NO MARGIN, NO MISSION™ CLIENT SPOTLIGHT:
Hartford-Based CCAR Launches The Recovery Store™ to Sell Products and Services Online
Phil Valentine, An Entrepreneurial Leader
We met Phil Valentine, Executive Director of Connecticut Community for Addiction Recovery, at one of No Margin, No Mission’s Earned Income trainings last fall in Detroit. Phil was part of a group of esteemed leaders from the nationwide Recovery community who participated in our lively session to discuss entrepreneurial revenue generation for nonprofits.
Growing Margin and Mission With An Earned Income Business Plan
Phil was sufficiently impressed with our work helping nonprofits diversify revenue through entrepreneurial practices, that he decided to hire us. With the help of CCAR’s Director of Recovery Services, Cheryle Pacapelli, we quickly got to work developing an earned income business strategy for the organization.
It was clear from the beginning of our work with CCAR that they were interested in leveraging some of their existing product and service offerings which were already generating margin and mission for the organization. The goal was to triple those contributions during the next two years through development of a business strategy.
Leveraging Market Need and Demand
Fortunately for CCAR, there was substantial market need and demand for their popular and highly sought-after Recovery Coach Academy, an intensive 5-day training for those interested in becoming a recovery coach. Each week, the team would receive several telephone and email inquiries from prospects across the country who were interested in purchasing the offering.
With opportunities to expand their presence far beyond Connecticut and the Northeastern region of the United States where the RCA was currently being sold, there was tremendous potential for margin and mission growth.
Creating A One-Stop Virtual Shopping Marketplace
As the business planning process got underway, it became apparent that with CCAR’s limited staff, the organization would need to find a way to market and sell its trainings and other offerings as efficiently and effectively as possible. The idea of a virtual retail marketplace where clients could easily browse and shop for all the highly specialized and hard-to-find Recovery offerings in one place was exactly what was needed. That’s when The Recovery Store™ was born, CCAR’s online retail emporium filled with inspiring books and videos, recovery resources, trainings, merchandise, event tickets, and registration for trainings.
Aggressively working to “build” The Recovery Store’s virtual structure, everything came together quickly, including the merchandise selection, pricing, Web site development, e-commerce platform, distribution and fulfillment strategy, promotion plan, and much more. With everything in place on time and on budget, The Recovery Store was officially launched in April 2012!
The Recovery Store™ “Opens its Doors”
With only 2 months since its “grand opening”, The Recovery Store has been a huge success. Traffic to the Web site and product sales have far exceeded the team’s original projections, and it appears the pattern will continue given the strong need and demand that exists for The Recovery Store’s wide range of exclusive offerings. Already, orders have been taken and fulfilled for CCAR’s popular Recovery Coach Academy, books, DVD’s, and merchandise from clients in fifteen states, including NY, WA, CT, MD, MA, TX, VT, OH, CA, AZ, RI, AL, IL, NJ, and KY.
According to CCAR’s leader Phil Valentine, “The Recovery Store has given CCAR the opportunity to market and sell a wide array of offerings targeted to the Recovery community that extends far beyond Connecticut. By selling our products and services nationally, we’re extending our mission and generating a financial return at the same time.”
Said CCAR’s key staffer, Cheryle Pacapelli, about working with No Margin, No Mission, “The experience has had a profound impact on CCAR. The work we were able to accomplish in just four months would have taken us much longer to complete and would not have been as strategic or well planned. No Margin, No Mission is highly experienced with great insights on how to help move your margin and mission forward.”
ABOUT NO MARGIN, NO MISSION™
No Margin, No Mission™ is a social enterprise and national consulting practice that focuses largely on working with nonprofits (and the funders that support them) to identify opportunities to diversify revenue through earned income strategies, innovation, and entrepreneurial business practices. We help organizations all over the country with a social or environmental mission find ways to expand their margin so they’re better able to achieve their mission.
Our belief is that most nonprofits have created assets of value that can be sold to other stakeholders to help generate financial resources for their organization — which could include anything from curriculum, trainings, keynote speaking engagements, consulting, and a whole host of other offerings.
In the end, our goal is to help nonprofits gain some financial stability and independence by reducing their dependence on grants and donations, particularly as the challenging economic environment of recent years has left so many organizations unable to expand, grow, thrive, or even survive.
To learn more about how No Margin, No Mission works with clients to plan, train, speak, and implement, visit us at www.NoMarginNoMission.org or check us out on Facebook. |