Christians Assistance Network (CAN) has several marketing challenges. First, we are limited to aiding those in the Grove City school district by the 501-C3 charter that allows us to remain tax free. Making those in need aware of the help that we can provide for them is crucial and a major challenge. CAN is also limited on the help we are able to give due to the lack of funds and volunteers that are available. Altogether, we have three audiences that we want to reach; clients, donors and volunteers. Reaching each of these groups will require tailored strategies specific to each of them.
The Client
Our first and foremost audience is our client. Communcating what we can and can’t do is extremely important. First of all, CAN is not a long term solution for its clients in most cases. CAN should be viewed as more of an emergency room agency that can respond quickly, but doesn’t have the resources to help longer term. We then connects the client in need to the people who can help them long term. In addition, CAN is a broker of knowledge that is extremely useful to people in need. Even if we cannot help out directly, we are committed to getting our clients in touch with any organization that can help them. Finally, CAN is limited to aiding those in the Grove City school district by our 501-C3 charter that allows us to remain tax free. CAN sometimes receive requests for aid from people within Mercer County or in other surrounding areas. We are not able to help them directly, but we are able to give clients information to help connect them with those who can help. We are also sometimes approached by people looking for help that CAN is not able to produce. In those instances, we are able to redirect their prospective clients to others who can better provide for their needs more effectively.
The Supporter
CAN’s chief job in financing is raising awareness in the community to people who are able to donate to CAN financially. At this time, most of our budget comes from churches in the area and other charities in the community such as United Way, which has given us a yearly grant of $20,000. This has been a huge boost to CAN’s finances, but there is still so much that can be done if we were able to receive more funds. It is especially important to CAN that we receive financial aid from individuals from the community, not just organization’s, because we are a community organization. Right now, we are reaching community supporters through talks at local churches, our new website, and even our facebook fan page. If you would like to receive updates from our ministry, please sign up for our e-mail list.
The Volunteer
The final group of people we want to reach is volunteers. Volunteers are the biggest demand that CAN is currently facing. The majority of the members of CAN are retirees, which gives us the unique ability to commit time flexibly to deal with cases. There is, however, a huge lack of youthful presence among the members; a gap that could potentially be filled as a greater knowledge of this service opportunity is spread among those who are invested in the Grove City community. Some of the work that CAN does would be ideal for younger adults because of the physical activity like building wheelchair ramps or cleaning out gutters. Caseworkers also need to have certain qualifications in order to be effective, such as knowledge of how to deal with financial issues and skills for dealing with people in distress and potentially traumatizing situations. This makes finding volunteers particularly difficult. CAN also faces another difficulty because it is a responding ministry. The volunteers’ time commitment or even when they are needed is uncertain; this makes it hard for volunteers to commit. Local involvement is essential and CAN is really trying to focus on spreading the word on the great work that they do. We are confident that if people really know what they do they would love to help.
Please Help CAN today in whatever capacity you are able to whether that is financially, physically through volunteering or spiritually through prayer. The Grove City school district area needs your Help!