Giving Circles: Market and Promote

Proactive communication about your giving circle is important for many reasons:
  • To manage and protect your desired reputation and effectively promote your giving circle;
  • To build awareness of your giving circle’s mission and focus on engaged members, member education and cash investments in nonprofits;
  • To build awareness of giving circle grant cycles, thereby attracting potential grantees;
  • To develop community trust;
  • To establish a broad set of philanthropic and educational partners; and
  • To recruit new members.

A giving circle communicates with a number of audiences, each of which requires a different set of messages. Knowing how to communicate effectively with current and prospective members and nonprofit partners is crucial to a giving circle’s success. Also, communicating with the broader community of business and philanthropic colleagues and industry experts is important.

Some of the information in this section is adapted from SVP in a Box, a manual by Social Venture Partners International.

 

Materials

  • Communicate with Your Members
    Strategies and ideas for communicating with members of your giving circle.
  • Communicate with the Media
    Tips for working with the media and getting your giving circle in the news.
  • Giving Circle Press Release Template
    Take the opportunity to promote the work of your circle to your local media. This press release includes placeholders that allow you to feature your giving circle and explain how it fits into the national giving circle trend.
  • Interview Tips And Sample Q&A
    Tips for your giving circle to ace an interview with the media with sample questions and answers.
  • Talking Points on Giving Circles
    Explore what reporters will be most interested in learning and how to prepare for questions; find answers to questions on trends, who joins giving circles, how much they donate, what members get out of belonging to a circle and more.