities to facilitate greater website traffic ......................................................................... 28

Facilitate navigation & access to information by establishing a clear website model ........................... 28

Use Facebook’s Social networks and applications to reach its target audience .................................... 29

Gain relevant skills and human capital with Youth Now Program ......................................................... 30

Establish a Centre of operations with a related organization ................................................................ 32

Action Plan for REAL Women ...................................................................................................................... 33

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1. Define the core values of REAL women .......................................................................................... 33

2. Define the Target Audience ............................................................................................................ 34

3. Define the Mission Statement ........................................................................................................ 34

4. Define your goals ............................................................................................................................ 34

5. Obtain approval and guidance from national organization ............................................................ 34

6. Prioritization of issues to utilize the use of limited resources ........................................................ 34

7. Excellent opportunity registering with Youth Now ........................................................................ 34

Publish a work in progress newsletter .................................................................................................... 35

Working with Split Mango to help reintroduce REAL Women on the internet ...................................... 35

The beginnings of a marketing plan for REAL Women ........................................................................... 36

Setting up a public persona on Facebook ............................................................................................... 38

Personal Profile ................................................................................................................................... 38

Fan page .............................................................................................................................................. 38

Achieving the phone, fax and physical connection ................................................................................. 38

Works Cited ................................................................................................................................................. 40

Appendix A: Questions answered by President and Board of REAL Women of BC .................................... 42

Appendix B: Financial Statements from 2005 – 2008 ................................................................................. 46

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List of Illustrations

Figure 1: Portion of 3 year expenditure spent on advertisement .............................................................. 15

Figure 2: REAL Women’s has been unable to grow its memberships over the past decade ..................... 15

Figure 3: Partial picture of REAL Women’s purpose directly from Website ............................................... 18

Figure 4: Inconsistent earnings patterns for REAL Women over the past 4 years. .................................... 21

Table #1: Board Members Position & Obligations ...................................................................................... 22

Table 2: A comprehensive revaluation of the following key organizational elements is the key to a

successful vision .......................................................................................................................................... 23

Figure 5: Segregation of activities donates greater keywords for Search Engine to target ....................... 28

Figure 6: Company must establish a clear website model that facilitates navigation ............................... 29

Table 3: Leadership Richmond Program’s benefits address REAL Women’s issues ................................... 31

Table 4: Opportunities to network with organizations that share similar values as REAL Women ........... 31

Figure 7: A Month by Month agenda for the organization to initiate change. .......................................... 33

Figure 8: Split Mango’s impressive redesign of a local organization’s homepage ..................................... 36

Figure 9: The basic perspective and steps an organization should take in creating a marketing plan. .... 37

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Introduction

The report, REAL Women: A Refined Marketing Approach was first authorized by Doris Darvasi,

president of REAL Women of BC as well as a second time by David Wiens, Instructor on January 23, 2009

as the final project for ENTR 3000, section 50.

Situation:

REAL Women of BC is a local chapter of a larger national organization that has been actively involved in

political activism for over 25 years to promote their Pro-Life and Pro-Family values to the legislative

officials in order to influence their decisions. For the past several years, the company has found itself

unable to generate enough revenues to fund all of its activities. This was primarily due to the decline in

its membership base, which was adding volatility to its revenue stream, preventing it from covering all

costs and to forecast and plan for the future.

A significant barrier for REAL Women is the lack of transparency the organization faces because its

website is extremely outdated and does not present information in a clear and concise fashion to

communicate the organization’s purpose, what it does or wishes to accomplish and how people can

help. Because having a centre of operations is not possible due to the limited financial resources, the

company’s website had to be the main advertising medium that presented information about the

organization.

The organization lacks skills and experience among its board members to actively engage in marketing

activities; and as a consequence, almost no funds have been devoted towards marketing in the past five

years. Therefore, the organization also needed a cost effective way to update their skills and diversify

their board with new members.

Because the organization relies solely on memberships as a source of revenue, REAL Women urgently

needs a marketing plan that will allow them to reach out to its target audience and:

generate awareness about the company’s existence

share its concerns about issues within the political system

enable the organization to rally more members behind its cause

Using this approach, REAL Women would be able to effectively market its message to its audience and

gain membership, which would add power behind its voice, thus allowing the organization to fund its

activities and improve its organizational effectiveness in its ability to achieve its purpose.

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Message: A guide to more effective marketing practices

The purpose of this guide is to help the president and the board of directors of REAL Women to refine

key organizational elements as a prerequisite to a successful marketing approach. This report provides

recommendations for the organization to refine the message they want to communicate and the

strategies used to deliver this message to their audience. It also discusses using new opportunities to

solve issues, such as participating in Youth Now program. This report will examine all the elements of

their current business and future opportunities such as:

Internal and external operations

Marketing issues and opportunities

How to clarify its vision and set priorities

Improvements to REAL Women’s Website

How to gain new skills and human capital

Audience

The primary audience for this report is the president and board members of REAL Women of BC.

Response

In order to help REAL Women come up with a successful marketing approach, several elements within

the organization have to be addressed first. It is our hope that the president of REAL Women will use the

report’s conclusions and recommendations to advise the Board of Directors regarding implementing the

measures to clarify the organization’s vision, set its priorities, refurbish its website and participating in

the Youth Now program.

Scope

This report will analyse and offer recommendations to the following areas:

Internal and external operations

The message that REAL Women wish to market

Improve organizational efficiency by setting priorities

Weaknesses in REAL Women’s current marketing approach

Online marketing and strategies

Due to time and resource constraints, the report only focuses on key strategies and initiatives as

necessary prerequisites to a marketing plan for REAL Women’s BC Chapter.

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Procedure & Resources

Data and information for this report was collected by:

In person interview with the president

Phone interview with board members

E-mail questionnaires presented to board members

REAL Women’s website and publications

Online Not for profit marketing guide

Insider knowledge about Youth Now program

Leadership Richmond website

Organizational Plan for the report

The report begins with a series of conclusions and recommendations. The body contains a background

on REAL Women of BC and its operations, followed by an analysis of the problems with its organizational

model and its marketing strategies. The report then offers recommendations to improve in these areas.

Finally, it concludes with a step-by-step implementation plan that serves as a guide to execute the

recommendations outlined in the report.

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Conclusions & Recommendations

1. REAL Women’s organization’s vision is too broad in scope and is inefficient in communicating its

values. The vision lacks focus as there is an immense gap between the objectives of the

organization and what they are actually able to do, given its limited resources. Because of this

lack of focus for its activities, its scarce resources are being split across a wide range of activities

focusing on several different political problems. Additionally, its broad vision is distorting the

public’s perception of what REAL Women’s values are as well as what the organization hopes to

accomplish. Our team recommends for the association to clarifies its vision for the future. To do

this they must:

Explore and illuminate core values

Envision a future for the organization’s target audience

Create a mission statement that defines organization’s activities

Set short term goals and timelines

Communicate the progress to the public

2. The lack of prioritization is hurting the organization’s performance. Currently, there is no

prioritization of the issues that the organization is dealing with, causing them to spend money

on whatever arises first. Board members are devoting time and resources towards numerous

activities and is finding itself unable to channel resources towards activities that produce the

best results possible. Our team recommends:

Address only the issues that fall within its vision

Prioritize its activities towards issues that arise from local news or events.

3. The REAL Women website lacks transparency and effectiveness. Because none of the board

members has the technical knowledge or expertise in webpage design, the organization’s

website has not had any significant updates since it was initially constructed in 1997. It lacks

style for easy reading and comprehension. Articles are long and difficult to read. Also, it does

not have an appealing look that will attract the viewers visually and encourage them to return.

Our team recommends:

The association must reorganize their website in a manner that enables the users to

navigate and access the information more quickly and easily.

