By Faye A. Silas

“Nothing hit home harder to me. It was an opportunity we had lost,” says Stevens, recalling the pit he felt in his stomach. “I said to myself that I wasn’t going to let that happen again.”

That rude awakening was, indeed, a wake-up call to Stevens and other officials of the San Diego County Bar Foundation. This event, they concluded, demonstrated the essential need for the charitable foundation to get its name out in the community; make members and others aware of what the bar foundation is and what good projects it funds; and to raise more money. 

“It is our fiduciary duty to get out there and spend money to get our name out.” 

- Todd Stevens 
 

Stevens shared this story with members of the National Conference of Bar Foundations during a workshop on how to market bar foundations. While the San Diego Bar Foundation is 22 years old, has built up a $1 million endowment mostly from a negative dues check off, and has always awarded grants to deserving community projects, it never promoted itself or the grants it gave. As a result, it just didn’t have name recognition. 

“Everyone assumes that everyone in the bar knows who you are and what you do. Many attorneys aren’t familiar with the bar foundation. The message must be constantly out there,” says Jan Heying, principal of Heying & Associates Public Relations and Advertising in San Diego, Calif., who shared the panel with Stevens. The bar association has used Heying’s firm for 15 years, and the foundation uses it on an ad hoc basis. 

At a board meeting held shortly after the newspaper article appeared, foundation officials concluded that they had to be proactive; they had to plant the idea in lawyers’ minds that the bar foundation is a place to leave money. After being reticent for most of its existence, the bar foundation was ready to take the next step.

With this new resolve, in January, Heying put together and distributed a press packet that highlighted the six grants totaling $25,000 that the foundation would award that month. This was the first time the foundation had widely publicized its grant giving, and the effort resulted in positive publicity, including newspaper articles. 

“Jan’s press release and packet worked. More lawyers came up to me and said, ‘I didn’t know the bar foundation was doing that,’” Stevens says.

Stevens and Heying emphasized the value of media coverage. “Bar publications aren’t good enough,” he says.

“Since many bar members don’t read bar publications front to back, you have to get your message out in different arenas,” Heying adds, noting that publicity provides a “third-party” review.  That is, bar volunteers may tout the bar foundation, but if the local newspaper prints a favorable story about it, that carries more weight.
 

Spotlight the grantees

Highlighting the grant recipients and the work they do in the community is useful because, like the bar foundation, it gets their name out into the community and lets people know who they are and what they do. For example, the foundation awarded a $5,000 grant to Kid’s Turn, a group that assists children who have faced the impact of divorce or custody disputes.

“Thought should be given to how the grant recipient can help you. Think about appropriate grants to get your message out,” Stevens says, noting that funding programs that help children, victims of domestic violence, and AIDS and HIV patients not only help these groups, but convey a positive message about the bar foundation and issues that concern it. 

Mixing and mingling in professional and social settings is another common-sense approach. Stevens says he and other members of the foundation board try to attend as many community events that time will allow. Events such as the volunteer lawyers dinner and meetings of minority and specialty bar associations are all opportunities to talk with colleagues about the foundation and raise its profile, he explains.

Special events also raise visibility--and money. For three years now, the San Diego County Bar Foundation hosted a special fund-raising event called, “An Evening in . . . .”  The evening of gourmet food, wine tasting and music is held at the elegant home of a prominent lawyer who “donates” the residence. Last September’s event was held at a palatial home in Rancho Santa Fe, and the homeowners were given an artist’s rendering of their home as a thank you. 

About 300 lawyers and judges paid $100 per person, and the event raised $25,000. “It’s become a signature event for the bar foundation,” Stevens says.

Another special event called, “CLE on the Green” includes a one-credit-hour CLE seminar on ethics, which is followed by a golf tournament. This idea, borrowed from the Maricopa County Bar Association in Phoenix, Ariz., has raised up to $6,000.

“It is our fiduciary duty to get out there and spend money to get our name out,” Stevens states. “Now we’re acting in a prudent manner because we’re raising (more) money.”

The author is the editor of Bar Leader.