Non-profit

This weekend will mark the inaugural running of the Detroit-Windsor International Film Festival. As with many non-profit undertakings, organizing the festival has been an exercise in building a network of participants and contributors. Scott Dunham, the festival manager, provides the highlights of getting this year's festival together:

• From the beginning, the commitment was to develop the festival with "Detroit style" using resources from Michigan and Windsor. The organizing committee specifically ruled out using one of the canned approaches available for purchase so as to maximize the contribution from local Michigan groups.
• Significant contributions have come from two academic institutions whose missions coincide with the goals of the festival: Wayne State University and the College for Creative Studies.
• Windsor has provided an important link into the Canadian film industry and into the Toronto Film Festival, a major North American festival.
• While the festival has been a coalition effort, John Kelly's leadership as festival director has been the glue that holds it together.

As I indicated in my previous post, I had a unique classroom experience working with Google to develop a pay per click advertising campaign for Dawn Farm, a local non-profit organization.  I created actual online ads that connected people to Dawn Farm's website, and I was able to monitor the progress of my ads daily and develop successful optimization strategies.

My project's success came from learning how to identify the specific target market for each of my ads and creating ads that focused on what people in those target groups were searching for on the internet.   I learned that by using strong, catchy headlines and descriptive words in the ad text, I was able to make my ads stand out and grab my target audience's attention.  I also learned that by keeping my ads focused on a very specific product, my target audience was more likely to click on my ad and become potential customers. 

As I learned to optimize my ads, the quality score of the ads increased.  This increase in quality score further improved ad visibility by causing the ads to be positioned at the top of the search page.  The project required a lot of work and attention to detail.  From my hard work came a lot of valuable knowledge and experience.  At the end of my experience, I was rewarded with the ultimate measure of success, my ads obtained a clickthrough rate comparable to that of a highly successful commercial ad.   

Last semester, I participated in an innovative partnership between Google and Eastern Michigan University where my classmates and I developed Google Adwords campaigns for several local non-profit organizations. This is the first segment of a case study I have prepared about the challenges we faced and overcame as part of this experience.

My team had the pleasure of working with an Ypsilanti-based organization called Dawn Farm.  Dawn Farm works to assist alcohol and drug addicts obtain long-term recovery. This first case study segment that I'm presenting here provides an overview of the initial challenges we faced in managing this account.  New to the world of pay-per-click advertising, my classmates and I went through the growing pains of learning how to effectively market a company over the internet.  We found that trial and error, actively monitoring our progress, and good communication with our organization were all key to our Google Adwords success.

We were able to establish a strong working relationship with Jason Schwartz, the Clinical Director of Dawn Farm.  This relationship was one of the key elements that helped us figure out an effective strategy for Dawn Farm. Jason provided us with valuable insight regarding Dawn Farm's clients and the advertising needs of the Dawn Farm organization.  As my classmates and I worked dilligently at fine tuning the online ads we created for Dawn Farm, we observed how our efforts caused a significant growth in the amount of traffic that Dawn Farm's website received.  By the end of the semester, it was obvious that our efforts had paid off.  Jason Schwartz reported that the amount of traffic on Dawn Farm's website increased over 60%, and Dawn Farm noticed a growth in the amount of applicants.

Currently I am still maintaining Dawn Farm's Google Adwords account and am also a reporter in Michigan Innovators' bullpen section. In future segments, I will focus on how we brought Dawn Farm's Google Adwords campaign on par with high performing commercial accounts.

Anan Ameri, director of the Arab American National Museum, lived in Jerusalem, Jordan, and Lebanon before coming to the Detroit area. Highlights from this segment include:

• Anan obtained her doctorate from Wayne State University and briefly taught at the university level.
• Anan decided she was most comfortable doing community work. This work involves harnessing networks of people to get to a common goal.
• She views the establishment of the Arab American National Museum as the crowning acheivement of her career.
• In the near term, she is looking to expand the current location's square footage. She would also like for more traveling exhibits to originate from the current museum.
• Ultimately, she sees no reason there could not be multiple, affiliated Arab American National Museums established around the country.