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Playing the Charity Card by Andrea Umbreit

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I've found that most oral health professionals have desire to give back to their community. These teeth-loving heroes like to use their superpowers to change the lives of families in need in their backyard and beyond. However, there are so many nuances and potential liabilities in doing pro bono or other charitable work that the potential risks often appear to outweigh the benefits.

"Playing the charity card" is a fantastic way to market your practice while giving back in a meaningful way. But don't play Russian roulette with your giving. Eliminate the gamble in doing philanthropic work by making these safe bets:
  1. By now you've heard of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). CSR has dual roles: contributions and activities benefitting both business and society. The crux of CSR is that your charitable initiatives are meeting a relevant need in the community while your practice concurrently benefits from well-deserved recognition and marketing. Why should your business be concerned with being a socially responsible corporate citizen? The one and only answer I will cover is this one: Your patients and community expect it from you. Not only do they expect you to give back, but they expect you to do so in a meaningful and significant way that humanizes your practice and connects them to something they believe in. A steep task, no doubt.
  2. What charities should your practice support? Survey your patients and your staff. If your patients don't care about it, why do it? If your staff isn't interested and motivated, who is going to manage the process? Collect data on causes, initiatives and events in your community that your patients and staff find meaningful and use that as a starting point.
  3. Should you do dental charity work? Of course. You have a lot of options here. For pro bono orthodontic care, you can work with Smiles Change Lives, Smile for a Lifetime, Donated Orthodontic Services or you can check with your statewide programs and local foundations. I'd be remiss if I didn't mention that Smiles Change Lives has a waiting list of 1,800 qualified program applicants awaiting treatment by a caring, talented orthodontist like you! You might also want to consider working with Give Kids A Smile, Oral Health America, TeamSmile and other great community programs. You are likely invited to participate in local health fairs, dental clinic screenings, school-based initiatives and initiatives that connect you directly with families in need.
Whether you choose to select youth, education, dental, disease prevention or other causes, please be aware that charity work is not one-size-fits-all. In philanthropic work there is a term called "donor fatigue" that is used to describe a phenomenon where donors simply get tired of supporting the same cause over and over again. I highly recommend that you diversify your giving and charitable work to encompass several causes. Go back to your survey results and find the issues which are most relevant to your patients, determine how much time and resources you are willing to allot to philanthropy and target your efforts accordingly.

After asking your patients and staff what causes are important to them, select a few causes/charities you'd like to incorporate into your practice. How do you support them? Golf tournament? 5K run/walk? Office fundraiser? Free dental screening? Canned food drive? Raffle or auction? Buy a table at a gala? (As you can imagine this list of choices is endless.)

This is the point at which your practice needs to look internally and identify your office personality. Are you a fun-loving group with a few runners on staff? Are you a more clean-cut bunch suited for a health fair? Does the doctor clown around the office? Is your staff inclined to put together a rap video? Ask the following questions of your staff:
  1. How much staff time can you devote to charitable initiatives?
  2. What tools do you have at your disposal for marketing?
  3. How much can you do well in a year?
  4. How much help can you enlist from business partners, staff and patient families?
  5. Can you tie this into something you're already doing?
I highly recommend you narrow and focus your efforts down to two to six initiatives and create an annual plan. You know what will work best for your community and your market. When in doubt, trust your instincts and play the hand you've been dealt.

How to Effectively Market your Charitable Work While Playing the Charity Card

After you've narrowed down your philanthropic initiatives to a handful of great causes that meet the needs of your practice, your patients and your community, how do you go about giving back without looking like you're patting yourself on the back more than you're helping out the less fortunate? You've got to know when to hold em', and know when to fold em'. Here are some tips and tricks:
  1. Meet a local, tangible community need with your charitable initiatives. Offer a challenge gift for a local capital campaign. Buy a new oven for a food kitchen. Provide backpacks and school supplies for low-income children. Collect winter coats for a homeless shelter. Generating resources for families in need in your backyard creates a relevant and timely way to communicate your efforts to your patients and the community at large. It's easy for your patients to bring gently used toys into your office for your holiday toy drive - and it's a clear way to communicate your community involvement.

