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Welcome to my portfolio. This is where I document my marketing adventures and learning experiences. Hope to connect soon!
The following reports were drafted as an assignment for a Social Entrepreneurship course entitled, Cases in Feasibility Analysis. The assignment was meant to determine potential trade offs between mission and revenue generation for social enterprises.
Girls On The Run
Girls On The Run (GOTR) is a non-profit organization (501c3) that began in Charlotte, North Carolina and is now a nationwide company. The organization focuses on teaching girls social, emotional and behavioral skills and strategies that are transferable to real life situations.
In the study of mission based social enterprises, such as GOTR, it is important to understand the actual and potential trade-offs between social and financial missions. In an actual operational setting, it is ethically optimal for all stakeholders involved with an organization to the utilize clear insight and moral judgement required to operate within the boundaries of the organization’s social mission. GOTR teaches life skills charged with the following mission: “To inspire girls to be joyful, healthy and confident using a fun, experience-based curriculum which creatively integrates running”. This mission statement is inherently tied to the organization’s vision statement which envisions the possibility of girls everywhere understanding and accessing their limitless potential and boldly pursuing their dreams. The stakeholders for GOTR are staff, community (schools and volunteers), participating girls, program coaches, and sponsors.
On an annual basis, GOTR makes an effort to fund operation, while delivering and scaling successful programs. The organization’s mission/vision at the forefront of both its marketing and its programming. The organization’s primary focuses on programs for girls in grades 3-8. The programs are split up into groups by regions or neighborhoods and are referred to as “councils”. The organization consists of over 200 councils in all 50 states and the District of Columbia.
Revenue is primarily generated by GOTR through its stakeholders. Each council pays an initiation fee. Coaches pay their individual fees for their training and background checks. Participating girls are offered programming on a sliding scale of $25-$150, with scholarships offered depending on need. Additional revenue is generated from merchandise sales and advertising.
With a mission to help girls everywhere access limitless potential and boldly pursue their dreams, a trade-off between this mission and financial sustainability is apparent in the organization program fees and program accessibility:
Program Fees
Participating may currently attend on a sliding scale of $25-$150, with scholarships offered depending on need. In an attempt to heir towards its social mission, the organization could offer lower fees (less than $25) in low income communities. In addition, if the organization found a need to generate additional revenue and heir on the side of financial stability, future scholarships could decrease and the sliding scale could become narrower.
Volunteers who offer their time as race volunteers or Running Buddies are currently charged administrative fees for applications. Fees may deter volunteers who cannot afford to pay. Deterring potential volunteers ultimately limits the diversity of the organizations programming. Aligning with its social mission, GOTR could pay the necessary administrative fees for volunteers and possibly widen the volunteer demographic to include more socioeconomic diversity.
Financial Accessibility
New Councils are charged an initial fee of $7,500, Poorer regions and neighborhoods may not be able to afford to open a council. The possibility of reaching “girls everywhere” will not be actualized if large fees attached are required to start the program. If not already doing so, the organization should offer a subsidy to this initiation fee when needed, in order to stay in alignment with its mission.
Kripalu Center for Yoga and Health
Kripalu Center for Yoga and Health is a non-profit, located in Stockbridge Massachusetts, has served the community with yoga programs for over 40 years without reliance on outside funding to support its operations. Kripalu is the largest yoga center in North America and at inception, began as a yoga ashram. It has since grown into a large retreat serving a multitude of wellness sectors through a large variety of programs. The organization sustains operations through revenue generated from wellness programs, therapeutic treatments and retail sales. In its most recent financial report, Kripalu listed its Total Revenue as $33,798, 223. 80% of this revenue is brought in by programs such as retreats, education, and seminars- totaling $26,724014. An additional 13% of the organization’s revenue comes from holistic therapies and sales revenue- totaling $4,524,722.
Well known program oriented organizations can often be faced with unique challenges when it comes to navigating the nuanced tradeoffs between social and financial missions. Kripalu’s mission is stated as a mission “to empower people and communities to realize their full potential through the transformative wisdom and practice of yoga”.
In pursing both financial sustainability and social mission, Kripalu’s most apparent tradeoffs are found in its super-sized offerings of revenue generating programs, services, and retail items while attempting to maintain its original mission of empowering communities through yoga.
Program Trade Offs- Transitioning to more popular programs
Over the past decade, Kripalu’s programs have moved further away from yoga centered programs to a model that focuses on a more equal blend of wellness disciplines. This trade off allows the organization to appeal to a broader clientele.
Scheduled yoga programs are generally outnumbered by other wellness courses. Non yoga related programs are often led by popular wellness gurus and best-selling authors in order to appeal to a large customer base.
In leaning towards financial mission, increased revenue may come at the expense of neglecting the organization’s yoga focused mission. Expanded program topics of interests now include, spiritual practice, personal growth, and creativity. In marketing materials, Yoga programs are now often listed last after, “Ayurveda, nutrition, fitness, personal growth, relationships, meditation, spiritual practice, professional training”.
Kripalu’s residential training program have also expanded to include a variety of disciplines beyond yoga, such as Reiki, JourneyDance, and Positive Psychology.
Sales Revenue and Pricing
Kripalu now generates 13% of its total income through therapeutic treatments and retail sales. These services and retail items are more often quite expensive and unrelated to yoga.
Best Selling wellness books of all disciples are sold in the Kripalu store. Wellness retreats are often coupled with the retreat leaders book launchings and signings allowing the store to generate additional revenue. These launchings may distract from the organizations yoga programming.
Kripalu now offers a large variety of healing bodywork treatments such as Massage, Reiki, Integrated Energy Therapy®, craniosacral therapy and more.
The Kripalu Training School now focuses equally on coordinating and marketing bodywork trainings and various wellness techniques in order to generate additional revenue.
High costs of programs, services, and merchandise also conflict with the organization’s overall mission. While Kripalu trained teachers often choose to teach to needier population, the retreat itself is mostly accessible to affluent students with significant disposable income.