SCRIPT FOR COLD-CALLING POTENTIAL AGENCY PARTNERS

Tips from our experience:

1)  Get online and see if you can find the name of the agency’s Development Director and either call them or email them. The person who answers the phone for the agency may not have the patience or expertise to get you to the right person and may be skeptical about what feels like a “sales call.”

2)  If you email – use the sample email below.

3)  If you’d rather call, say something like: “Hi (name). I’m with an agency that creates children’s playrooms for homeless children*. We have a donor who is wanting to fund a playroom at your agency, and they’ve asked me to check with you and see if you’d be interested. This would not be any cost to your agency – it’s really a free playroom that we design and the donor pays for. Is that something you guys might be interested in doing with us, and are you the right person to start with?”

*use “children in crisis” instead of “homeless children” if the agency does not serve homeless children.

4)  If they seem interested, you can use the email below to share a little bit about how Bright Spaces® work.

5)  NOTE – Do not read the email below word-for-word when you get started on the phone call. It’s too wordy for the initial call, but it is great as an introductory email when you’re trying to get everything included in one message.

Sample email for emailing rather than calling:

Dear Tom -

We have a donor in New York City who is very interested in creating a Bright Space® playroom for children in need at a nonprofit organization in Manhattan. Bright Spaces are magical playrooms where children who are homeless or experiencing other crisis situations can play, grow, and develop. I was given your name by {name}, who thought you might be interested in receiving this Bright Space playroom. There would be no cost to your organization – the playroom will be fully funded by our donor. Really!

To create Bright Spaces, we partner with nonprofit organizations all over the country to create children’s playrooms in homeless shelters, domestic violence programs, or other organizations that serve children in crisis. Because we already have a donor, this Bright Space would not cost your organization anything. We design the playroom, we provide the volunteers to do that design and to set up the room, and we pay for all the equipment and toys. We only ask that you partner with us to share your expertise about the children you serve, allow us to renovate a room in your agency that could serve as a playroom, and commit to provide appropriate supervision in the Bright Space after it’s open so that the children that you care for can continue to play in the room. We can talk further about all these details if you are interested.

For more information on the Bright Spaces program, please visit us at www.brighthorizonsfoundation.org/what-we-do/bright-spaces/. We currently have more than 270 Bright Spaces open around the country, including several in the NYC area at agencies such as Abyssinian House, Providence House in Brooklyn, Rose Kennedy Shelter, and others.

Please let me know ASAP if you are interested in talking further. Thanks very much!

{your name}

{your title}

{phone and email}

And here’s the Development Director’s response – fairly typical if you can get to the right person:

Dear {your name}
This is amazing ... thank you so much for thinking of Covenant House with this wonderful project. I am checking with our NY program to see if we have space in either our crisis shelter on {address}. or our Mother/Child program on {address} and will be back to you asap. I think this would be an incredible gift to our kids and I look forward to working with you. Thank you again so much Karin, and thank you {name} for your continued support for our kids!
Sincerely,
Tom

Revised Feb. 2013