Expert Details
Want funding? Ask Scott how to get it from local businesses.
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Name: Scott Gibson |
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Description:
Scott is currently the National Business Development Director at Landcare Australia Limited (LAL) and is an expert in building relationships between not-for-profits and businesses. He has over ten years experience working with corporates and has been involved with LAL for more than seven years.
Scott has much experience in engaging small and large businesses with not-for-profits organisations and volunteer groups, and has a wealth of knowledge on how to approach businesses for funding. He believes that successful partnerships involve more than the giving of project dollars, and that most corporates want to offer their resources in a meaningful way.
Landcare Online http://www.landcareonline.com.au
| Questions and Answers |
Questions Posted by: Phill |
| Qn: My Coastcare group is considering approaching a local business for funding. What's the first step, and how should I break the ice? Ans: Hi Phil, It’s probably not as hard as you may feel. The first step – study the prospect sponsors business. Get a good view of who they are and how they operate within the community. Simply do a bit of research on them before you build your approach. At least this way you can break the ice by having taken the time to look in to their business – they always appreciate that. Some key things you’ll want to look at are: Who owns and operates the business? What’s their core business? Do they support community groups in your area – if so who, and does it include an environment cause? Do any of their products and services relate to environment? Just look for anything that will help you get a good picture of who they are and what they stand for in your community. Those are some fundamentals – but one important point is understand what your needs are – because you may find that they may look good on the surface but there may be other businesses in the area, which are a better suited to support the groups needs. You want to build an approach to a range of business’ based on ‘cause marketing’. This is where a business can really add support. Basically it means they can use your partnership as a marketing tool to enhance their business. They showcase how their expertise is helping the local community achieve environmental outcomes. Through their marketing they present an offer to local business to get involved and supporting the cause by using their services, and every time they do a proportion of the service purchase proceeds go toward helping your group achieve outcomes for the local community. Another angle may be to approach a business new to the area who wants to build local community awareness of their products/ services and can apply their support for to help their new business achieve a local connection. When you’ve got a good picture of the business and how you can help each other – you should be able to break the ice quite easily because you’ll have something meaningful to talk about. Try to pick a time that is good for them. You don’t want to go charging in with all the best intentions when the operator is flat out. Sound them out – try to pick a time you think is safe and either drop in or give them a call. The purpose of that first introduction is quickly let them know you’ve got an important community issue you’d like their advice on and organize a time to have a coffee, beer, tea to have a chat about it. |
Questions Posted by: Catherine Carter |
Qn: We have an accommodation business on the outskirts of Byron Bay and a 26acres of wetland bordering a tea tree lake. We would like to do some regeneration and provide a board walk. Ans: Hi Catherine, It sounds like a fabulous location. In regard to developing that concept you could look at Banrock Station Wines as a case study building business around wetland conservation. What started as a basic concept has now grown to an international conservation project injecting over a $1m per annum in to wetland projects across the globe. I would suggest talking to local Coastcare or Landcare groups who can help you identify relevance to your Catchment Action Plan and perhaps how to go about developing your conservation project. Also investigate grant schemes related to sustainable tourism and options through the Australian Governments Caring for our Country environment program. Another way is to look at how you can raise $ for the project by producing a cause marketing campaign to attract support for the project from your client base. Before you do that – please ensure you have a clear strategy with engagement with relevant Coastcare/ Landcare/ Local Council or Catchment Management Authority to discuss understand local objectives and how this project would fit in to the action plan. (note: Tina Demetriou also replied to this questions, click here to see what she said) |
Questions Posted by: Mark Casswell |
