Community service organizations throughout the U.S. struggle to link their long-time volunteers with the Gen Xers and Yers who possess the desire, time and resources to donate, volunteer and lead. What is keeping them apart? What will pull them together?
After pondering the same questions, leaders of Altrusa International decided to find the answers to bolster their own membership and share their discoveries with other leading community service organizations.
Altrusa is embarking on revitalization and rebranding process that will build a path for other community volunteer organizations to attract new members from Gen X and Y. The effort is led by Altrusa International President Donna Johnson, volunteers Rhoda Struhs, Salt Lake City, Utah, Gig Harbor, Washington’s District Twelve Second Vice Governor Rhonda Hauter, President-Elect Dona Garretson of Grand Junction Colorado and other Altrusans around the world.
Altrusa recently selected Miles Media Inc. in Gig Harbor and JayRay in Tacoma to guide them through this program. Miles Media, under the direction of President Maggie Miles, has worked with Altrusa to create Altrusa’s member recruitment materials. Miles exclaimed, “I got so excited about what Altrusa does in its local communities, I just knew that contemporary customer research, brand development, social media tools would make a big difference. And I knew that if Altrusa learned how to build bridges between experienced current Altrusans, don’t you love that word, and younger prospective members, that Altrusa could share their finding, conclusions and experience with other CSO’s.”
Unlike most marketing and communications consulting firms that take the assignment, go away to do the research, analysis and develop an action plan, then come back and tell the client what it should do, Miles Media Inc. is harnessing the leadership skills, community contacts and passion of Altrusa member volunteers in all phases of the revitalization and rebranding effort. Using their experience with innovative business tools and processes and focus group methodology, Miles Media will coach local Altrusa chapter volunteers to coach focus groups in three initial markets, two in the US and one in New Zealand. They will find out what young prospective members think about volunteering their time and resources, what they look for in a volunteer opportunity, how they communicate, how they relate with long-time Altrusa volunteers and the criteria they look for in an international spokesperson.
Rhonda Hauter, the District Twelve second vice governor, volunteered to be Altrusa Internationals’ marketing director in charge of this project. An experienced Pacific Rim financial services marketer from New Zealand, she is taking on the job for no pay, because she knows that today’s customer insight research, marketing tools and social media will motivate prospective new Altrusa members to join the organization and expand the number of Altrusa community service projects. She says, “We selected Miles Media and JayRay because of their track record with Altrusa, their experience in international marketing, their expertise in branding, and their approach of involving Altrusans throughout the process. Not only will we learn about our target audience and get the marketing tools to reach them, but our members will develop and apply new marketing, communications and leadership skills that they can use in their jobs and community service work.” Miles Media and Altrusa engaged JayRay in this project because of its similar work bridging veteran experienced volunteers and corporate managers with younger volunteers and workers. United Way and a large U.S. health care system have benefited from JayRay’s work.
