Powerful Stories – ISSofBC

Welcome back and happy holidays! We’ve been on somewhat of a hiatus with the Armada blog lately – many interesting internal developments on the horizon and new projects to share. In fact, why not hop over to ourlatest December updates post to check out a few?

Several months ago Armada principal Sean Stiller had the pleasure of catching up with ISSofBC mentoring connections outreach consultants Catherine Rana and Veronica Heringer. Over the past two years they’ve overseen the launch of Mentoring Connections, helped facilitate an internal rebranding, and continue to lead the way with a highly successful online marketing program. We had a chance to speak with them about their successes and experiences.

A bit of background:

Immigrant Services Society of BC (ISSofBC) was incorporated in 1972 as the first immigrant-serving agency in the province. Since that time, ISSofBC has grown to be the largest, multicultural, immigrant-serving agency in western Canada. The society provides a variety of services to Lower Mainland immigrant and refugee communities, and works with over 23,000 clients per year. ISSofBC has a volunteer Board of Directors, a paid staff of over 200 and over 600 active volunteers.

Mentoring Connections is an ISSofBC community initiative that brings together Vancouver-based professionals (mentors) and skilled immigrants (mentees) from the same professional area. The goal of our program is to ease the transition of skilled immigrants into the Canadian workforce with the help of an experienced mentor.

Tell me a bit about how social-media has helped shape what you’re doing at Mentoring Connections?

Although the mentoring connections program has only been around for just over 2 years, social media quickly became the most actively used tool within our marketing strategy, helping us build momentum internally and within the communities we serve. Catherine’s fundraising and corporate connections gave us a huge boost initially, although utilizing traditional contacts only tells half the story. As our resident social media expert, Veronica bridged the gap between our online and offline channels, identifying and reaching out to prospects through LinkedIn and later following through at events and networking functions. We’ve found that using social media as a first point of contact to establish brand recognition makes our face to face conversations far more successful.

GoVolunteer.ca has been equally beneficial as they’re already catering to a very active and interested audience. Likewise, Facebook advertising has given us the tools to reach the right people in real time at a very targeted level.

In general, social media is most effective for us as an awareness tool, rather than encouraging direct conversions. As prospective volunteers hear about us through different channels, they typically become more receptive to our program and to in-person conversations. For this reason much of our branding and communications activity is centered on making our message and name ubiquitous in the lower-mainland.

Tell me a bit about the rebranding process you undertook at ISSofBC?

Around the same time as our department launch 2 years ago, ISS made the decision to rebrand as ISSofBC with the aim of achieving better brand memorability and recognition. The in-house designer leading this process happened to be in our department at the time, so much of our initial marketing material set the standard for the rest of the organization. From a visual communications stand-point, we tried to promote a more vibrant image and communicate the professional value in volunteering through Mentoring Connections.

We also launched a series of highly successful radio and video spots shortly after to inform the general public about our services, share success stories, and reinforce the social media gains we were experiencing. Our video spots were especially successful online (see below) and garnered exposure at several local film festivals.

Where do you find most of your volunteers? What has worked well?

For the most part our volunteer base comes through a few channels. Usually in conjunction with community involvement mandates, corporate sponsors provide many of our mentoring volunteers. Unfortunately given the economic downturn, these programs have seen cut-backs and we’ve been forced to seek out new sources. Making use of social media tools such as linkedin and targeting professionals at events has helped us pick up the slack. On the flip-side, many immigrants who have benefited from our services in the past tend to make up our most committed, long-term volunteer base.

As a result of our rebranding and awareness campaign, we’ve found many Canadians are receptive to mentoring and volunteering with us. Many local professionals have told us how beneficial it’s been with respect to gaining insight into international markets and business practices, as well as helping connect with future colleagues and industry professionals.

Overall we’ve found Mentoring Connections naturally lends itself to a ‘snowball effect’—one individual or organization has a positive experience and word spreads fast in the business community.

What critical successful tactic can you share with others?

Through our rebranding process we’ve found messaging and story-telling to be hugely important. We’ve seen a lot of success by combining details on the tangible benefits of our volunteering program with personalized stories that emphasize the intangible value of volunteering (life-changing experiences, new friendships, etc). Ongoing story-telling through viral videos and testimonials on our blog have helped sustain this momentum and promote grass-roots involvement in our marketing efforts. In the first-month of including these stories and volunteer highlights to our blog, traffic to the ISSofBC site doubled.

Thanks for sharing your stories with us!

Our pleasure!