Qn: As a program manager for a Regional body what tips have you in terms of partnership architecture you would see as desireable? Ans: Hi Mark, I’ll chip in on this one if I may….Partnerships need foundations of responsibility, but also remain fluid to be adaptable to conditions. We’re not operating in a perfect world, so each partner managing their area of expertise and communicating with the group of partners consistently is paramount to successful relationships. For regions it means identifying what the priorities are and the gaps where support would be best utilized. When we first started the Coastcare brand we felt we had to build programs in to a format conducive to marketing objectives of a corporate partner in order to engage their sponsorship – so that’s the way it was sold, as mostly then it was about building community awareness and volunteer numbers. Now of course it’s about the corporate partner shaping their marketing to support programs where its most needed and utilizing corporate partner expertise in a more effective way. So in regard to partnership architecture – ensuring you have a clear and concise view of the issue and the solution will mean partners having a clear understanding of how their particular expertise can help deliver the outcome and encourage more meaningful application of resources to achieve the outcome. |
Questions Posted by: Richard House |
Qn: Grants are always for projects. I am Chairman of Victor Harbor Coastcare (20 members)and one of our problems is that we also need money for running costs such as postage, PO Box No rental, hall hire for meetings, etc. Our annual membership of $5/head is insufficient. Are there any sources for getting money for running costs? Ans: Hi Richard, Victor Harbor has always been a fantastic Coastcare town and group. If you need some administration support – you could try sourcing support from local business. This could perhaps be a business related to the topic of ‘administration’. By determining a required budget to help cover the cost of administration you could develop an approach to a range of business’, which presents a cause marketing angle - where they use your logo to promote to the local market how they’re helping Victor Harbour Coastcare by providing administrative support. They apply message to their marketing within the local community to showcase their expertise in administration and how it is helping the local community achieve environmental outcomes. Through their marketing they present an offer to local business to get involved by using their services and every time they do a proportion of the service purchase proceeds go toward helping Victor Harbour Coastcare achieve outcomes for the local community. (As an example Oates Accounting and Taxation may be a good target!?) Another angle may be to approach a business new to the area who want to build local community awareness of their products/ services and can apply their support for Victor Harbor Coastcare to help achieve a local connection. |
Questions Posted by: Melissa |
Qn: How could the general public, coastcare groups etc be making a real positive impact, in your field of work/expertise? Ans: Simply by supporting the brands who support Coastcare! There is a lot of cynicism in the national community about brands being involved with environment brands such as ours. What the community at large needs to understand is that the brands we get involved with are genuine about wanting to help. When they’re assessing a sponsorship – I can assure you they take it very seriously as its a big commitment to make. They apply extensive resources including financial, staff, marketing, PR and business expertise to help raise the profile and general community awareness of what Coastcare is doing and its value within our community objectives. In essence they’re part of the community too and are making quite significant changes within their business structure to reduce impact, whilst having to comply with consumer demand for quality products and services. Behinds the scenes this comes at substantial up front costs – financial and social – to drive that change internally. It’s easy to say up front that a brand is not worth being associated with the cause – but if we’re genuine about wanting to help drive industry change we have to get in there and support them anyway we can to drive that change as fast as possible. We somehow have developed a community view that business and community are two separate entities – but we all make up the community and we’re all serious about climate change, we’re in this together and Coastcare is about Government, Corporates and Community working together to adapt to climate change. |
Qn: If you could change one thing tomorrow about the way our coastal systems and resources are currently managed, what would that be? If I could change one thing tomorrow – it would be streamlining resources between: · Coastcare (national communication brand for coastal conservation and community adaptation to climate change); · Surf Life Saving Australia clubs and associated organization infrastructure (community hubs), and; · CMA’s / Local Council (Natural resource project management expertise). |
Qn: What are your major environmental concerns for our coastal and marine environments in the short and long term? Ans: 86% of the population lives within 30km’s of the coastline. Seachange (population growth in regions) is adding to coastal pressures. My major concern in the short term is if we don’t create an effective way to manage our activity, impact on resources will be irreversible in the long term. We really need to simplify our approach as a community in adapting to climate change. Quite often views are taken personally and we resist the opportunity to move forward in a practical way for the health of our community. Change isn’t something to fear; it’s an opportunity to build a positive future for this great nation and help other nations achieve the same outcome. |
