The 2008 United Way Brand Forum is now over, and from my point of view, and according to everyone I talked to, it was a rousing success. Cynthia Round, Peter Hahn and the whole Brand Management staff at United Way of America deserve a big round of applause for a job well done.
The roll-out of the new LIVE UNITED campaign/social movement was exceptional, dare I say, even inspiring. The videos that were shown (there were about 3 or 4 of them spread out over the 2 and a half days of the seminar) were all greeted with loud cheers and rousing ovations.
Before I arrived in Jacksonville, I was rather nervous about the format. All the presentations were done in the large conference room to the whole group – there were no ‘break-outs’ until the very last day. But now in retrospect, that was the right thing to do. There was a lot of information to disseminate around this concept, and for the most part, the speakers had valuable information to impart and they did an excellent job of being informational and entertaining.
In order to help us remember the various concepts of LIVE UNITED, they showed it to us in a Rubix Cube template. There were three sets of three components – our programs should now fit into one of the three impact areas: Education, Income and Health; our requests of our consumers should be around these three areas: Give, Volunteer, and Advocate – and we must remember to: Ask, Thank and Inform.
One of the interesting parts of the Forum was the case study project. We were assigned to a table number when we arrived, and each table formed a team to take what we had learned about LIVE UNITED and apply it to the United Way of Southeast Pennsylvania. We were provided a great deal of background information about their situation, including Community Impact progress, giving history, annual report, and much more.
On Thursday evening the groups were given a few hours to put together a projected roll-out plan for LIVE UNITED in UWSEPA (Philadelphia). Each team turned in their PowerPoint presentation on a Disc to the UWA team, and they spent several hours selecting three teams to make a live presentation on Friday morning.
Wouldn’t you just know it; one of the teams selected was Table 3, including yours truly. After all three teams made their presentations, a vote of the attendees and a panel of judges (including UWSEPA President Alba Martinez) chose the winner. And once again, I was shocked an honored when Table 3 was selected.
When my teammate Kim sends me the PowerPoint presentation, I’ll share it with you here. Congratulations to the rest of Team 3, Cindy Wester of Huntsville, Alabama; Wayne Collins of Chattanooga, TN; Terry Tolan of United Way of Kentucky; Kimberly Morgan of Danbury, CT; Yashvinee Narechania of New York City; and Nancy O’Malley of Forth Worth, TX.
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