Building our Visibility

Written by Julia Bader, Development Manager, SUS

The SUS strategic plan calls for building the visibility of the organization. We are achieving our goal in several ways, giving primacy to co-branding with leading NYC-area corporations through partnerships and sponsorships. Co-branding serves the interests of both the for-profit and the non-profit business. The for-profit realizes benefits from its identification with social responsibility and SUS gains awareness for its mission with the NYC business and philanthropic communities as well as with the general public.

SUS embarked upon a co-branded outdoor advertising campaign to promote its Annual Fire & Ice Ball. The advertisements were sponsored by Broadview Networks, Beacon Therapy and Mobile Health, all of whom have been loyal supporters of our work and mission. The ads were run on bus tails and on street banners in Tribeca where the event was held (see photo). This was the first city-wide co-branding campaign SUS ran, and it proved successful as measured by sold out attendance at the event and a dramatic increase in traffic to our website.

Our strategy for visibility prescribes generating increased publicity for SUS through print publications and broadcast media. Our efforts have paid off as illustrated by two significant examples. First, SUS was given coverage in Vogue magazine due to the Fire & Ice Ball associating itself with the fashion industry, timed as it was to the first night of Fashion Week.  Second, we held a press conference to highlight the growing homeless in NYC on the eve of HOPE 2010 – the NYC homeless count. As a result Donna Colonna, SUS’ CEO, was interviewed by David Ushrey about the homeless count on the WNBC cable news show, New York Non Stop. (Donna’s interview can be seen at http://www.youtube.com/susincorg.)

Increasingly non-profits are taking it upon themselves to behave as for-profit companies. SUS is committed to demonstrating for-profit ways of doing business in order to sustain and grow our position as a leader in human services. It is essential that we leverage our corporate relationships and gain the attention of the media to raise awareness of our mission, expand and diversify our support, and thereby raise the level of our private sector revenue stream.

We are excited about the opportunities ahead because, as we realize our strategic goal of increased visibility, our consumers will benefit and that is what matters most.