Create descriptive links that capture readers attention regarding subjects

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4. The website does not provide keywords for search engines to target and detect. This makes it

almost impossible to attract online searchers, and bring them to the website. These web-search

engines, such as Google, work by keying in on WebPages that most closely match the keywords

and subject matter of the request. Currently, people searching for information regarding

important issues regarding the organization would not be able to find their site, creating a

disadvantage for them. Not segregating issues has lost REAL Women some possible members.

The organization also fails to gather support of individuals who may support one cause of the

association but not another. Our team recommends:

Segregate its issues that are the focus of the organization’s activities in order to

maximize its online exposure

Create and have more descriptive headings on the website according to issues so that

search engines will recognize them easier

Keep issues separate on website and when communicating them to attract people that

support at least one aspect of the organization

5. The lack of a community presence is hindering their public relations. Being an organization that

is greatly involved in issues relating to the society, and not having a physical location, can

discredit the organization in the minds of the people. Not having a physical establishment, will

require the website to be more effective in order to compensate for that disadvantage. Our

team recommends:

Revamp the website to effectively communicate message to public, using:

o Use blogs to provide information, resources and to generate active discussion

o Use news feeds to inform public about relevant changes

o Using testimonials/stories to share experiences

o Using Fact VS. Fiction to clarify public misconceptions

Establish a centre of operations by sharing a location with an associated company.

6. Board members lack necessary marketing skills to effectively attract more members. All the

board members have other jobs and personal obligations which limit’s their time and they do

not have any marketing experience in how to promote their service in today’s culture. The lack

of financial resources and the lack of human resources are two main hindrances for not having

an effective marketing effort. Our team recommends:

Gain relevant skills and human capital with Youth Now Program

Acquire a younger person with a marketing background to assist with marketing

Network with other organizations to learn valuable skills and co-sponsor events.

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REAL Women: A Refined Marketing Approach

Background on REAL Women The REAL Women organization has been in existence for 25 years. The word “REAL” stands for Realistic,

Equal, Active, and for Life; these words are the main pillars for which the organization stands. It was

originally started by a group of women that wanted their voice to be heard in parliament regarding

issues such as:

Drugs (legalization of marijuana)

Euthanasia

Spousal abuse

Against same – sex marriages

Against legalization of prostitution

Their core values are based from “pro-life” and “pro-family” roots. They are non denominational and

not affiliated with a particular party, since they are an official political lobby group. However, their views

stem from more of a traditional line, and come across more conservative minded.

Their agenda is to promote the well being of the British Columbia family and addressing issues that

infringe upon the well being of families and the community. They also promote the equality of women in

today’s workforce and support women in achieving equal opportunities. Lastly, they support the right to

life of all individuals from conception to natural death.

The organization stretches nationally across Canada. Its main head office is in Ontario, but one of the

largest chapters is from British Columbia. They have a smaller provincial chapter in Kelowna, and the

main one situated throughout the lower mainland. Because they do not obtain any government support,

the association receives its revenues primarily through memberships that they sell to keep the public

informed on issues and events that are happening, and the occasional donations. It is governed by a

board of members who are responsible for running the organization on a part time bases.

Throughout the two and a half decades, REAL Women has concentrated on spreading information about

issues and getting the citizens of Canada to voice their concerns and make an impact on society. They

have a website on which they reveal information, they hand out pamphlets, and they organize events

and conferences to educate people, as well as represent the group on a world wide level. They also are

heavily involved in the political realm where they lobby to the government on behalf of their members

and of society. They also act as interveners in court cases and actively voice concerns in legislation

process.

Based on our discussions with REAL Women’s president and our research of the company’s website, we

were able to identify the following symptoms of the lack of an effective marketing approach:

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Company has no marketing budget The company has no market plan or a set marketing budget. As figure 1 indicates, the company has

spent only one percent out of their entire three year spending on marketing. This fact is well

documented in the company’s financial statements and verified by the president of REAL Women. (See

Appendix B)

Figure 1: Portion of 3 year expenditure spent on advertisement

(Chart voided due to confidentiality)

Falling memberships and revenues The company has not seen any growth in memberships over the last decade. Furthermore, as indicated in figure 2, membership of REAL Women of BC has declined over the past decade. The organization operates under the status of a political activist group and receives no government support in form of grants or tax exemptions. Their survival is based on direct donations and membership fees that range between $25 and $30 per year, of which the British Columbia chapter only receives $5 of the membership fee.

Figure 2: REAL Women’s has been unable to increase membership over the past decade


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Lack of awareness regarding company’s existence The company’s president has acknowledged that there is a severe lack of knowledge concerning the existence of the organization. A primary contributing factor is that REAL Women of BC does not have an office or an operating center for its activities. The absence of a central operating location makes it impossible for the interaction between community and organization to occur and the company is unable to reach out to the public in order to:

Sell its causes

Raise awareness in the community

Gather support

An outdated website

Doris Darvasi, president of REAL Women, has stated that they are having difficulty in attracting new visitors to the site. The site is very outdated and lacks style for easy reading and fast comprehension. Articles are long and cause the screen to be cluttered with too much writing.

Another downfall is that the web site lacks blogs, or discussion boards for visitors. Without allowing people to express their points of view to the issues people are unable to build interest for said issues.

With an outdated website that fails to highlight company’s purpose, its philosophies, activities and objectives, people are discouraged from investigating the organization’s website any further or ever returning.

Lack of Volunteers

There is a lack of volunteers and diversification within the BC Chapter of REAL Women. REAL Women currently has 6 board members with a vacant seventh position. All members are middle aged women, with families and careers. With current obligations of family life they have minimum time to devote their attention to running the BC Chapter. Being the least of the member’s priority, the organization does not work towards its full potential and is unorganized with what objectives and strategies they should be implemented. Another weakness is that there is a lack of skill diversification within the members. The members lack skills in marketing, graphics design, project management, and the essential factors that can guide the organization forward and at the same time save money by not having to outsource these tasks. Without strong organizational support structure REAL Women’s goals will be hard to satisfy.

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Strong opposition from competing organizations REAL Women of BC operates in a very hostile environment where several other organizations exist with opposing views and philosophies. These organizations, having greater financial resources, engage in aggressive marketing and publicly berate REAL Women.

We compared Plan Parenthoods annual spending on fundraising to that of REAL Women. Plan Parenthood has allocated close to $12,000 for fundraising expense in 2008 (Palmer). In contrast, REAL Women have no budget for fundraising and marketing at all for the prior 2 years, which was evident by their financial statements.

With increased spending in marketing, opposition such as Plan Parenthood have been able attract bigger

support and grow by generating higher revenue to put towards their objectives.

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Organization’s vision is too broad in scope REAL Women’s vision lacks focus as there is an immense gap between the objectives of the organization

and what it is actually able to do, given its limited resources. According to the President, Doris Darvasi,

REAL Women “are concerned about anything in regards to the family; moms, dads, kids, grandparents,

and society in general.” Because the organization has such a broad focus for its activities, its scarce

resources are being split across a wide range of activities focusing on several different political

problems. This is hurting its organizational effectiveness in terms of its ability to bring forth change

within the political environment. On the BC provincial website, they discuss several issues of concern for

REAL Women. It seems that they are trying to take on most of the political issues that arise that has

created some sort of interest for the organization. The fight against abortion, the fight against legalizing

marijuana, and the hot issue within the school boards regarding the gay issue are only a few of the

important topics of concern.

Figure 3 indicates just how broad and confusing their purpose comes across to the viewers (REAL).

Figure 3: Partial picture of REAL Women’s purpose stated on website

The image is not even the complete representation of their purpose. Viewers just see a list of values that

the organization has, but they do not obtain a clear, concise grasp of the firm’s vision from which it

operates. This will only continue to confuse viewers of the website.