  2. Join in on an existing effort instead of building your program from the bottom up. Support a Boy Scout troop. Create a team for a local run/walk to benefit charity. Purchase a table for the annual gala and send your top staff and top referrals. Work with a local business to support sports teams. Join in on a health fair and do free screenings and give out oral health supplies. When you work with an existing event/initiative, you will benefit from all of the marketing and branding already in place by that charity, and you'll have better success in communicating the impact of your work. Even better, if you triangulate your efforts with another area business, you reach into that organization's clientele as well.

  3. Secure support and resources from the charity. What do you expect from your charity partner? First identify who will be your contact person at the charity. If you're not able to get adequate support from the group, or you find the charity isn't interested in or equipped to work with you, find a new charity! Remember, corporate social responsibility means that the process is mutually beneficial for both parties involved. If you're not able to get the support you need, don't gamble. Here is a list of some things you might request in the way of support from your charity partner: organizational collateral, logos, event materials, flyers, links to event registration, team or group options for fundraisers, gift acknowledgment, media support, press releases and communications regarding the impact of your work. Decide what kind of help you need, ask for it and get to work! Up front communication will ensure that all expectations will be met.

  4. When publicizing your work - Share the impact. What's all this talk about impact? Impact describes what happened as a result of your charitable initiatives, not on how great you are for doing what you did. Focus your communications on who benefitted, what has changed or improved as a result, and quantify your actions as much as possible. The charity you support should be an expert in providing you with this information. For example:

    1. "This year's Kadar Karnival supported Mothers Matter, an organization that delivers personal care items to deserving moms in our town. Thanks to all of our patient families for donating supplies and funds to help local moms be the best they can be!"
    2. "Congratulations to Dr. Dustin Burleson and the team at Burleson Orthodontics for donating comprehensive orthodontic care to 36 Smiles Change Lives patients this year. This donation of $180,000 worth of life-changing orthodontics is made possible by the support of Burleson Orthodontics patients and staff who support the practice's charitable initiatives here in Kansas City."

  5. Ready, set, market! You can run in circles publicizing your community efforts, so I recommend you stick with what works for you and only add one or two new platforms. For example, if your e-newsletter has tremendous open rates, stick with that already successful piece and integrate a Facebook campaign along with some collateral in your lobby. Just because you can do something, doesn't mean it's a good use of time. Less is more! The odds are in your favor if you focus on doing a few things really well. Remember, you can always up the ante in the future. Here are some safe bets in marketing your good deeds:

    1. Post your upcoming philanthropy/event calendar in your lobby and on your Web site. Consider including a thermometer or scoreboard showing your progress toward your goal. (We've already collected 65 winter coats, just 25 more to go!)
    2. Create events on social media and invite supporters to attend, share or participate in some convenient way.
    3. Include pre- and post-campaign articles recognizing everyone involved in the effort with photos and quotes from participants.
    4. Issue a press release about your event impact. Invite the media to attend events and initiatives with great curb appeal and visuals. Be sure to have a spokesperson available with well-crafted talking points. A three-second TV clip can be really great, or really awful PR if you're not prepared.
    5. Give awards to patients, staff and community partners for outstanding participation and progress toward team efforts, focusing on the
    6. hare your good work with your referrals, inviting them to attend and communicating results after completion. Charitable work, and subsequent documentation of the doctor doing something generous and tangible, humanizes your practice before your key audiences. I'm picturing a photo of the doctor, hammer in hand, sweat dripping from her forehead, assisting in building a house for Habitat for Humanity - priceless marketing! Who cares if her hair is a mess!

  6. It is better to give than to receive, right? The return on this investment is huge. Here are just a few of the benefits you may enjoy from your giving:

    1. Solidifying your brand as a caring corporate citizen.
    2. Building or strengthening relationships with referrals and patients.
    3. Securing new leads. (It's OK to capture information during events if approved by the charity and done so tastefully and with permission.)
    4. Name recognition and media interest outside of self-promotion.
    5. Engaged staff and happy patients.
    6. The knowledge that you did something wonderful to change the world in a meaningful and significant way.
Now that you've got some marketing ideas, we'll cover examples of successful (and some hypothetical) philanthropic efforts I'd like to share with you. After all, we all like to benchmark successful models and I'm here to level the playing field for all of you teeth-lovers. No wagers needed.

