5 Entrepreneurial Tips To Start A Successful Community Program
Thanks to Fran Lytle of Brand Champs for this fantastic guest post!
OK...you’ve decided you want to volunteer. But where? We’ve all heard the advice...choose a cause that you’re passionate about and search for opportunities that match your skills. What should you do if you have an idea of how to serve your community, but it doesn’t currently exist? Tap into your entrepreneurial spirit, we all have it, and start a program to improve your community and the people who live there!
My husband, Bill, and I did just that. We live on Chincoteague Island in Virginia. It’s a beautiful island that’s known for its wild Chincoteague ponies and the annual pony swim. During the summer months, families visit to enjoy the pristine beach, fishing, crabbing and seeing the wild ponies.
During the annual pony swim, which takes place the last Wednesday of July, the Island has 30,000 or more visitors. However, our year-round population is only about 3,000 people.
Many residents are watermen or seasonal workers who at times experience food insecurity because of low wages. Additionally, the surrounding area is agricultural and has a migrant population that seasonally works on the farms. These hard workers also experience food insecurity. Another unique aspect of the Island is that there isn’t a senior center so the elderly don’t have a place to socialize which is important to reduce feelings of isolation and depression.
Bill and I thought these issues – food insecurity and loneliness – could be positively affected if we started a feeding program. So, last year we started Manna Café CI. Every Monday from 11am until 1pm, we serve a free hot lunch in the social hall of a church on the Island. This has expanded to delivering hot lunches to home bound residents, since there isn’t a Meals-on-Wheels program on the Island.
OK...we understood the needs. But then what? Bill and I are Behaviorists, Brand Strategists and co-founders of Brand Champs. So, we embraced 5 entrepreneurial tips to guide us as we started Manna Café CI. If you’re thinking about starting a community program, these tips will also help you.
We encourage you to think and act like an entrepreneur! You may not think of yourself as an entrepreneur, but everyone has a bit of entrepreneurial spirit in them otherwise you wouldn’t be able to accomplish the things you do in your daily life. Do you have a job? You have to consistently “brand” and sell yourself to your employer. Are you a parent that takes care of the kids? You have to develop scheduling and coping skills.
Think about your life and you’ll realize that you do have an entrepreneurial spirit. The key to successfully starting a community program is to consciously grow your entrepreneurial self by adapting thinking patterns and behaviors of successful entrepreneurs.
1. Be unassuming and humble. Successful entrepreneurs are effective at getting other people to help them, and people like to help those who don’t have huge egos.
2. Follow a plan. While you may not have every step outlined before you start your community program, it’s still important to have a general sense of your direction. Create an action plan, begin moving in that direction and fill in the blanks as you go along. This will keep you moving while you’re fine-tuning your program based upon the changing needs of your community. Bill and I did this for Manna Café CI, which led to the development of Manna Mobile, the lunch delivery program to the home bound.
3. Set 3 daily goals. But, in order to set daily goals, you need to have long-term goals in place first. These should be outlined in your plan. If you’ve set long-term goals, and know the direction you’re traveling in, use daily goals to keep you on track. By the way, you may have the same 3 goals every day...that’s OK.
4. Seek inspiration. Sometimes it’s just hard to see the forest through the trees, especially when you’re dealing with overcoming obstacles. It’s important to seek inspiration from people in your community and those who started, or are working, in, community programs outside your community.
5. Take action. If you want your community program to succeed, then it’s not enough to just plan...you need to take action and do it consistently. No matter how small the action might be, as long as you do it daily, and you don’t give up, success will eventually materialize. Consistently do a little bit to move towards your goals and your community program will positively impact your community. Don’t give up when you face resistance! Be determined.
Manna Café CI currently serves a free hot lunch to 350 – 400 people in the hall each week and delivers 40 lunches weekly to home bound people.
If you have any questions about starting a community program, please send me an email fran@mannacafeci.org. I’m happy to help.
Fran & Bill Lytle are the Co-founders & Directors of the non-profit feeding program Manna Café CI, Inc. in Chincoteague, Virginia and the brand strategy group Brand Champs.