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Broad vision cannot communicate values effectively In essence, “the company’s vision lacks measurability and achievability that are necessary for the

organization to attract new members” (McConnell). For example, the president (Darvasi) has expressed

a need for funds to finance company’s intervention activities at provincial courts; however, the

company’s website and publications fail to mention how this activity has enabled the organization to

achieve its goals in the past.

The website is not formatted to accommodate today’s culture regarding short attention span. As

mentioned previously, the website has its information in bulk. The risk of losing the readers interest

increases. A “Logitech study revealed that people, on average, have six applications open on their

computer at any one time, and the active window switches or a new window opens every 50 seconds”

(Walsh). The fact is that people in today’s culture do not have long attention spans and information

must be given to them immediately and must grab and sustain their attention.

Lack of prioritization is hurting organizational performance

REAL Women as a whole has a lack of prioritization by the board members as to which activities the

company wants to channel its resources and efforts towards. “Any organization regardless of the size

and scope of its resources must prioritize to take maximum advantage of its resources” (Wiens).

Because it has not set priorities, the organization is devoting time and resources towards numerous

activities and is finding itself unable to produce results, as pointed out by president’s own words: “It is

difficult to say how much influence our presentations had” (Darvasi). There is no section on the website

that explains to the viewer what issues have priority for their organization. They only have a list of issues

and alerts that gives a lengthy explanation of several concerns that they are a part of (REAL).

Being and advocacy group, the organization’s priorities must be in line with the general concerns shared

by the public in order for it to gain support behind its vision. Without focusing its resources towards

activities that maximize its ability to produce results, the organization cannot hope to attract new

members. This is a significant problem for REAL Women as the company relies solely on membership

dues and donations as the source of revenue.

Before REAL Women can even come up with a marketing plan, REAL Women must be able to

communicate its vision effectively. A vision is what defines an organization; with which they will use to

base all their marketing on.

Declining Memberships and Revenues REAL Women have suffered a decline in its membership over the past decade as the company has been

forced to remove several members from their records due to extremely overdue membership fees.

When one of the board members was asked if they have gained any new memberships, she replied,

“instead of increasing they have slowly been decreasing over the past few years” (Middleton). When

asked to explain, the president mentioned: “it is hard for people to understand that their benefit is the

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knowledge of doing something, albeit maybe small, for the good of their children and future

generations.”

It is clear that these members, who once shared REAL Women’s concerns to become members, are

finding that the organization is not achieving its objectives, or have lost interest in the cause. Once

again, the core problem here is the lack of prioritization of its activities that is making it impossible for

the organization to focus on key issues and communicate:

The company’s vision for achieving a greater harmonious society.

The significance of its capacity as a vanguard of political change.

The results of the company’s efforts o Successes achieved in bringing about a political change o How it has helped to educate the general public

Thanking the public for their support

Indeed the company’s website and publications simply state the names of the cases intervened in but

do not provide the details and do not indicate the judge’s decision and its implications for our society.

The company must be able to communicate their priorities to its members in order to assure them that

the organization is engaging in activities that promote its vision for change.

REAL Women’s website lacks transparency Since none of the board members has the technical knowledge or expertise in webpage design, REAL

Women’s website has not had any significant updates since it was built in 1997(Darvasi). As a

consequence, the website lacks style for easy reading and comprehension. Articles are long and difficult

to read, causing the screen to be cluttered with too much writing that does not provide insight into the

specifics of the company’s operations. In particular, the website does not divulge into details regarding:

The number of issues the organization deals with.

REAL women’s position on those issues.

Its current operating activities.

Financial reports and audits.

How resources are being used.

Objectives it will pursue in the future.

The difference members make

Furthermore, the layout of the website is quite disorganized, which makes it hard to find the

information needed. Quite often, one has to click on every link on the homepage in order to find the

information they seek.

Website does not provide keywords for search engines to target Not specifying the issues that are at the heart of the company’s vision is the greatest weakness REAL

Women faces in being unable to raise awareness about the company. This makes it impossible to attract

online searchers to its website who search for such issues through online search engines such as Google.

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These web-search engines work by keying in on web pages that most closely match the keywords and

subject matter of the search request. Therefore, a person searching for information about abortion

would not see REAL Women on the search results page. Because of this weakness, REAL Women’s

website fails to attract online searchers towards its website. In fact, REAL Women gets 0.000003% of all

global user visits to its site, compared with their major competitor, Status of Women, who receives

0.138%. (Alexa)

Not segregating issues has lost REAL Women possible members REAL Women currently promotes itself and its activities under the banner of “Pro-family” and “Pro-life”

without distinguishing between the current issues in the political environment that are the focus of the

company’s efforts. As a consequence, the organization fails to gather support of individuals who may

support one cause of the organization but not another. For example, a prospective member may be

willing to support the organization in its fight against legalizing prostitution but he/she may oppose the

idea of banning abortion. This failure to segregate organization’s activities into the key political issues

that the organization targets, REAL Women may be missing out on possible funding that would allow

them to advance their efforts towards that cause.

Lack of Community Presence hindering their public relations REAL Women’s website does not contain tools that serve the organizational function of dispersing

information about the key political issues that are the organization’s focus. According to the president,

“the majority of Canadians are not very well informed and we want to let Canadians know that there is

more than what we read in our daily newspaper.” This fact highlights how important it is for REAL

Women to provide up to date knowledge about the current issues within our political and legal

environment before people can comprehend the REAL Women’s position on those issues. Because REAL

Women lack a center of operations, their website must serve this function effectively so that its

audience can receive all the information that they want and require from the website efficiently.

Board members lack necessary marketing skills

Lack of Financial Resources:

Figure 4 shows that REAL Women does not have a consistent pattern of earnings which makes it difficult

to establish a set marketing budget. Furthermore, because REAL woman does not generate significant

income to fund all their activities, the company cuts spending wherever possible, this includes any

marketing efforts. They operate primarily on what needs to be done now basis. Meaning, whatever

needs/costs come up first that is where they spend their efforts and money. Reasons for this spike and

drop can be memberships rising and falling, and donations they have received, and also the amount of

costs that they incurred at the given years . (See Exhibit A)

Figure 4: Inconsistent earnings patterns for REAL Women over the past 4 years.


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Lack of Human Resources:

Table 1 shows an overview of the REAL Women’s responsibilities, which clearly shows that they lack any

marketing experience. They have skills in other aspects, but the lack of marketing skills is drastically

hindering their ability to generate an effective marketing plan.

Table 1: Board Members Position & Obligations (Darvasi)

Names of Board

Members/ Position

Occupation/Personal Obligations Skills Contributed

towards REAL Women

Doris Darvasi

(President)

Part –time Office Administrator,

Full - time mother(4 kids)

-Administrative

-Public Relations

-Journalism

-Public Speaker

Laurie Geschke

(Secretary currently

National President)

Full – time mother (4 kids)

-Administrative

-Journalism

-Public Speaker

Mary Dinesen

(Treasurer)

Full – time mother (3 kids),

Full – time grandmother (4 kids)

-Book Keeping

Lillian Middleton

(Membership

Secretary)

Part – time Nurse,

Full – time mother (3 kids)

-Computer skills

Hilda Krieg

(Director)

Full – time mother& grandmother,

Part – time volunteer for other non profit organization

-Public Speaker

-Knowledge about political environment

Ruth Hunt

(Director)

Husband is Marvin Hunt (City Counsellor),

Part – time work for husband

-Inside knowledge relating to political systems

The organization does not have a set of full time volunteers. They consist, currently, of only six part time

women who also have other jobs/careers, and family obligations. Due to the fact that all the members

have their own personal responsibilities, this limits the amount of time they can contribute to expanding

REAL Women of BC. The board members have many other skills and assets that will aid the organization;

however, as seen in the above table, none of them have any direct marketing skills. This causes

problems because each of the members will focus on their skills in the limited time that they have to

offer the organization, leaving no one to work on the marketing aspect.