Examples of Successful Charitable Initiatives with Great Marketing Potential

You're a pro at giving back, so here are some additional ideas, success stories and hypothetical situations that may work in your market. Remember that these ideas are only as solid as your ability to pull them off and the relevance to your community. If for any reason you feel like an initiative is not going to fly in your area, don't gamble! The risks are too high if you appear to be riding on a bandwagon or chasing the charity du jour. Stick with what you know will appeal to your patients and community, and see if any of the angles below are applicable to your charitable work.

1. High school students headed for a mission trip

This is a great idea for the practice interested in a more hands-off approach. If you know of a group of teens fundraising or preparing for a mission trip abroad, become a significant supporter of their project. Pay for a portion of their expenses, supply T-shirts with your practice logo, and send the group with oral hygiene supplies, digital cameras and ensure they have Smartphone's with Internet access to make daily posts about their trip. In turn, ask the students to keep a journal and return to give a presentation during your annual patient appreciation event to report on their work. Use their updates and journals to generate a year's worth of marketing material and missionfocused communications which engage your patients in what it means to help the less fortunate. The photos will provide the tangible connection between your practice and the people being served. This is invaluable marketing material that makes a statement about your support of local kids who give back and the lives changed because of your generosity. This is also an initiative where you ask little or nothing from your current patient base if you are concerned about participation.

2. 5K run for health issues (diabetes, breast cancer, etc.)

Runs are great team-building events that rely on the strengths of your staff/patients and a well-organized charitable event. Find patients, staff and running clubs or track teams who would like to create a practice team. Establish a fundraising goal for the charity and determine the financial match from your practice. (In lieu of a match, you might consider paying for all entries and buying team shirts.) If you really want to go big or go home, buy a booth at the race and distribute oral health screening information with branded practice giveaways that have some tie-in to the charity. You might consider inviting team runners to the booth for a post-race celebration announcing results and host a guest speaker to thank the team for their efforts. This is a great opportunity to invite the media to celebrate your team impact on the charity and what this means to a beneficiary of that cause. Be sure to post photos and stories about the impact of your team efforts for several weeks after the event to give participants the opportunity to take your message of giving viral. We all like to forward pictures of ourselves to friends and family - and what a great message to share about a giving practice that supports charity!

3. Children's Museum Dental Exhibit Sponsorship

This idea is for the practice looking for a long-term relationship with a charity. You're remodeling and would like to find a new home for some old equipment, exam chairs, etc. Why not contact your local children's museum or youth development center to create an oral health exhibit? Offer to help plan the exhibit and make a financial donation to help purchase educational supplies and support upkeep. During the process, post weekly photos of construction and progress. On the opening night of the exhibit, invite your patients and referrals to attend as VIPs. Consider presenting the charity with a multi-year gift to support ongoing materials and obtain naming rights over the exhibit. Interview kids enjoying the exhibit and link their testimonials to all of your Web-based media, communications and practice branding. You will be known as the practice that supports oral health education for generations in your area. Offer all of your patients free passes to the exhibit and host events in conjunction with the charity. This is a legacy project that will have more marketing opportunities than I can define.

Whatever you do, remember the following marketing and PR tips:

Quickly communicate the results to the media, your patients, your referrals and like-minded organizations. For example, if you participated in a candy exchange event, you might let your local Juvenile Diabetes Association know before and after the event. Those kids can't eat a lot of candy and you're offering a healthy alternative for trick-or-treating, which ties in nicely to their mission.

When communicating your results be sure to keep your messaging about them (those who benefit), not you. No bragging, instead share the impact on the charity:
  • Number of people attending/served
  • Amount of money raised
  • How one person's life was changed
  • Use photos to create visual images
  • Be sensitive about not making anyone feel like a "charity case"
  • Example: "Thank you for attending our annual patient appreciation day at the theater and for bringing more than 800 pounds of canned goods for our local food pantry. Your donations will feed more than 120 families this weekend. Dr. Jones and staff will match your generosity with a $1,600 donation to the charity to purchase a new freezer for the facility."
    • Make it fun for patients and manageable for you!
  • Highlight patient and staff superheroes who go above and beyond
  • Make the value of your practice's contribution both meaningful and significant
  • Integrate your philosophy of giving into your whole practice
  • People will need to see the same message more than once
  • Be sure no one feels obligated to participate - giving is voluntary!
What happens after it's done? Start planning for next year of course! My final post will cover evaluating your charitable giving and how you can plan ahead for more successful philanthropic efforts that are a win-win (or grin-grin) situation for everyone.

