Launching a new nonprofit fundraising event and raising awareness for a critical health service
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Dental Connections provides critical dental services to low-income individuals in the Des Moines area, as well as school-based dental services to students who might otherwise fall through the cracks.
It’s hard to concentrate in school when you have a toothache; some students even contemplate pulling their own tooth before they learn about — and access — Dental Connections school-based or mobile clinics.
When Carly Ross was hired as executive director, part of her goals was implementing a marketing strategy and raising awareness of what supporters saw as a “best-kept secret.” Like many nonprofits, Dental Connections had been operating under the radar while providing critical services, something she wanted to change.
In the podcast, Carly talks about building out the nonprofit’s marketing efforts, launching and revamping a new signature fundraising event, and the importance of starting now to build the organization’s event and marketing infrastructure for later.
How to engage your nonprofit board in marketing
Launching a new signature fundraising event
The power of in-person testimonials during a fundraising event
Creating an informal instead of formal fundraising event
Building event infrastructure to grow for future years
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Below is an edited and condensed version of the interview.
→ Listen to the entire interview online on the Nonprofit Storytellers Podcast on iTunes, Spotify and Google.
Tell me a little bit about Dental Connections and who you serve.
Dental Connections is a community health center, and we exclusively provide dental services to primarily low-income children and adults in the greater Des Moines area. We have been around since 1919, so over a hundred years of providing this type of healthcare service.
The majority of our patients, about 86%, have state insurance known as Medicaid, and about 9% don't have any insurance at all. So our goal as an organization and our mission is really to help patients overcome barriers that they might experience when they're trying to access critical dental services.
What personally inspires you about the mission?
I grew up in a healthcare family. My father's a physician, and my grandpa and my brother. I didn't personally have the mind for science, but I really loved learning about healthcare, and in any position that I've held throughout my career, I've really just enjoyed having a focus on wellness.
I really enjoy helping our clients access the healthcare services they need to really live their best life. And I think that's what health care is all about. So I love that Dental Connections is providing unique services in our community. There are very, very few clinics that accept state insurance, and so we are getting calls daily from patients who are trying to access dental care and are just not finding it in our community. So my goal individually is to help as many people get the care that they need so that they can feel good.
When you came into Dental Connections, it was shortly after the pandemic. Remind me about the timeline because, as you know, dental offices and other places were really hit hard with some of the closure requirements.
They were. Dental Connections was forced to close our doors for a period of time. I think it was about two months. After we reopened, we were providing very limited services, primarily treating emergencies and patients with really critical needs.
Over the past two years, our goal has been to rebuild our provider capacity and hire additional clinical staff, and also to rebuild our patient volume so that we are serving as many patients as we can.
We're gonna talk today about your marketing strategy, and I'd love to hear in your own words sort of what your goals are. I know that I worked with the previous executive director, and then you sort of inherited this document.
So just bring me up to speed on what your strategy is and how you're building out that communications so folks become aware of all of that you do.
I told you that Dental Connections had been around since 1919, but for the majority of those years, we had a different name. And so, in 2017, we underwent a rebranding and came up with the name Dental Connections, which I love, because we're all about making those connections.
I think our goal in terms of marketing and community awareness is really about making people aware of who we are and elevating our profile within the community so people are aware of the needs of our patient population and recognize the importance of overall oral health.
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