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Clarify the company’s vision REAL women must establish a clear and focused vision that guides its activities. This vision must then be

communicated to its target audience and members in order for the organization to market itself and

gather support behind its cause. According to Johnpress, “a clear vision is a compelling description of an

ideal future state of affairs. It amplifies *the organization’s+ ability to achieve goals.” Having a clear

vision stated on its website will allow the organization to clear up public misconceptions about

organization’s purpose. This vision will then serve as a foundation and a driving force behind its various

activities and it will be what the organization tries to promote to its audience.

In order to come up with a clear vision, the organization must step back and re-examine several

elements within the organization. Table 2 outlines the steps involved in coming up a vision that best

defines an organization and its purpose.

Table 2: A comprehensive revaluation of the following key organizational elements is the key to a

successful vision

Step Process

1 Explore and illuminate core values.

What is important?

For whom?

2 Envision a future for the organization’s target audience.

3 Create a mission statement that transforms values into actions. (How do we get there?)

What is its purpose?

What is its business?

What principles guide its work?

4 Set short term goals and timeline.

5 Communicate progress to the public.

1) Explore and illuminate core values

REAL Women’s core values form the ideology behind the organization that drives all its activities. In

order to form an effective vision, the organization’s values must be in line with the values of its target

audience. For example: One of BMW’s core values is, “Not sacrificing quality to price.”(Dowding) This

value is shared by its customers who seek out its products. Therefore, by aligning its values with those of

its audience, the organization is able to appeal to its audience more effectively. Furthermore, the

company can grow by engaging in different activities as long as its activities encapsulate its vision.

We suggest that REAL Women narrow down their values to the following three:

1) Strong Society

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2) Strong Family

3) Equality

REAL Women must also determine the target audience that they are trying to influence and in what way

they want to influence them. In order to match their values with those of its target audience, the

organization needs to carefully choose who their target audience is. As stated by Nicoliades, “you

cannot sell meat to a vegetarian.” In order “to be successful, a non profit needs to reach out to a specific

subset of the general public, not to everyone. Only a small percentage of the general public is interested

in what [it is] doing and can be motivated by [it] to help [it] achieve [its] mission” (EcoScribe) .Therefore,

the organization must consider the demographics of the people it’s trying to influence. Among other

things, we suggest REAL Women consider the following elements:

Gender

Age Group

Income Level

Marital Status

2) Envision a future for the organization’s target audience

Before REAL Women can engage in marketing, it must convince its target audience and members that

the organization’s vision for the future for its target audience is a desirable alternative to the present

conditions within our society. It is important that this alternative vision is an achievable future state;

otherwise, its target audience and its members will not take REAL Women seriously. In other words,

there must be a match between what REAL Women claims to do and what it is actually able to do.

Accordingly the vision must incorporate the resource constraints REAL Women face and its projections

for resources available to it in the future.

3) Create a mission statement that defines organization’s activities.

REAL women must now combine its values and its vision for the future into an action based mission

statement that answers the essential question: How do we get there? Accordingly, REAL Women’s

mission statement must contain the following 3 key elements:

Purpose of the organization. (What are the opportunities or needs that it seeks to address)

Business of the organization. (What is it doing to address those needs and opportunities)

Values of the organization (principles that guide its work)

The effectiveness of this approach is highlighted in Radtke’s analysis of Big Brothers/Big Sisters’ mission

statement:

The mission of Big Brothers/Big Sisters of America is to make a positive difference in the lives of children

and youth, through a professionally supported, one-to-one relationship with a caring adult and to assist

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them in achieving their highest potential as they grow to become confident, competent and caring

individuals, by providing committed volunteers, national leadership and standards of excellence.

Purpose: to make a positive difference in the lives of children and youth so that they’ll reach their

highest potential.

Business: providing and supporting committed volunteers who have one-on-one relationships with

them

Values: individuals growing up to become confident, competent and caring.

4) Set Short term goals and timelines

In order to monitor its progress towards its vision, REAL women must set short term goals for its agenda

of activities. These short term goals are what REAL Women hope to accomplish within a year and must

fit within the company’s overall vision and long term goals.

5) Communicate the progress to public

REAL Women must communicate the progress it has made towards its goals and the results of its

activities to its members and the general public. Regular communication is important as it gives its

members and the general public insight into the company’s operations and allows them to understand

the magnitude of their efforts and the impact they have had in their mission towards political change.

This process is crucial for REAL Women to gain the much needed awareness and exposure about the

company and it gives credibility towards the issues it aims to address. In the long term perspective,

regular communication allows the company to build its reputation as a pioneer in its role as an agent of

political change towards the well being of the communities it serves.

REAL Women must use its newsletters, website, and pamphlets to effectively communicate:

Details of the cases it has intervened in

Argument presented by REAL Women

The Judge’s decision and its implications

Changes to laws proposed before MLA’s

At the end of this process REAL Women should have a clear picture of the organization’s overall vision

for its future that builds upon its core values and its activities. Now the company can engage in

marketing itself with the purpose of promoting that vision among its target audience. Since this vision is

realistic, tailored to match values of its audience and incorporates a sense of how to achieve it, the

organization will find itself in a much better position of convincing people to join its cause.

Set priorities for its activities REAL Women must set priorities for their activities in order to “take the maximum advantage of their

resources” (Wiens). Being a political activist group, the organization must focus its efforts towards

what’s happening in the society, instead of trying to promote its own agenda. Currently, the

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organization has to spend many resources to first convince people regarding a problem before acting on

it. Because current issues arise from the public’s heightened sense of perception of an underlying

problem, by putting itself in the middle of the issues, as they arise, the company will be far more

effective in making its opinions heard. Furthermore, by concentrating their resources towards those

limited number of issues, the organization will gain the ability to have a greater impact on those issues.

Because these current issues are the center of public interest, any progress made by REAL Women in

resolving these issues will also generate significant public attention thus giving the organization much

more exposure and enable it to rally likeminded individuals to its cause. This will provide it with the

much needed power behind its voice to have a greater influence in the political change process, thus

improving its organizational effectiveness.

Of course, REAL Women is not equipped to pursue every issue within our society. Therefore, it must

select four to five key causes it wants to pursue and focus its efforts on arising issues within the context

of those causes. For example: if REAL Women were to choose drug issues as one of its concerns, the

organization would devote its resources in addressing modern issues such as:

The proposal for legalizing marijuana that was submitted recently

The debate behind continuance of ‘safe injection sites’ across Vancouver

The issue of drug related gang violence sweeping Lower Mainland.

Once the organization is clear about what it wants to achieve in its vision and it has set priorities to limit the scope of its activities, it can begin addressing the problems within its current mode of communication.

Revamp REAL Women’s website Because the organization lacks a centre of operations, the only source of communication between the

organization and the general public on a regular basis is through its website. Therefore, the company

must refurbish its extremely outdated website to modern standards so that it is easy to navigate and

facilitates the information gathering process.

Furthermore, the president has expressed a dire need for the organization to inform its members and

target audience “about what’s going on in Canada’s Political System” (Darvasi). Accordingly, the update

to their website must contain the following key features that allow the organization to disburse

information:

Use of Blogs to provide information, resources and generate active

discussion

Blogs can serve as an effective tool in allowing the organization to achieve its purpose of raising

awareness by:

Providing information about each issue under the Canadian political system

Offering REAL Women’s position on each issue with solid reasoning.

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Explaining their vision for change that will attempt to resolve the issue

Answering questions and providing clarification

For example: REAL Women could start a blog about BC Government’s position on abortion. In the blog, the company would provide information about current laws regarding abortion and then offer REAL Women’s perspective on the inadequacy of those laws. Visitors on the company’s website would be able to post their opinion on the current law as well as ask REAL Women questions that relate to the subject. After getting this feedback, REAL Women would draft their proposed change to the law and post it on the blog for further feedback on the proposal.

