Catherine Van Alstine is business-savvy and socially-minded. A senior partner of the executive recruiting firm Odgers Berndtson, she has found a way to use her 25+ years of experience to benefit charity.

A Social Entrepreneur, she's using the business concepts of viral marketing, B2B  strategic alliances, and mentorship to create a new charity, Women United In Philanthropy (WUIP), under the umbrella of The United Way.

About two years ago, the United Way approached Catherine and asked her to create an initiative that would get women interested in the United Way at a younger age, and make it attractive to a broader range of people because, they said, their current donor base was aging, and women, in general, have not been as involved in philanthropy as men.

The United Way already had a charity in the US called Women United in Philanthropy that raised money through exclusive, member-based organizations aimed at "wealthy women," Catherine says. While she liked the name, she didn't like the model.

MARKET RESEARCH

To find out what type of model would work best in Canada, she held focus groups and brought together a cross-section of women for a series of lunches. The meetings included young women, grandmothers, people who were just entering their careers, professional women and students.

These women all said the same things: you need something that has a strong focus that all women can be involved with; it has to be inclusive; it should promote women getting together because we’re so busy with family, careers, studying, etc. that we rarely get to socialize.

Catherine formed a committee and they brainstormed ways to fulfill these requirements.

TARGET MARKET

Catherine equates setting up a charitable organization with starting a small business. You need to find out who your target market is, and figure out how to get a share of that market. How can they make their product (the charity) appealing?

“How do we make this a sustainable business model?” asks Catherine. “How do we make this work? What do women want, and what do we need to do to make this a successful endeavour?”

CREATING A PRODUCT TO SELL

Like business, a charity needs a product to sell. The real product of any charity is the idea: what are they raising money for?

The committee realized women of all ages (and men too) are interested in the welfare of children. With so many child-centred charities already in existence, they needed a unique selling point. Through research, they discovered that 1/3 of children in BC are not ready to enter school, so are already behind on their first day of class.

“If you’re marginalized on day one, then the chances of reaching your potential is very poor,” says Catherine. “Our goal is to raise money so every child has access to programs to help them be ready for school.”

The business community also has a strong reason to be involved. Catherine says if we don't do something now, "we’re going to be short 500,000 workers in BC by 2020.”

Now that they had a target market (socially minded women who want to be involved in making things happen) and a product (help children be school-ready), they needed to come up with a plan. They decided to implement their plan in three-stages:

• Year one: start out at the grassroots level and work on viral marketing
• Year two: get the businesscommunity involved with strategic alliances
• Year three: take it to the high schools

VIRAL MARKETING: Year 1

They held a “Kick up your heels for Kids” campaign last year, where women were asked to host an event of their choice – a dinner, fashion show, movie and popcorn night, or any other type of even they could think of – and invite attendees to donate money to Women United In Philanthropy (Canada).

To help make this viral, they plan to ask each attendee this year, and following years, to host their own event as well, so WUIP can reach more people. Even three people attend an event, and they in turn host an event, the campaign would “expand exponentially,” says Catherine.

Some information that came out of the focus groups is that women, in general, do not like to be competitive, and they are concerned about how they are perceived by their friends. As a direct result of this feedback, the campaign committee added envelopes to the event packages so  attendees could donate any amount they wished, without scrutiny.

STRATEGIC ALLIANCES: Year 2

This year, in addition to continuing the grassroots campaign, they're going into the business community to try to find ways of forming strategic alliances. For example, one store hosted a "Sex In the City"-themed party and raised $25,000 for WUIP.

In return, WUIP promotes the store events, which encourages people to shop at those stores, for a win-win-win situation: the women feel good being part of ‘a movement,’ knowing at least part of their money is going to charity; the store gets to introduce itself to new customers; and WUIP gets donations. Catherine says they’re also approaching small businesses owners to find out in what ways they can work together.

SCHOOLS: Year 3

Next year, WUIP plans to visit high schools and give talks to encourage high school students to get involved as well. The students might start WUIP clubs in their school, or host their own events to raise money. Catherine envisions a day when girls get involved in WUIP as young as Junior High School, continue through secondary, and when they  graduate to Post-Secondary, there will be WUIP chapters already in place at whatever university they choose to attend.