A blueprint for charitable giving: corporate donations, community relations and marketing are all more efficient when you integrate them as part of a unified strategic plan.

We all know this truism: Effective community relations and charitable-giving programs can boost both your image and your business. But some banks fail to recognize how important it is to integrate these programs with other marketing activities.

In this article, I will explain the process for creating a strategic plan that brings together all three dements: community relations, charitable giving and marketing.

In brief, the process works like this: First, identify the issues that provide the most benefit and value to your organization. Commit to these issues and develop a suitable budget. Second, develop a decision-making process to review all incoming requests for support. The process will enable you to make decisions in light of your institution's goals. Third, gauge what sort of reaction you hope to obtain from your actions (i.e. increased publicity with the local media, attendance at sponsored events). Fourth, measure and evaluate each donation or community-relations event, and match this against your expectations. How well you score on this measurement determines your rate of success.

These four parts to the process are expressed by the acronym C.A.R.E. This stands for:

C: Commitment

A: Alignment

R: Reaction

E: Evaluation

Let's look at each of these aspects in greater detail.

Commitment

Community relations consists of a bank's planned, current and future participation with and within its community in hopes of maintaining and enhancing its environment in order to benefit both the bank and the community. Often, community relations is viewed only as a "courtesy" performed outside of the other activities executed to advance the bank's growth. This is a limited perspective.

As you plan a campaign, list the specific goals you want accomplished, but make sure they're reasonable. Having your plan mapped out keeps you focused and provides for easier tracking of results. To help with this, chart your planned activities for the year on a grid, with the months of the year providing the "X" axis and the activity planned being the "Y" axis. Then, add extra columns behind each activity that can be checked off once the activity is completed. This is a simple way to keep track of where you stand from month to month, and provides an easy reporting and measurement tool.

A properly executed community-relations plan should provide both the bank and community with tangible results, not simply "nice feelings" about your organization. But maintain consistency--don't put all your efforts into one six-month period and then neglect community relations for the remainder of the year. Maintain a manageable level consistently year-to-year.

A bank's charitable giving should buttress its community-relations efforts. When operating separate from each other, they are not nearly as effective. Community relations should work to get your bank's message out to the community, establishing it as a responsible corporate citizen and neighbor, and charitable giving should show support for issues that exist beyond the walls of your building. In backing local causes, your institution establishes itself as one that has a vested interest in the community--a bank that is about more than making money. Charitable giving is actionable, effective and a win-win for your institution and the cause that it is supporting.

Alignment

You've committed to a community-relations and corporate-giving program, now identify the "best fits" to receive your bank's support. Begin with areas that are important to your institution, its leadership and employees. Also, it's best if the causes you select align with your corporate culture. Some examples are education, health-related causes, economic development or even the arts. Charitable donations should reflect the values of the institution as a whole--not just be a random cause to "throw money at." Craft a mission statement that says why you choose to support certain areas so everyone can get behind the causes. A mission statement also provides a major point of reference as your program moves into the future.

I've included a form (see page 34) that will help get you started and allow your bank to extract the most beneficial information from the charities, etc., that it is considering sponsoring, including the various types of support these organizations are seeking to receive (i.e. volunteer hours, supplies, financial support, etc.). This tool will assist your bank in obtaining the knowledge it needs for proper evaluation. For some banks, it might be appropriate to form a committee and/or a foundation with a board of directors to review these requests.

These are great techniques to add much-needed structure to the process. Some might argue that forms and committees make the process too cumbersome to be efficient and effective. But this systematic and objective approach is helpful for evaluation of your prospective community partners.

Reaction

You've carefully chosen your community relations and charitable giving path, now it's lime to get the word out and appropriately promote your efforts: not only in the community, but also with your employees, board members and the local media.

Several toots exist for use when promoting your company's activities, including:

* Press release: Craft releases for all special events taking place, as well as to announce new initiatives. Make them clear and concise, and easy for the media to pick up and use.

* Internet presence: If your bank is serious about its commitment to community relations and charitable giving, you might consider dedicating at least one page on the institution's website outlining that commitment. This location also provides an avenue to post press releases and photos of bank involvement at events.

* Special events: In some cases, opportunities will present themselves to banks supporting local events and charities. These grab attention and provide your company with an avenue to talk at greater length with the media about your commitment to a cause.

* TV opportunities. Especially in conjunction with special events, it's important to pitch the television media on your efforts. Send out a media alert to appropriate TV news producers for increased coverage at the event, and secure event organizers for interviews leading up to the occasion.

* Award nominations. It is not uncommon for communities to reward business leaders for philanthropic deeds. Seek out awards and pursue such honors. The organization sponsoring the award will likely seek out media coverage on its own. This action, in combination with your organization's efforts, is likely to garner media interest.

* Feature stories (print): Whether a charity is local or national, it will likely have its own story. For example, if your institution has chosen to sponsor leukemia research, customers will likely want to know why. Tell people why this particular cause is meaningful to the bank. Knowing an institution put thought into finding the right charity/organization illustrates to the public that the bank is serious about its efforts.

* Public-speaking opportunities: Organizations often hold banquets or award ceremonies, host activities during local half-time shows and have spokespeople on local talk shows. Offering to participate could help increase your visibility immensely.

* Direct mail: This medium offers a "direct communication impression" on your targeted audiences and allows you to talk in an unedited fashion to your community about the good work you support.

Evaluation

It's important to evaluate continually the success of your program. Since you've taken the time to identify clear goals and an activities schedule, you should be able, fairly easily, to gauge success relative to your goals.

First, and as mentioned earlier, track the activities you had planned, versus what actually occurred. Track attendance at events held in conjunction with your partner causes. Monitor the media outlets you are targeting to determine levels of press coverage. Consider conducting an annual market research study to determine community perceptions and shifts with respect to your bank's image. This is particularly important if you am attempting to turn around a corporate image problem. Also, perform an internal review of your employees to measure their satisfaction levels and allow them to provide you with any additional input they might have that could improve upon your community relations efforts.

Determining what's right

Remember, you don't have to handle all these things by yourself. If the process sounds like too much time and effort, you can always hire a public relations professional to help you plan and implement your community relations and corporate-giving programs. There is much work to be done, especially at the start-up stage, and many details to consider throughout each campaign year.

If you haven't employed these tactics already, or are looking to enhance your current marketing and/or public relations campaigns, use the information presented here as a framework for more strategically planned community relations and charitable giving. After all, a solid community relations program leads to a solid community. And a solid community provides the foundation for a bank's healthy bottom line.

Michelle Love-Johnson is vice president and director of public relations for Seroka & Associates, a marketing communications agency that specializes in the finance and healthcare industries. The company is based in Waukesha, Wisc. Telephone: [phone], e-mail: [e-mail]