Additionally, the company could incorporate an online link to a petition for their proposed law that would enable the online visitors to the blog to support the organization in this mission. The names gathered via petition could also be sent letters requesting them to join as members.

Using News feeds to inform public about relevant changes

The company must provide the people visiting its site with up-to date information about the changes in

the political environment that affect the welfare of Canadian society, such as changes in laws or

proposed changes in laws that fall within REAL Women’s vision. This is crucial for the organization in

order to establish its competence and to build trust in the minds of the general public about the

organization’s capability and intent to act in its capacity as pioneers of political change. Furthermore, it

fuels the discussion about issues dealt with in the blogs.

Using stories to share experiences

Stories can serve as a great tool as a source of word-of-mouth marketing. According to Kivi Leroux

Miller, “We remember stories much more easily than facts and figures, which means we can share them

more easily with friends and family”. Thus storytelling is a very effective way for REAL Women to spread

information and provide a sense of real world implication of the issues that it works with and the

magnitude of its efforts.

For example, REAL Women can talk about its knowledge about changes in laws in other parts of Canada

and US to highlight the negative or positive consequences of a similar law proposed to the BC

Government.

Using Fact vs. Fiction to clarify public misconceptions

Quick facts can be contrasted with common misconceptions regarding key political issues to enhance

readers’ understanding of the political environment. It also saves the visitor tremendous time in terms

of researching the organization by allowing them to quickly perceive what the organization is about.

For example, REAL Women can point out that under Canadian abortion laws, it is possible for a woman

to have an abortion during anytime up to 9 months of pregnancy (Darvasi). Providing this key fact acts as

a hook for the organization to capture visitor’s interests and to encourage them to read further.

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Segregate activities to facilitate greater website traffic The organization should segregate its values into key issues that form the core focus of the

organization’s activities in order to maximize its online exposure. Replacing vague words such as “Pro-

Life” and “Pro-family” with the underlying issues such as ‘abortion’ and ‘same sex marriage’ will make it

easier for online visitors to gauge what types of issues REAL Women deal with. Figure 5 shows how

REAL Women should segregate their activities according to the key issues that underlie the

organization’s values.

Figure 5: Segregation of activities donates greater keywords for Search Engines to target

In addition, segregation of activities into key underlying issues will generate greater website traffic by

providing numerous key-words for search engines such as Google to target. These web search engines

work by keying in on web pages that most closely match the keywords and subject matter of the search

request. Therefore if a person searches for abortion within Canadian web pages, Google’ search results

will display REAL Women as one of the top 10 results. This key technique is known as ‘Search Engine

Optimization’.

By reorganizing their website in this manner, the company makes it easier to attract online searchers to

their website and it makes it easier to navigate through the website to find information. This is

necessary in allowing the organization to generate greater awareness about the organization and its

purpose.

Facilitate navigation & access to information by establishing a clear website

model REAL Women must reorganize their website in a manner that enables the users to navigate and access

the information quickly and easily. Most users are not willing to read large sections of text with obscure

headings or vague links in order to find information they seek. Accordingly, information on REAL

Women’s website must be categorized by effective headings and subheadings as well as the use of clear

links that “provide users a clear path to actions or answers they are most likely seeking” (Miller).

Figure 6 shows our recommendation of a website model that assists the users to gain access to

information quickly and with ease.

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Figure 6: Company must establish a clear website model that facilitates navigation

Note how the descriptive links capture the type of information to be presented in the subsequent

sections as well as how each link/headings get progressively more concise as you move from homepage

towards subsections. This model of narrowing down information based on the types of links users

choose is an effective ‘data mining tool’ that organizations employ to enable their users easy access to

relevant information they seek.

We recommend that REAL Women use this model or use this model as a starting point in generating

their own model before committing funds towards this task. When this strategy is coupled with the

‘segregation of activities’, users will be in a better position to gauge what is REAL Women and what it

does.

It will cost about $1000 for the initial consultation, planning and refurbishing REAL Women’s Website,

including educating members on how to maintain and update it (Miller, D).

Use Facebook’s Social networks and applications to reach its target audience REAL Women can use Facebook’s data mining capacities and its social networks to create

advertisements that target individuals with the demographics that best suit its target audience. Being an

online version of word-of-the mouth advertisement, this form of advertising takes advantage of the fact

that any action taken by a single individual is broadcast out to the hundreds of fiends within that

individual’s social network. For example: “a Facebook user who rents a movie on Blockbuster.com

will…have his movie choice broadcast out to all his friends on Facebook. And those friends would have

no choice but to receive that movie message, along with an ad from Blockbuster” (Story).

This presents a lucrative opportunity for REAL Women to reach out to hundreds or thousands of people

by targeting its message towards only a few individuals within a social network. As a few people choose

to support REAL Women by ‘becoming a fan’ of the organization, Facebook would automatically notify

http://blockbuster.com/

http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/business/companies/blockbuster_inc/index.html?inline=nyt-org

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their friends and prompt them to do the same and according to Facebook’s founder,(Story) “Nothing

influences a person more than a recommendation from a trusted friend [and] executives from consumer

brand companies…said they viewed ads on social networking sites as a priority in their ad spending”.

REAL Women should consider using the online tutorials provided by Facebook and Youtube on creating

their own social network and sending electronic invites to members within the Vancouver and British

Columbia Interior networks to join their group. This would allow the organization to identify potential

future members, whom the organization can generate, a conversation and discussion with and convince

them to support the organization by becoming a member. This social advertising is also effective in

distributing information about key developments and accomplishments very quickly across these

various social networks.

Gain relevant skills and human capital with Youth Now Program REAL Women should participate in Leadership Richmond, Youth Now Program in order to recruit

volunteers and gain key skills needed to refine their organizational plan.

‘Youth Now’ is an eight month long program run by Volunteer Richmond that helps local not for profit

organizations in connecting with young volunteers and continually providing them with the tools and

training needed to harness the potential of these young individuals as community leaders.

There are 2 components to the program:

Placement of one or two youth volunteer, aged 17-26 at the board level within a Non Profit organization.

An organizational development program aimed at enhancing key “revenue generating enterprises or activities” within the organization (OPACITY).

Youth presence at board enhances marketability towards younger generation

With a youth presence and perspective at its board level, the company will be able to tap into the

younger market to create the leaders they are looking for to take REAL Women into the future. REAL

Women will be able to benefit from the youth perspective on the board this will give them a better

insight into the mindset of the younger generation they’re trying to influence. Furthermore, this will

help the organization to incorporate a succession plan into their organizational model by paving the way

for future generations to carry on the company’s mission.

Program provides tools and training to gain effective new skills and philosophies

Furthermore, Leadership Richmond’s organizational development program gathers volunteers and

board members from several different organizations once a month in 2 day long workshops that provide

knowledge, resources and training aimed at addressing key organizational issues that such organizations

face. This aspect of the program presents an invaluable opportunity for REAL Women’s board members

to obtain up to date knowledge, skills and philosophies from seasoned professionals and experts that

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can lead to organizational success. Table 3 shows how Leadership Richmond’s program provides the

organization with tools necessary to eliminate those issues.

Table 3: Leadership Richmond Program’s benefits address REAL Women’s issues

Issues that REAL Women Face Features or benefits provided by Youth Now program

1. Lack of awareness of company’s

existence

Exposure to other Non-profit organizations, and the media.

2. Lack skills and experience about

marketing.

Training, workshops, resources and networking opportunities

with knowledgeable experts.

3. Seek to increase their memberships Project planning and consultation regarding fundraising,

promotions etc.

4. Financial Constrictions Identifying needs and planning professional development

opportunities.

