Country: United States

Organization: Conscious Alliance

3) Strategy Summary:
Our strategy involves using special event artwork as an incentive for patrons attending concerts and athletic events to donate food for people in need both locally and nationally. Our methods are simple. At every participating event, Conscious Alliance volunteers give away free commemorative posters (donated by artists across the country) to attendees that donate 10 or more non- perishable food items. Commemorative posters are also readily available onsite in highly visible areas such as Conscious Alliance (CA) Food Donation Bins, the CA Educational Booth or at the venue s Merchandise Counter in exchange for a $10 donation.

Approximately 50% of all food donations go directly to local food banks in the areas in which the event occurs and, whenever possible, the other 50% is delivered and distributed to impoverished American Indian Reservations throughout the greater western United States. All monetary donations go directly towards covering the overhead costs of food delivery and distribution. Any surplus of funds goes towards the purchase of much needed food.

Conscious Alliance collaborates with venue, band and team managers to maximize public awareness through existing advertising and public relations campaign efforts.

4) How the Strategy Works:
Step 1. Identify top performers, scaleable businesses and create MicroFranchise prototypes.
We have located 25 of the top performers among our 626 graduates. Under a locally-driven program entitled AMP (Accelerate and Magnify Performers), we are designing individual programs in concert with the MicroEnterprise owners to increase mentoring, inventory loans and operational help. About 24 of our graduates currently own Cellular City franchises. We have also found four models for which we will develop MicroFranchise operations manuals. This year we plan to launch two MicroFranchises. They will be ink cartridge refilling retail locations as well as small in-house bakeshops. We also will work on a HP Village Photographer model and replicating an iodized salt business. The salt business currently operates in two Philippine provinces. We will help him develop a franchise format which will allow him to go regional and perhaps nationwide.

Step 2. Develop due diligence documents to research and prove the model and sustainability and scalability of the business. Our Filipino director, Tony San Gabriel, has already developed a 20-page due diligence report on the ink cartridge refilling business. He will now develop and publish a document that will be used to help our own foundation as well as others decide which businesses can most easily and most profitably be replicated. Profitability of the MicroEnterprise as well as easiness of replication are two huge factors in deciding which ventures to MicroFranchise.

Step 3. Work with International Franchise Associations, universities and large foundations to reach, document, fund, and mentor and publish materials on MicroFranchising.

MicroFranchising will only work if we use the expertise of others to help us develop documents which will enable us to produce a business franchise format which includes procedure and operational manuals. We have already made contact with two Franchise development groups, one which is for "homegrown, indigenous" franchises. The vice president, who owns 54 small franchise operations, has agreed to help up in our citizen based strategy. We are also working with local business people who are respected in the Philippines. One imports motorcycles from China; the other has a smoothie business with 49 small kiosks.

We have had graduate researchers from both the UCLA and BYU travel to the Philippines to study the MicroFranchise concept.

We hope to attract additional funding from the International Franchise Association and the International Franchise Society who will have an interest in this project in order to distribute to people at the bottom of the pyramid.

Step 4. Participate in conferences to learn and spread the idea of replicating through MicroFranchising. Last year at the 7th annual BYU MicroEnterprise conference, the Academy sponsored a MicroFranchising session. As a result of that popular session, we will this year develop seven sessions on MicroFranchising. Tony San Gabriel, Managing Director of Philippine Academy will present. Others will be from the NGO, franchising, and private industry. We believe this will spread the word on the feasibility of this citizen based strategy. Pioneers in MicroCredit including Sam Daley-Harris and John Hatch will present. We believe many will become advocates and replicators of MicroFranchising.

Step 5. Publish materials and offer them to other NGOs and foundations. At the conference, we will distribute Vol. 4 of "Where There Are No Jobs." This volume is being produced by Jason Fairbourne and BYU undergraduate students. It will contain 2 page synopses of 50 replicatible businesses. It will also contain a due diligence document and more detailed documentation on 10 MicroFranchisable businesses. We hope to include materials from Scojo Foundation, the reading glass social entrepreneurs, materials from HP Village Photographers, our Cellular City franchises, Kenya Pharmacies, TropicSno with its 1,500 dealers in 30 countries and others. This fourth volume of "Where There Are No Jobs" will later be available to NGOs. We plan to also present at the MicroCredit Summit in 2006.

Step 6. Start replicating businesses throughout Philippines. We will continue to replicate our MicroFranchise Opportunities (MFOs) to our 626 graduates. Plus we will introduce the advantages of MicroFranchising to our 125 new students this year.

