Emerging Business Leaders Assist Salvation Army With Awareness Campaigns

A group of business leaders from our Leadership Coaching Series worked with the Salvation Army of Greater Baton Rouge on a detailed plan to help raise community awareness and funding to support the organization’s vital community-building work.The presentations capped our 5-week Leadership Coaching Series, which features competency-based leadership assessments, experiential learning and individual coaching — all culminating with a community-based project supporting a nonprofit organization.The projects are tied to our Success Labs Lead And Build “LAB” Grant, a new funding and community partnership awarded to local nonprofits serving the Baton Rouge area. The LAB Grant totals more than $1,500 for each partnership, which includes a $1,000 gift to be used at the nonprofit’s discretion, a hands-on project to enhance an existing space or function and $500 project seed money. 

Next-Level Leadership

Our Leadership Coaching series focuses on next-level leadership and preparing leaders for whatever challenges they will face in their new roles. We cover everything from communication, presentation skills and professional branding to creativity, strategic insight and how to motivate teams. We first teach these principles then give our participants the chance to put them into action with a real-world project. For this season’s project, we were proud to partner with the Salvation Army of Greater Baton Rouge, a true cornerstone of the Greater Baton Rouge community that administers a wide range of programs, from addiction counseling to educational programs for disadvantaged and at-risk youth. The participants recently presented their plans to an audience of Salvation Army representatives and area business leaders, who offered feedback on the proposals.“What touched me is that you all really put your heart into it,” Miriam Overton, Development Director for the Salvation Army of Greater Baton Rouge, told the participants. “The presentations were sincere, and there was a lot of caring.”

Raising Awareness

Leadership Coaching Series participants were split into two teams (Team Perkins and Team Highland) and tasked with developing plans that could help the Salvation Army increase its awareness and fundraising without incurring additional expenses.Team Perkins, which included Laurie Scalise, John Johnson, Tara Waldon, Liz Adams and Russell Richard, developed a plan designed to raise awareness about the Salvation Army’s mission and services outside of the holiday season when its well-known bell ringers are posted at storefronts.Under their proposal, a Spring Cleaning campaign would focus on raising awareness about the Salvation Army’s truck service to pick up donated items that are sold in its Family Store. The plan also suggested a back-to-school push that would ask school shoppers to purchase additional supplies for children in need, as well as a veteran-oriented season in which supporters could sponsor a veteran in need and help fund their support through the Salvation Army. Finally, a garage sale campaign would encourage sellers to donate unsold items to the Salvation Army.The second facet of the proposal detailed how the organization could expand its community partnerships by leveraging high school and college student service hours, as well as university marketing students who are fulfilling class requirements, to help spread the word about the organization’s needs and programs. “You’re going to educate the Greater Baton Rouge area about all these important services,” Waldon says. “Teach the children, teach the home”. Team Highland — Jonathan Arnold, Jennifer Auger, Amanda Nations, Katye Ott and Fred Schott — focused on the Salvation’s Army Family Store on Coursey Boulevard, which funds the organization’s successful Adult Rehabilitation Center for men struggling with addiction.“The rehab program is unlike any other program in the area because it provides a full-service approach,” Ott says. “The program promotes structural accountability, while providing spiritual, social and emotional recovery for the clients.”The Salvation Army has been struggling to replace revenue lost when the organization’s second Family Store on Airline High was forced to close due to the 2016 floods. To help compensate for that loss, the team developed a comprehensive marketing and awareness plan designed to boost the Family Store’s public profile and drive additional donations and sales.The group proposed creating standalone social media profiles for the store and heavily promoting the pickup service for donated goods. They also laid out a plan to interface more closely with homeowners associations throughout the Baton Rouge region to help increase donations.Both teams truly embraced the spirit of the project and developed high-quality proposals the Salvation Army of Greater Baton Rouge can build upon to continue its important work throughout our community. The Leadership Coaching Series is a development program for talented leaders who are in line to take on higher-level leadership roles at your organization. Participants leave with an understanding of the competencies they’ll need as they take the next steps in their careers and action plans to help develop those competencies. The ideal candidate is a successful manager who was recently promoted or is being considered for promotion to a higher-level leadership role.