Program offers opportunity to network with other organizations

Youth Now program, by itself is a marketing venture as it provides the organization with exposure to a

large portion of the not for profit sector along with other organizations and benefit from prior

experience of those organizations. REAL Women will be able to network with other not for profits that

share a similar cause or firm values. Table 4 shows participating organizations in Youth Now program

whose similar values and mission as REAL women provide opportunities for them to network with.

Table 4: Opportunities to network with organizations that share similar values as REAL Women

Participants of Youth-Now Program Mission and values shared with REAL Women

Touchstone Family Association Strengthen social health and independence of families and

children by providing full range of services to youth and

families facing crisis.

Richmond Women’s Resource Centre To empower, support and enable women to achieve their

full potential.

Thompson Community Association To create an investment pool for projects contributing to the

betterment to the local communities.

(Source: Salzl, JenTekk, Thompson Community Foundation)

By getting in touch with these local organizations, REAL Women can create social networks that will

allow them to create joint ventures and co-sponsor activities that will generate greater community

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presence. For example, REAL Women could co host a family day event with Touchstone family

association with family activities and information session on current issues.

Establish a Centre of operations with a related organization REAL Women should consider establishing a centre of operations by sharing space within a related

company within its networks. A centre of operations is necessary for REAL Women to serve the

organization’s additional purpose of providing resources and contacts for those facing crisis or in need

(Darvasi). Despite providing these resources online, having a physical location is essential for REAL

Women to offer its consultation services by being interactive with its visitors. Furthermore, having an

operating centre adds community presence and it allows the organization to

Raise awareness within the community

Inform people and sell its causes

Gather support

Because it lacks the financial resources, we recommend REAL Women lease an office space within a

related company’s office and share the rental costs. Both companies would also benefit from greater

exposure as members seek a variety of skills/services that one organization may not necessarily be able

to provide, but the other one may be able to.

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Action Plan for REAL Women Turning the plan into action

“Enthusiasm can only be aroused by two things: first, an ideal, [which] takes the imagination by storm,

and second, a definite intelligible plan for carrying that ideal into practice.”(Lewis) To ensure REAL

Women take the necessary steps to reintroduce the organization to the public and begin to create a

marketing plan we have created a timeline for Figure 7 that follows the points made in the solution.

Figure 7: A Month by Month agenda for the organization to initiate change.

April 2009 -Initiate the reinvention of REAL Women -Illuminate core values May 2009 -Set goals: 1, 3, 5 10 years -Create mission statement -Define target audience June 2009

-Seek out limitations from National organization -Rank issues by priority -Send in application for Youth Now July 2009 -Investigate new writing techniques -Find storied about how REAL Women affected/helped people August 2009 -Publish newsletter (estimated) September 2009 -Contact Split Mango -Finalize vision -Finalize prioritization -Begin Youth Now October 2009 -Launch New Website November 2009 - Get new members

1. Define the core values of REAL women We have recommended REAL Women define their core values; strong society, strong family and

equality. They need to pick key issues they want to tackle, given their limited resources. Because strong

society means helping those in need, such as giving rehabilitation to drug addicts not a harm reduction,

strong family means the opportunity to not work and stay at home to look after your child along with

the family consisting of a mother and a father, equality means the same rights and opportunities for a

women and child as for a man.

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2. Define the Target Audience REAL Women envisions a person who would possess their core values along with added characteristics.

Such as a female who is between the age of 18-28, has income potential of $40,000-80,000 a year,

intentions of marriage and children, college education, belief in religion, and of course living in British

Columbia. REAL Women must also consider the wants, needs and motivations of its audience. Setting

the target audience will give REAL Women a direction for who they want to market their organization to.

3. Define the Mission Statement REAL Women needs to be thinking about their purpose, desires and values to create a statement that

can motivate members and volunteers about what REAL Women is doing. Being that a mission

statement is very important to a business or organization the local library will have resources to give

more in-depth guidelines on perfecting a mission statement. We suggest Mission statements: a guide to

the corporate and non-profit sectors by John W. Graham and Wendy C. Havlick as it focuses on non-

profit and is available at the Surrey public library.

4. Define your goals Think in terms of revenue, membership, public awareness, change for society, active chapters, personal

cost and more. This will give you milestones to reach towards and grounds to evaluate the organizations

past performance in the future.

5. Obtain approval and guidance from national organization Now that REAL Women has started to refine their organization it is important that the national

organization is supporting the improvements and both parties have an understanding of goals and

processes for the future.

6. Prioritization of issues to utilize the use of limited resources Prioritization of issues to the public’s agenda will save time and resources on creating awareness for the

organization and the issue. The public today is aware of the gang violence which is fuelled by the drug

trade, with drugs being a issue REAL Women is passionate about they can harness the publics attention

on the issue by creating a press release of how REAL Women feels about drugs and what they want to

see happen. A press release is more likely to be published if it deals with an issue people are currently

interested so a topic of drugs is more likely to be picked then homosexual families.

Public support for individual issues will generate monetary support for the individual issues.

Segregating funds received from the public and using such funds to support the individual issue can be

easily implemented with the introduction of the option under donations in the new website.

7. Excellent opportunity registering with Youth Now Youth Now can bring fresh new insight to REAL Women by having a volunteer sit on the board of

directors which would also add to the human capital and capabilities of the organization. Youth Now

provides training in terms of volunteer management, human resources and much more. They also have

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a resource library that “offers community organizations access to information on volunteer and non-

profit management issues.” (OPACITY)

Volunteer Richmond requires a small fee of $100 from the organization to join the Youth Now program.

This program starts in September every year and runs till April. Included in the initial payment is a

conference every month to ensure the organizations and the volunteers are being fully utilized along

with a graduation ceremony in April congratulating all participants. Application for the program is

recommend sooner than later as space is limited.

Publish a work in progress newsletter With the improvement for REAL Women now under way it is time to let the members know and to ask

them for support and input. Show them that your direction is still the same it is just better defined now.

Improvements in the newsletter should include new writing techniques that are business focused to

improve the ease of reading and understanding, along with personal stories of how REAL Women has

made a differences and what they are doing with current situations.

Working with Split Mango to help reintroduce REAL Women on the internet Split Mango is a company that is based in Vancouver and prides itself in “specializing in one-on-one

relationships with [its] clients, [they] have built a reputation for personalized service, professional design

and competition-whoop ‘n Search Engine Optimization.”(About)

Split Mango has the capability to “increase their visibility *and+ public persona,” (About) through search

engine optimization and social media consulting while also introducing the organization to a blogging

platform WordPress. After speaking with the president of REAL Women, she had mentioned the desire

to incorporate into the website; blogs, news articles of relevance, search engine optimization,

testimonials, all with the added simplicity to update it herself or by a similar person with limited

computer experience. Split Mango is the organization to help REAL Women as they have given

www.vancouvercougars.com the ability to update their website on a daily basis without the daily help of

a web developer. Figure 8 shows the refurbished homepage of Vancouver Cougars Football club that

incorporates effective headings and design.

http://www.vancouvercougars.com/

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Figure 8: Split Mango’s impressive redesign of a local organization’s homepage

Cost for the reintroduction of the REAL Women website was estimated at $1,000 where the work should

be completed within 4-6 weeks. Contact can be made on www.splitmango.com

The beginnings of a marketing plan for REAL Women Many steps are involved in creating any marketing plan for any organization, and now that REAL Women

has initiated change in the organization REAL Women can begin to tackle a marketing plan. A great

resource to the organization will be Split Mango, “profession design & kick-butt marketing” (Split) they

will be able to provide the organization with insight to target the younger generation, exactly what the

president of REAL Women was looking to accomplish. They will also be able to help utilize the new

internet fad that is known as Twitter.

