Show Notes

How do you convince people to purchase something that doesn’t inherently impact them, but at the same time, changes the lives of others? In this episode, Berneice Cox, CEO of the United Way of the Big Bend, joins Michelle to share how strategic communications play an important role in getting people to invest in the wellbeing of their neighbors.

Links

Learn more about the United Way of the Big Bend and their response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Transcript

When you’re in the business of marketing a product, you sell people something they want or need. But, when what you’re selling is community impact, and you have to convince people to care about someone else’s problem, the challenge is a lot greater. How do you get people to care — and persuade them to invest in their neighbors’ wellbeing?

The United Way of the Big Bend has been a massive force in charitable giving for more than thirty years, and their new president and CEO Berneice Cox wields the tools of communication with skill and power.

United Way’s secret sauce is a medley of education, storytelling, and reporting. Educate people about the profound human needs in our community, put a human face on that need by sharing the stories of real folks who are helped, and report measurable impacts with hard data.

Two years ago, the United Way of the Big Bend charted a new strategic direction focused on one central problem — poverty. More than half of the region’s residents qualify as poor or among the working poor — one emergency away from poverty. Now, besides everyday emergencies like a car breaking down or an unexpected medical bill, COVID-19 poses a universal crisis.

However great a threat COVID-19 is to the rest of us, to people in poverty, the threat is dire. If you’re an hourly worker, you can’t afford to miss a day of work, so you show up and put yourself at risk. If you depend on public transportation or live in a crowded household, social distancing is a little harder to pull off. If school is closed and your children depend on their school for two hot meals a day, you wonder how you’ll feed them. If you have no broadband internet at home and your children can’t do their schoolwork on a computer, you wonder how they’ll ever catch up.

In the midst of all this, enter Berneice Cox.

We spoke to Berneice before the COVID-19 outbreak about the United Way’s new strategic direction and how communication plays a role in achieving its goals. These insights are more important than ever, as now COVID-19 is pushing an increasingly big population to the brink of financial disaster. Many families are depending on the United Way and their partners for their next meal and other critical services, and to be able to provide those the United Way must successfully capture the hearts of donors and volunteers with their message.

Let’s take a listen.

Michelle: Berneice, thank you for being with us today.

Berneice: I’m so happy to be here Michelle, thank you.

Michelle: So let’s talk a little bit about non- profit communication because you know, to be effective, a non-profit has to share its value proposition, has to get people to care, has to touch those emotional triggers and get people invested in their mission. So United Way of the Big Bend, just a little over a year ago, underwent an entire new strategic direction. And you’ve had a lot to communicate to get people to understand that and to get them bought in. Talk to us about that a little bit.

Berneice: It was a major shift Michelle and the reason it was a major shift is because its United Way of the Big Bend, that’s Leon County and seven surrounding counties, and what we found through an ALICE report, and that’s Asset Limited, Income Constrained, Employed, is that we have in the Big Bend area almost 53 percent of our neighbors are either living in poverty or they’re living paycheck to paycheck and they are close to poverty. Just one crisis away from being there. We have, so when you’re talking about that, you’re talking about one to two people, so it’s someone that you recreate with, its someone you go to church with, there’s many sitting there, they’re people that your work with and they don’t want to self identify and they don’t have to self identify. But we can reach out and educate and let the employers know that we have services available that can help them. But also, when they’re your neighbors, it’s a compelling story because it’s people that live with us, like I said, people that we know.

Michelle: Has that been enough communicating that statistic? Has that been enough to get people to say, “Well we’ve got to do something about this”?

Berneice:

I think what gets enough is people understanding that, yes. I was talking to someone today, it may not be enough. I think we actually have to have an intentional communications plan moving forward to identify those places where we can actually talk about it but also videos and social media, every which way we can touch every generation because every generation communicates differently and making sure we’re highlighting each of the generations in that communication.

I was talking to someone today though, who decided to give to United Way at a $10,000 level, for the first time and that decision was based on the fact we were lasered focused on poverty and those who are living paycheck to paycheck. This is someone who is an owner of a company, who knows that in his company he has folks that are in the ALICE population. They are working, they’re working hard, but he knows they are struggling and it’s not because they come to him, it’s because he understands they could not be living on that one salary. That it’d be very difficult to live on that one salary and he made that commitment based on the fact that he knows about our laser focus on poverty in the ALICE population.

Michelle: That’s very hopeful.

Berneice: It is hopeful. But I do know, I’m also realistic, I know there has to be more of that. More communication. The only way people will hear about the great things that United Way funds support is through our communication and the stories and there’s many of them out there.

Michelle: So let’s talk about that and the power of storytelling. I really think you were courageous in sharing your own personal story and that there was an earlier time in your life where you were in a situation where one bad event could put you in financial jeopardy and so many of our neighbors live that way. Talk to me about how you’re using stories to get people to become bought into your mission.

Berneice: Well it’s hard to tell your personal story. I certainly did not self identify when I was working a fulltime job and two part-time jobs to support my son. What I didn’t share, and I’m going to share with you today, is I was raised in poverty. I came from a family of seven, we didn’t think we were in poverty, I mean we as children didn’t think we were in poverty because we grew up on a farm and we had food to eat. Cousins gave me clothing, or I got hand me downs from my sisters because I was the last of seven and then I was the first generation. I was the first one in my family to graduate college and then I was proud, I was so, so, so happy that I could have done that and succeeded. And then I found myself, after going through a divorce, a single parent and having that feeling again. Where I was working a fulltime job, and like I said two part-time jobs and struggling to make ends meet. There was no savings, there was no buying a home, there was how do I pay my utility bills and my phone bills and make sure that my son has clothing, and food, and childcare. I understand, I don’t understand completely but I understand to know that some of the folks we are wanting to help go through. I’ve been there. Maybe not the same circumstances but I certainly know both poverty and I know ALICE. I know it intimately. And there are many people out there that do. There’s people that would surprise you. I know after sharing my story through a video about being a single mother and being in the ALICE population, I had four different people that you would have never thought were in those same situations talk to me and share their personal stories. I just think that’s critical in making sure that you know how this would help.

Michelle: We have a lot more in common with our neighbors than we might think. You know, those who are struggling to make ends meet and keep food on the table for a family.

[COMMERCIAL BREAK]

Under the old model, people were used to being able to look at a list of charitable organizations, a long list, and select the one they wanted their funds to go to. But in that case, you provided a very small part of their budget potentially and weren’t having a big impact. What’s the new model and why is it more compelling for someone to give?

Berneice: Well in the old model, in Leon County, we had 38 certified agencies; they were more inclusive than the other counties but we had 38 agencies. And what we found in going through our strategic plan and really going through a rigorous review is that for some of those agencies we were only one to two percent of their budget and that was enough numbers to go, we aren’t really making an impact. Are we really changing lives? If you’re only one percent or two percent of the budget, you are not making a significant impact. With our new model, we are looking at the impact and we are not just one or two percent of these program’s budgets that we are supporting. We are also measuring those outcomes. We really want to see are we, I’m using the words “moving the needle”, but are we actually moving the needle. It’s not number served but are we transitioning folks out of poverty into an ALICE population