How Should We Market the Extreme Entrepreneur Tour on Campuses?

Things are progressing very well on the Extreme Entrepreneur Tour. Adam Witty, our partner on it, flew up from South Carolina for three days last week. During those days we had another meeting with Inc. magazine and did intensive planning on the tour. Unfortunately, I can't go into details on the Inc. deal until they're more solidified. However, I will say that things are looking good.

A big part of the tour is going to be getting students as schools to show up for the one-day event. Below are the ideas we have to accomplish this. What do you think? How can we get 500+ students to attend each event?

1. Professors - Work with relevant professors to give students extra credit for attending the event. Also, work with professors so that students attend the event instead of attending class if the two conflict. We will design a lesson plan and assignment that professors can give their students.

2. On-Campus Co-Sponsorships – Help facilitate marketing co-sponsorships between career services, student activities, the presidents offices, relevant student clubs, and entrepreneurship centers.

3. Local PR – Work with our PR coordinator to land campus and local press for all events.

4. Templates – Provide schools with template emails, press releases, and posters that they can customize.

5. Early Bird Give Aways – Develop an online RSVP system that students are required to complete before attending the event. The first students at each school to register will receive special give aways. The system will alert us of low attendance levels in advance of the event and give schools extra time to do last-minute promotion.

6. Free Food – Work with schools so that all students who attend are offered free food.

7. Recruiting Opportunities – Work with sponsors and Inc. Magazine to offer students intrapreneurial work opportunities at large companies and Inc. 500 companies.

Posted at 11:40 AM | Comments (3) | Top

July 31, 2005

501c3 Fiscal Sponsor for Extreme Entrepreneur Tour

If you want to become a non-profit, getting 501c3 status is important as it is required by many funders and provides your organization with major tax deductions. However, registration can take a long time and lots legal fees. As such, getting a temporary fiscal sponsor who is a 501c3 is an effective way to get the benefits of a 501c3 without actually becoming one.

We're excited to announce that we've partnered with Citizens for NYC to be our fiscal sponsor. I know Citizens for NYC because from last November until this July, I've worked part-time as the program coordinator for the Bank of America Youth Entrepreneur Awards, which is hosted by Citizens for NYC. They will be charging us a 5% administration fee for of all money that we raise for the Extreme Entrepreneur Tour and will be responsible for administration of project funds in accordance to any funding agencies' guidelines. Also, they will disburse project funds, maintain accounting records, handle financial audits, prepare financial report (with our assistance) and tax returns.

As our needs grow, they've offered to provide additional services such as payroll, fringe benefits (both statutory and employer-provided). As a result, our staff will be able to enjoy direct deposit, handling of payroll taxes filing and related audits, a group health insurance rate, financial planner consultations, and support in human resources. These additional services would move the 5% fee to 8%.

We're very excited about this partnership because Citizens for NYC has an incredible back-office and because we will now be able to focus on the stuff we like and are good at.

I hope this information is helpful for any of you who are considering going the non-profit, social entrepreneur route.

Posted at 03:11 PM | Comments (0) | Top

July 24, 2005

Revised Advertisement

Thanks for all your great feedback on the ad! After a lot of brainstorming, we decided we wanted something a little more "extreme". We'd rather alienate some people and be remembered, then not remembered at all. This is what Daniel Blank Design came back with:

Posted at 03:51 PM | Comments (8) | Top