The usual marketing plan is a sequence of steps that evaluates the current environment, current

organization situation and how to combine the two to create the best opportunity for an organization.

Figure 9 shows a sequence of steps common to a marketing plan, this one was modified from the

Wikipedia website.

http://www.splitmango.com/

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Figure 9: The basic perspective and steps an organization should take in creating a marketing

plan.

a. Evaluate the current Marco Environment i. Economy

ii. Legal iii. Government iv. Technology v. Socio-cultural

b. Define the Target Market i. Demographical characteristics

ii. Psychographic characteristics

iii. Member motivation and expectations

iv. Wants, needs and demands

c. Understand current internal situation

i. Company resources

1. Financial

2. People

3. Time

4. Skills

ii. Company objectives

1. Corporate

2. Financial

3. Marketing

4. Short term

5. Long term

iii. Company Culture

1. Present

2. Future

d. Market Research

i. PEST Analysis

ii. SWOT Analysis

iii. Perceptual Map

iv. Member questionnaire

e. Marketing Strategy

i. Segmentation

1. By issue

2. By call to action

3. By group

ii. Promotional Mix

1. Press releases

2. Internet

3. Word of mouth

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The local Library is also a great resource for more information on Marketing, many books directed

towards not for profit organizations will be available.

Setting up a public persona on Facebook Marketing on the internet can be easily set up and have effective results. Setting up a persona on the

internet through Facebook is an easy way to achieve internet notoriety and it is free. Facebook gives an

organization the options to set up a personal profile, and a fan page setting up both is the best plan.

Youtube is a great resource for step by step instructional videos on how to maximize Facebook's

potential. REAL Women needs to set up on Facebook to get the attention from the large young market

currently interested in social networking.

Personal Profile

A Facebook personal profile has a limit of 5,000 friends and has limitations on contacting all

members but this is a necessary tool for setting up either a fan page or a group.

Fan page

A fan page is a hybrid of a personal profile and a group profile; it is associated with your personal

Facebook account but is more descriptive of the business. It allows the organization to set up under that

category of not-for-profit, add logos, phone numbers, hours of operation, photos, videos and give

directions to a physical location. They can be set up to include discussions on many topics, link to events

and give reviews to past events. Also goggle is directed toward fan pages more than other tools on

Facebook. Sending out updates to members is made simple with the option to choose all and there is no

limit on the number of fans a page can have. REAL Women can also set up multiple pages such as one

for each issue to help with segregated marketing.

Achieving the phone, fax and physical connection Once the goal of increased revenue happens resulting from the recommended improvements it is

time to think about other ways to connect with people.

Having a phone number associated with REAL Women is essential for the growth of the

organization. Many options are available, in the beginning the number could be directed to a pager

where someone is required to return a phone call or the number is shared with a fax machine, people

need a way to contact the organization that will allow for a quick response time.

A physical office with paid workers is still an idea on the horizon but it needs to get started as a goal

with a completion date and specifications, along with communication of this goal to members of REAL

Women. Until that time arrives the idea of sharing office space with affiliated organizations should be

discussed, or at the least have informative material published by REAL Women available to any

interested individual at the location of said affiliated organizations. As mentioned, sharing office space

with another organization would help to share resources (staff, equipment) by reducing cost, also

39

making it easier to carry out joint products, promote the exchange of ideas and strengthen the collective

capacity of each group.

“Vision without action is a daydream. Action without vision is a nightmare.”

-Japanese proverb

40

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“About WordPress.” WordPress http://wordpress.org/about/ Retrieved March 26, 2009.

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Darvasi, Doris. President, REAL Women of British Columbia. Interview. February 12, 2009.

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2009.

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twitter

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Appendix A: Questions answered by President and Board of REAL

Women of BC 1) A critical component of an effective marketing plan is communicating information about:

Who you(organization) are:

What do you offer

What do you want people to do (A call to action)?

Could you please address these 3 points so that we can incorporate them into an effective

marketing message for REAL Women.

A1) REAL Women (REAL is an acronym and stands for Realistic, Equal, Active, pro

Life) is a political lobby organization. We keep an eye on the governments of all levels

regarding policies and laws. We are concerned about anything in regards to the family;

moms, dads, kids, grandparents, and society in general. We firmly believe that the

backbone of a healthy society is still a healthy family. We might think it does not matter

but it does hugely. There are enough studies to show that children fair best when raised in

the home by mom and dad; the kids do better emotionally, psychologically, socially,

academically. That is why we support parent choice in child care rather than a universal

day care set up. This is impersonal and lacks the bonding that children need. Particularly

young children need bonding and closeness to someone. How can a day care worker

cuddle and hug a child when we are so concerned about sexual abuse?

So we make presentations to the government either FOR or AGAINST a proposed new

law or changes in existing law. For example, right now, we are in the Ontario courts as

intervenors as some people have gone to court trying to legalize prostitution. We are

there to say this is not the way to go (we obviously have good reasons for our stand but I

cannot list them here now). We are also working on getting intervenor status here in BC

in the court case regarding the injection site. We want to stand with the Federal

Government who says injection sites are not the best way to help drug addicts.

2) Is the organization willing to come up with a marketing budget and how much is the organization willing to spend on Marketing in the short term (1 year) and in the long term?

A2) We provide information to our members and the general public to let them know

what is happening in Canada, how this will affect them and their families and, ultimately,

society. We give the people tools (such as addresses and points) on how to have their

voices heard by writing to, calling, or meeting with their representatives and discussing

the concerns. We have provincial newsletter and anyone who becomes a member in BC

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is automatically a member of the national organization and thereby receives the national

newsletter as well. We have meetings where we discuss special topics (we might have

something on the drug issue or pornography or public education) and inform people on

what is going on. Unfortunately, the majority of Canadians are not very well informed

and we want to let Canadians know that there is more than what we read in our daily

newspaper. We also strive to give Canadians alternate sources of information (such as on-

line news sites that are excellent) to help them get information from a broader

perspective.

3) From our analysis of the organization’s current environment, we’ve identified 3 major weaknesses that prevent it from achieving its marketing goal of recruiting greater members. These weaknesses are:

A Lack of Center of operations: Without a central operating location that should be open to public, people are unaware of the organization’s existence and what it offers. Also, the organization is unable to interact with its target audience in order provide its services to the people who need it.

Status as political activist group prevents it from issuing tax receipt for donations. Furthermore, this status also prevents it from receiving govt. grants or tax incentives. Has the organization ever considered applying to becoming a registered charity in order to achieve the funding needed to expand its operations and fund its activities?

How can you overcome the fact that joining REAL Women does not offer immediate benefits to those members

Could you please comment on these 3 identified weaknesses. Has the organization discussed any

aspect in the past? Are there any plans for the future to address these weaknesses?

A3) Ultimately, we would like for Canadians to become more involved. We are fortunate

enough to live in a country where we can have a say. We would like people to start by

writing letters to the politicians, next step would be to volunteer during a political

campaign (no, we don’t tell them which) or even thinking of running for offices

themselves. Last municipal election we had several members run for either school trustee

or city councilor. Some got in others did not. We would also like people to take out a

membership (numbers count and it matters when we go to the government when we can

say we represent 5,000 in BC rather than just 500) and, hopefully, join the board and

become more active. We are looking for “fresh blood” on the board, young people with

ideas and a fresh approach to things. The main focus is to get to the younger generations.

I would love to see some young(er) women who have a passion for these issues join our

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board and start writing briefs, attend committee hearings and do presentations, be willing

to be interviewed by TV or radio and journalist, write press releases, organize press

conferences, etc.

