Recipes for Failure

Teams are often approached by other community groups to host joint events. If interested, invite them to co-host an upcoming ORIENTED Happy Hour through our Community Outreach Program (COP).

Co-hosting benefits:

1. Increases attendance (sometimes by double!) without increasing the workload
2. Is a much more effective and targeted marketing tool than an ad in the newspaper
3. Introduces other services and organizations that may be of interest to your members
4. Raises awareness of ORIENTED to a new group of people in the area, a mutually-beneficial marketing initiative

1. Approach community groups as partners instead of competitors
2. Utilize our COP program to help promote them to our members and vice versa
3. Serve as an information clearinghouse for all Asia-related and Asian-related events by encouraging community groups to post their events on our Community Events Calendar. Posted events are also included in our member newsletters for additional exposure.
   

Instructions

1. Spend a few hours to identify the most active organizations in your city that have complementary objectives to our own and invite them to be a Guest Host at an upcoming Happy Hour.

2. In your invitation, include this link which describes our partner program in detail:

   http://oriented.com/COP/

   It is STRONGLY recommended that you adhere to the COP guidelines and that you make sure the partnering organization also agrees to them. These guidelines were developed as a direct result of not-so-pleasant situations that many of our organizers experienced in the past when expectations were not clearly defined at the outset.
   

3. If they agree to our program guidelines, go for it! We've never had anyone say "no".

   Most non-profits have small marketing budgets (if at all) and welcome the opportunity to recruit more members and promote their upcoming events and activities, especially if it's at no cost to them.
   

4. After you post your venue blurb online (not before!), ask our webmaster to modify the event title from, "ORIENTED Happy Hour in (your city)!" to "ORIENTED Happy Hour in (your city) with (Co-Host Name)!" He/she will need to do this for you.

Important Reminder - Multiple Groups!

While co-hosting with multiple groups at one time has the short-term benefit of a higher turnout, the downside is that:

1. You're not giving any of the organizations a meaningful marketing effort or focused attention;

2. Our members can't really get to know another group of members well or vice versa (too many all at once!) so we aren't able to establish a truly meaningful relationship between them... it becomes more like a big party which is not our purpose; and

3. It's hard to maintain that kind of momentum (the "high") during the coming months, which is not good for the members or the overall health of your local organization.

If you have three groups wanting to co-host with you, that's great, but spread the love over three months, if possible.

"The sage," says Lao Tzu, "avoids excess, extravagance, and indulgence." In the Chinese view, it is better to have too little than to have too much... because although one may not get very far this way, one is certain to go in the right direction.

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