Talking Points

Inspiring Safeway Employees to Embrace Fundraising Promotion

As many of you have probably experienced, the best fund raisers are the people who are the most energetic and invested in Special Olympics. This is true of corporate employees that solicit donations for a cause as well. We want to help you engage and energize the Safeway employees in your communities as much as you are able. Below, we’ve created some talking points or communication messages you can use with Safeway management in discussing whether you may visit their stores to help energize or even just educate employees.

We recognize that you may not have the time to engage in this level of relationship-building with all or even most Safeway stores in your market. However, you may wish to consider targeting the Safeway stores that had the greatest amount of traffic or raised the most funds during the 2010 promotion.

Thank you for all you are doing to make the 2011Safeway campaign a success!

Talking Points or Messages to Include in Letter or Email Communication:

Special Olympics (Program) recognizes the amazing commitment to people with disabilities that Safeway and its employees have made over the last 20 years and we are honored to be part of the campaign again, in this, our fourth year.

To celebrate our partnership and to introduce our mission and our movement to your employees, we would appreciate the opportunity to come into your store to thank your employees in person and talk to them about Special Olympics, particularly in case they get any questions from consumers during the April promotion. In addition, as you may know, we have many opportunities for volunteerism. We would also appreciate the opportunity to talk to your employees about Special Olympics and hopefully encourage employees to consider being part of the Special Olympics experience as a volunteer, such as at our very popular Summer Games, taking place on (TBD Program Games), 2011.

We could help you prepare your employees for this year’s fundraising campaign by:

  • Explaining what Special Olympics is and what it is that we do
  • Explaining why Special Olympics is part of this year’s campaign
  • Explaining why Safeway supports Special Olympics
  • Soliciting the donation from consumers in as comfortable a way as possible

Additionally, we’d like to help you not only train employees to implement the promotion but to galvanize employees to reach for the stars! In our experience, the most successful employees are the most energized and knowledgeable about their nonprofit partners.

That’s what we can deliver to your employees: energy, enthusiasm and the Special Olympics experience! We can help you: (share with them the tactics your Program could deliver)

  • Promote the fundraising goal for each store in the region through visuals to showcase on store walls or in employee break rooms
  • Engage friendly competition: we’ll help you engage ongoing competition throughout the month as well as identify special prizes we can provide for the top-fundraising stores
  • Bring an athlete to speak at each District Managers Meeting
  • Bring an athlete to meet-and-greet with employees at high-traffic Safeway stores
  • At the manager’s meeting, hand out a DVD*for each manager to play in their break room for their store employees to introduce them to Special Olympics (for those stores we cannot personally visit)

* Only if your Program has a DVD or YouTube video that you’ve used to create excitement or share the Special Olympics experience

(For closing remarks in a written communication)

We will contact you in the coming weeks to discuss how Special Olympics (Program) can help make this year’s campaign an overwhelming success and to thank you and your employees personally for allowing us to be part of the partnership.

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