Marketing

It is difficult to come up with a marketing budget…………………………. We have tentatively

agreed to spend about …. to upgrade our website. It is a bit of a what comes first, the egg or the

chicken, syndrome; do we spend money in the hope of attracting people and making the money

back through new memberships and donations or do we try to get new memberships and

donations first to have the money to come up with a great website and glossy brochures to attract

more people. If you have any ideas on a minimum needed to jazz up things, maybe we could go

with that. I don’t know if …….. would go very far.

Center of operation:

We are aware of the need for a centre and have discussed this. What we are hoping to achieve is

by revamping the website, getting out there and becoming more known, we will receive

membership and donations that in turn will allow us to then open an office. I know we need a

telephone and fax line designated to REAL Women alone rather than having those in our homes.

Ultimately, it is a lack of money. Really, in the end I would like to have an office and one full

time and one part time staff paid rather than volunteer. It is hard to achieve things when everyone

is a volunteer.

Tax number:

As we are a political lobby group, we CANNOT get a tax number. If we would want a tax

number we would have to become a completely different type of organization. Even if we could

get a tax number, we prefer not to because it allows the government to come in and interfere.

Governments interfere way too much as is and with a tax number we literally could no longer do

what we want to do.

Benefits:

You are right when you question the lack of immediate benefits and if you come up with an idea

that would be great. I suppose it is hard for people to understand that their benefit is the

knowledge of doing something, albeit maybe small, for the good of their children and future

generations. I don’t know if we could have notepads made with out name and pens with our

names and send every new member a note thanking them for joining and sending them the

notepad and pen. Again, that is taking money. If the money would come back in new

memberships and donations I wouldn’t mind. We have already discussed all these things but

simply have not come up with an answer that was workable.

4) What are REAL Women doing outside of Canada that makes them so successful internationally?

45

A4) REAL Women of BC has once participated outside BC. An organization based in Hawaii

put together a document and asked us to co-sign it. (I don’t remember what the issue is). On a

national level, our national vice president Gwen Landolt, who is a lawyer, is very sought after

internationally as a speaker. She is extremely knowledgeable regarding our Constitution, and in

topics such as our judicial system, the drug, prostitution, day care issues and others. She is also

on the board of World Congress on the Families that has a conference about every two years.

This year the conference will be in Amsterdam. Two years ago it was in Poland and I attended

there. REAL Women had a booth and I was looking after the REAL Women material. We also

had a international petition for the UN which attendees at the conference signed. Gwen was also

a speaker which she is at every World Congress conference. There were about 3,000 people

attending the conference, they came from all over the world. It was, quite frankly, fabulous.

What I especially liked was that the people were “normal” with some common sense and very

nice. It was great fun.

5) Where does REAL Women stand in relation to its competitors and where would it like to be?

A5) We don’t’ have competitors in a sense as we are the only women’s organization of its kind in

Canada. There are similar organizations such as CFAC (Canada Family Action Coalition) that has the same

values as we do but does not run as a women’s organization. Other women’s organizations are on the

opposite end of where we are and so are not per se competitors but rather, well, I don’t know what to

call them. Those who espouse our values and philosophy would never go to these other women’s

organizations

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Appendix B: Financial Statements from 2005 – 2008


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50


51


52


53

54


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Appendix C: Twitter as a social Network

Twitter is a social networking and micro-blogging service that enables its users to send and read other

users' updates known as tweets. Tweets are text-based posts of up to 140 bytes in length. Updates are

displayed on the user's profile page and delivered to other users who have signed up to receive them.

Senders can restrict delivery to those in their circle of friends (delivery to everyone being the default).

Users can send and receive updates via the Twitter website, SMS, RSS (receive only), or through

applications such as Tweetie, Twitterrific, Twitter on, TweetDeck and Feedalizr. The service is free to use

over the web, but using SMS may incur phone services provider fees.

As of March 2009, Twitter has received extensive visibility and popularity worldwide. Twitter is often

described as the 'SMS of Internet' in that the site provides the back-end functionality (via its APIs) to other

desktop and web-based applications to send and receive short text messages often obscuring the actual

website itself. This extensibility of the service has earned it more popularity than it would have gained if

users had to visit the site to use the service.

Four gateway numbers are currently available for SMS: short codes for the United States, Canada, and

India, and a United Kingdom-based number for international use. There is now also a short code for

Vodafone users from the UK. Several third parties offer posting and receiving updates via email.

Estimates of the number of daily users vary as the company does not release the number of active

accounts. In November 2008, Jeremiah Owyang of Forrester Research estimated that Twitter had 4-5

million users. A February 2009 Compete.com blog entry ranks Twitter as the third largest social network

(Facebook being the largest, followed by MySpace[3]

), and puts the number of unique monthly visitors at

roughly 6 million and the number of monthly visits at 55 million.

www.twiter.com

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_networking

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micro-blogging

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SMS

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RSS

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tweetie

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twitterrific

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TweetDeck

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feedalizr

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gateway_(telecommunications)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Short_codes

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forrester_Research

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compete.com

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebook

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MySpace

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MySpace

http://www.twiter.com/

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Appendix D: Wordpress as a script software for blogs WordPress started in 2003 with a single bit of code to enhance the typography of everyday writing and

with fewer users than you can count on your fingers and toes. Since then it has grown to be the largest

self-hosted blogging tool in the world, used on hundreds of thousands of sites and seen by tens of

millions of people every day.

Everything you see here, from the documentation to the code itself, was created by and for the

community. WordPress is an Open Source project, which means there are hundreds of people all over the

world working on it. (More than most commercial platforms.) It also means you are free to use it for

anything from your cat’s home page to a Fortune 5 web site without paying anyone a license fee.

About WordPress.org

On this site you can download and install a software script called WordPress. To do this you need a web

host who meets the minimum requirements and a little time. WordPress is completely customizable and

can be used for almost anything. There is also a service called WordPress.com which lets you get started

with a new and free WordPress-based blog in seconds, but varies in several ways and is less flexible than

the WordPress you download and install yourself.

A Little History

WordPress was born out of a desire for an elegant, well-architectured personal publishing system built on

PHP and MySQL and licensed under the GPL. It is the official successor of b2/cafelog. WordPress is fresh

software, but its roots and development go back to 2001. It is a mature and stable product. We hope by

focusing on user experience and web standards we can create a tool different from anything else out

there.

2005 was a very exciting year for WordPress, as it saw the release of our 1.5 version (introduced themes)

which was downloaded over 900,000 times, the start of hosted service WordPress.com to expand WP's

reach, the founding of Automattic by several core members of the WP team, and finally the release of

version 2.0.

After 1.5 we seemed to have something people really liked and we've experienced some fairly rapid

growth. Here are some metrics for 2006 and 2007.

In 2006 we had 1,545,703 downloads, in 2007 we had 3,816,965!

As for plugins we had 191,567 downloads of 371 unique plugins in 2006. In 2007 there were 2,845,884

downloads (15x growth) of 1,384 plugins.

2006 saw the introduction of the first WordCamp in San Francisco.

In 2007 we adopted a regular release schedule, putting out major feature releases roughly every 3-4

months, or three times a year.

Because of the number of improvements in version 2.5 we took an extra 3 months on it, but 2008 looks

on track to do three major releases again. It will be a very exciting year.

There are now dozens of WordCamps around the world, from Vancouver to Dallas to Milan, Italy.

http://www.opensource.org/

http://icanhascheezburger.com/

http://autoshows.ford.com/

http://wordpress.org/hosting/

http://wordpress.org/hosting/

http://wordpress.org/about/requirements/

http://wordpress.org/extend/

http://wordpress.com/

http://php.net/

http://mysql.com/

http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html

http://cafelog.com/

http://webstandards.org/

http://wordpress.com/

http://automattic.com/

http://wordpress.org/development/2005/12/wp2/

http://wordcamp.org/

Documents

REAL Women: A Refined Marketing Approach · Revamp the organizations website up to modern standards, using blogs and newsfeeds to generate public interest and segregate issues to