Step 7. Continue to introduce the concept to the world leaders of MicroCredit organizations.
I believe that the MicroFranchise concept is sound enough to be a new tool for MicroCredit organizations to: 1. Provide additional client services. 2. Appeal to donors suffering from donor fatigue. 3. Provide a profit opportunity for the NGOs who can become the franchisor for a number of high potential MicroEnterprises that they already have, but haven't discovered yet among their borrowers. 4. Provide more business training for their borrowers. MicroFranchising can be a worldwide movement.

5) Key Strategy Elements:

i. Mobilizing Citizen Support:
Everyone involved in our food drive effort will come out with a smile. The artists who donate artwork for the poster incentive receive exposure to, potentially, thousands of people. The band, festival or athletic team will receive great publicity for sponsoring a charitable event, which required little or no costs to their establishment. The food bank will receive significant food donations from a special event which required minimal efforts from their organization, and thus little or no strain on their resources, both human and financial. Patrons who participated in the food drive not only go home with a good feeling knowing they contributed positively to the fight against hunger in their community, but they also go home with a beautiful gift of artwork, a special reminder of how they gave back to their community.

ii. Generating Financial and Nonfinancial Resources:
One of our greatest resources is the donated artwork. We have brought together a community of generous artists who continue to support our work on an ongoing basis. By providing poster art in exchange for a donation of 10 non- perishable food items, we also create the sense of a much desired item. For folks who were unable to contribute food, we offer them the opportunity to receive the greatly desired artwork in exchange for a $10 monetary contribution. Every event we have organized in the past has paid for itself from the poster sales alone. To further aid us in our mission, however, we continue to solicit in-kind donations for every event. We write letters requesting in-kind donations for a multitude of administrative and operational expenses, such as, truck rentals, poster paper and printing, hotel rooms, advertising, etc. More often than not, if vendors cannot afford an in-kind donation, they offer us a non-profit discount rate.

iii. Establishing Relationships with Strategic Partnerships:
Working with various bands and music festival has established the Conscious Alliance as an industry-wide non- profit. Striving to maintain these important relations, we currently work with more than a dozen bands and seven music festivals per year. We are currently embarking on a one- year long project with a Clear Channel venue, the Fillmore Auditorium in Denver, Colorado in an effort to create a template of how our food drives can be run at Clear Channel venues across the United States. We are also providing an outlet for tax-deductible in-kind donations. In exchange, we are currently receiving thousands of Cliffbars, boxes of Telsi Tea, and bars of Pangea Organics soap directly from these companies which we then distribute to local food banks or Indian Reservations. The majority of corporate donations we receive, however, are distributed to Indian Reservations across the greater western United States.

iv. Engaging and Managing Volunteers:
At a typical food drive event we have at least one trained Conscious Alliance volunteer coordinating the volunteer efforts of community members and volunteers from the local food banks we serve. Many of our volunteers come to us through word of mouth and our public awareness efforts. One of the benefits of volunteering at our events is that in exchange for their volunteerism, volunteers get to see the event at no charge. We also work directly with local government community service offices to schedule volunteers who are doing court-appointed community service.

v. Developing Information and Spreading the Message:
As we continue to develop a network of bands and athletic teams which support our food drives, it is our goal to raise upwards of 1 million pounds of food per year from our charitable events. It is our great hopes one day to be able to distribute food aid internationally.

6) Increasing Self-sufficiency and Social Impact:
Our food drives can effectively redirect the generosity and good nature that exists in concert and professional sporting communities in an effort to feed America s hungry.

8) Organization Mission and Vision:
The Conscious Alliance is a 501(c)3 non-profit dedicated to feeding the hungry in cities and on Indian Reservations across the United States. Our approach involves staging food drives that redirect the abundance and generosity existing in music, art, and athletic communities. Our working goal is to establish a food sharing network on and for impoverished Indian Reservation in the greater western United States.

Looking Forward to the Next Three Years:
In the next 3 years we will triple the amount of food that our food drives produce. We will also establish no less then two food distribution facilities on impoverished Indian Reservations across the greater western United States

Contact Information:
Justin  Baker
Executive Director
Conscious Alliance
2525 Arapahoe Ave., Ste. E4-182, Boulder, CO 8030
United States
Tel: (303)810-2247
Email: justin@consciousalliance.org
Website: www.ConsciousAlliance.org