Reach Sponsors
Before you send a potential funding organization your grant application, call or visit to explain how your work supports their mission and also point out how the community can benefit. Consider sharing your successes with current funders as well, so they can see the return on their investment. Mass media channels are effective tools for raising awareness among decisionmakers at funding organizations.
Getting Started
- Pass on written testaments of your good work in the form of newspaper, newsletter, and magazine articles; letters of commendation and recognition; and reports.
- Place articles about your community and its successes in the broadcast, electronic, and print media used by your audience.
- If you have a Weed and Seed television show, invite organizations to watch it to learn more about your community's latest efforts. These may include openings of new businesses, implementation of after-school programming, and increasing use of neighborhood-based social service programs.
Check out Tools of the Trade for sample letters and press releases.
- The Syracuse Weed and Seed Community Partnership in New York produced a video that captures residents and business people discussing how Weed and Seed has made the community safer.
- The Downtown/Millyard Weed and Seed in Manchester, NH, airs television shows that can be viewed live on public access channels or can be downloaded from their Web sites and viewed on demand.