Evaluating your Charitable Initiatives

Let's face it. We try to do the right thing, but it doesn't always work. Here are some final tips on how to up the ante or just fold. If you remember from the first post, Corporate Social Responsibility means both parties benefit. And that's a good thing.

1. It was fantastic! How can we improve?
  • Add a new social media angle
  • Engage your local media to gain more coverage
  • Increase the fundraising goal or add incentives for participation
  • Get the charity more involved
  • Start earlier and distribute an annual calendar of charitable efforts to keep patients more informed
  • Set a goal for the charitable impact of all initiatives
  • Set a goal for your total practice impact on your community

2. It was a nightmare! What went wrong?
  • The charity didn't follow through
  • Not the right mission - our patients didn't "get it"
  • It was too complicated
  • We didn't have time to do it right
  • It was bad PR instead of good

3. How do you fold on philanthropy?

(It seems really, really yucky, right?) Go back to your survey data to determine a better fit for your patients and community. Present data and new ideas to support your proposed changes. Maybe it's the right charity, but the wrong initiative. Perhaps it's the right event, but not the right cause. Provide closure on the old event and introduce the new one in a positive light so that there are no hard feelings or negative implications. Be sure to transition staff into new roles with clearly defined accountability.

There are pros and cons to anything you do, even charity work.

Cons:
  • You will never, ever make everyone happy - so don't try. Do what you know is meaningful.
  • Donor fatigue sets in and people get tired of the same thing. Keep your work fresh and relevant.
  • You can't support every charity, every time - so don't do it. Pick where you will have the greatest impact and stick with it.
  • You've had a bad experience doing charitable work. I'm sorry, but it happens. All charities are not created equal. Pick one that is capable of being a good philanthropic partner and give it another try.
But of course, there are great benefits to you and your community when you make philanthropy a key element of your practice.

Pros:
  • You've made a statement about what you stand for - and the community hears it loud and clear.
  • You can "screen out" other ideas because you've already decided what you will/won't do and have data to support it. This is a great opportunity to keep the focus on where you will focus the majority of your marketing.
  • The people you recognize in your practice for going above and beyond as well as the impact on the charity generate great new marketing material.
  • Giving humanizes your practice.
  • Let's not forget the tax-deductions!
  • Generating data, strong strategies and advanced planning eliminates any gamble!
  • The community expects you to give back and it will help generate well-deserved PR.
  • Philanthropy works in tandem with marketing you're already doing: paid search, print ads, newsletters, etc.
  • You're helping a great cause!
Do your best and know that you are helping to change the world. Yes you! You might never meet the people you are helping, and you might never understand what it is like to walk in their shoes, but you are making a difference and you are helping to inspire others to give. In fact, you're going to receive so much more personal satisfaction in return that what you give will seem small in comparison. That's what this is all about, right? On behalf of every charity you may help or are currently supporting, thank you for what you do, and keep up the good work. You are an inspiration to your staff, colleagues, patients and community.

About Smiles Change Lives
Smiles Change Lives is a national organization that matches orthodontic providers with children from qualified, low-income families to provide access to life-changing, essential orthodontic treatment. At present, Smiles Change Lives has over 700 providers spread throughout every state and, since its inception in 1996, has treated more than 3,000 children.

This is due to SCL's unique model, which matches children from lowincome families, who need orthodontic treatment, with caring orthodontists willing to provide such treatment. Each family must agree to abide by the program's rules and contribute a set amount to SCL to be approved for the program. SCL uses these funds to recruit more doctors willing to treat more children. In this way, each family truly "pays it forward" - by helping their own child, they are making it possible for the next child to be treated as well. Since its inception, more than 99% of the children approved for SCL have successfully completed treatment.

Please visit www.smileschangelives.org for additional information or to join our team of orthodontic providers who are bracing kids for a better future.
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