Realigning with Our Values
A Message from Clem Nilan, General Manager:
I wanted to keep you up-to-date on some changes we’ve initiated in the Marketing Department. Our former Marketing Manager, Nicole Fenton, left the Co-op to start her own business. We thank Nicole for her service and wish her luck. Since change at the leadership level happens infrequently, we took the opportunity to evaluate our present structure and activities to see if there was an opportunity for improvement… basically kicking the tires on our operation.
The Marketing Department is a bit of an octopus, with tentacles in member services, education, in-store signage, advertising, our website, outreach, community relations and communications. When we started analyzing the question “what are we supposed to do?” it became clear that, as journalists say, we had buried our lead. We’d put the headline story somewhere on page 3 instead of at the top of page 1. We immediately recognized that member services should not be subservient to marketing, but that marketing should be a tool of membership.
With this simple thought that our focus should be on membership and meeting the needs of members, we reorganized this department. Instead of a Marketing Manager we created a new position - Director of Member Services. I’m proud to announce we have hired Allison Weinhagen, an internal candidate who’s been with the Co-op for almost 6 years, to lead this department.
This reorganization is more than just a name change; we are drastically altering the way that we have previously operated. As one would expect with a headline of marketing, most of our previous energy and funding supported our advertising. The largest share of the budget was allocated to radio, television and print media. Allison will be coordinating a major change in focus, deemphasizing traditional marketing, and really beefing up the support we give to our key relationships with community organizations. These key relationships are based on our outreach goals of combating childhood hunger and strengthening the local food system. We have built a strong Member Services team that will continue to support our Co-op goals; together we’ll ensure that more of the Co-op’s resources are allocated with these goals always in mind.
For example, toward our work to alleviate childhood hunger, in this upcoming fiscal year we will have completed payments toward our committed $90,000 donation to the Chittenden Emergency Food Shelf. I remember only a few years back when we were not in a position to make even the first payment. The Co-op has also committed $10,000 this year to The Vermont Campaign to End Childhood Hunger whose mission is to end the injustice of hunger and malnutrition for all Vermonters. Vermont FEED (Food Education Every Day) works with schools and communities to raise awareness about healthy food, the role of Vermont farms and farmers, and good nutrition. Their major annual fundraiser is the Junior Iron Chef VT, and this year the Co-op committed to be the major supporter of this event. In addition, we have increased our contribution to the Boys and Girls Club of Burlington, which does a remarkable job of feeding at-risk youth as part of their healthy, fun and educational programs.
The Intervale Center is a very important partner with the Co-op in our efforts to strengthen the local food systems. The Intervale Center oversees nine working farms from which we receive a significant portion of our local food. This year we are increasing our total contributions to the Center to $12,000 to better support our growing local food systems.
On the flip side, this shift in department focus doesn’t mean we will be discontinuing advertising. Many of the marketing experts are advising us to refocus our efforts on our website and social media in lieu of some of the more traditional aspects of our advertising campaigns. In the future, you’ll notice improvements in our website in addition to some changes in our print ads and our newsletter.
Realigning our allocation of resources with our Co-op goals will result in immediate benefits to many of our community partners and will support their great work in our community. It just makes good Co-op sense. I hope you’ll agree with our newfound focus on member services and find our changes as exciting as we do.
I wanted to keep you up-to-date on some changes we’ve initiated in the Marketing Department. Our former Marketing Manager, Nicole Fenton, left the Co-op to start her own business. We thank Nicole for her service and wish her luck. Since change at the leadership level happens infrequently, we took the opportunity to evaluate our present structure and activities to see if there was an opportunity for improvement… basically kicking the tires on our operation.
The Marketing Department is a bit of an octopus, with tentacles in member services, education, in-store signage, advertising, our website, outreach, community relations and communications. When we started analyzing the question “what are we supposed to do?” it became clear that, as journalists say, we had buried our lead. We’d put the headline story somewhere on page 3 instead of at the top of page 1. We immediately recognized that member services should not be subservient to marketing, but that marketing should be a tool of membership.
With this simple thought that our focus should be on membership and meeting the needs of members, we reorganized this department. Instead of a Marketing Manager we created a new position - Director of Member Services. I’m proud to announce we have hired Allison Weinhagen, an internal candidate who’s been with the Co-op for almost 6 years, to lead this department.
This reorganization is more than just a name change; we are drastically altering the way that we have previously operated. As one would expect with a headline of marketing, most of our previous energy and funding supported our advertising. The largest share of the budget was allocated to radio, television and print media. Allison will be coordinating a major change in focus, deemphasizing traditional marketing, and really beefing up the support we give to our key relationships with community organizations. These key relationships are based on our outreach goals of combating childhood hunger and strengthening the local food system. We have built a strong Member Services team that will continue to support our Co-op goals; together we’ll ensure that more of the Co-op’s resources are allocated with these goals always in mind.
For example, toward our work to alleviate childhood hunger, in this upcoming fiscal year we will have completed payments toward our committed $90,000 donation to the Chittenden Emergency Food Shelf. I remember only a few years back when we were not in a position to make even the first payment. The Co-op has also committed $10,000 this year to The Vermont Campaign to End Childhood Hunger whose mission is to end the injustice of hunger and malnutrition for all Vermonters. Vermont FEED (Food Education Every Day) works with schools and communities to raise awareness about healthy food, the role of Vermont farms and farmers, and good nutrition. Their major annual fundraiser is the Junior Iron Chef VT, and this year the Co-op committed to be the major supporter of this event. In addition, we have increased our contribution to the Boys and Girls Club of Burlington, which does a remarkable job of feeding at-risk youth as part of their healthy, fun and educational programs.
The Intervale Center is a very important partner with the Co-op in our efforts to strengthen the local food systems. The Intervale Center oversees nine working farms from which we receive a significant portion of our local food. This year we are increasing our total contributions to the Center to $12,000 to better support our growing local food systems.
On the flip side, this shift in department focus doesn’t mean we will be discontinuing advertising. Many of the marketing experts are advising us to refocus our efforts on our website and social media in lieu of some of the more traditional aspects of our advertising campaigns. In the future, you’ll notice improvements in our website in addition to some changes in our print ads and our newsletter.
Realigning our allocation of resources with our Co-op goals will result in immediate benefits to many of our community partners and will support their great work in our community. It just makes good Co-op sense. I hope you’ll agree with our newfound focus on member services and find our changes as exciting as we do.