Following the finalization of the Letter of Intent, the marketing committee began working diligently to come up with effective ways of getting the call for letters of intent out in the community. Our professor, Dr. Trull, said we should not worry because the word of a possible grant is to nonprofits what blood in the water is to sharks. Still, the marketing committee has come up with numerous approaches to ensure that the word gets out. Tyler, who is on the committee, interned with the United Way of Harrisonburg and Rockingham County and thus had contacts within the organization who could help out. They graciously agreed to send out our call for letters of intent in their newsletter, which goes out to about 35 local organizations. The marketing committee established a similar arrangement with the United Way of Greater Augusta and Alliance for Nonprofit Partnerships who both agreed to send out our call for letter of intent in their newsletters as well.
Another member of the committee, Spencer, writes for our university's newspaper, The Breeze. He is hoping that he can write an article about what our class is doing with the Learning by Giving Foundation so that JMU students can learn about it and hopefully inform any nonprofits that they are involved with about this exciting opportunity. Members of our social work department also volunteered to post about it on the JMU Social Work Facebook page for other members to see and take back to their agencies. The marketing committee reached out to the social work department's director of field to contact affiliated agencies about this opportunity as well.
By utilizing these many approaches, the marketing committee is hoping that plenty of local nonprofits will submit a letter of intent. Our class decided that February 14th would be the final deadline, however we have already received two letters! Although this means that no matter what we do have two organizations to whom money can be awarded, but we are hoping to have even more Letters of Intent by the deadline.