By Jackie Jordan-Davis, Regional Director, United Way of America- Atlantic Cluster, and Brenda Parker, Coordinator, AmeriCorps Network Northwest, Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory.

This article originally appeared in the Spring, 2000 issue of The Resource Connection. It remains a classic that has withstood the test of time.

Sus · tain v. 1. To keep in existence; maintain; prolong. 2. To supply with necessities; provide for. 3. To support from below. 4. To support the spirits, vitality or resolution; to encourage, inspire.

—The American Heritage Dictionary

Sustainability is a term every national service program must reckon with. The ability to sustain a program—to continue its existence, supply the necessities for its maintenance, and support it from the ground up—is fundamental to good program management. Until your program has been so successful in meeting its mission that your services are no longer needed, consider your work in sustainability as simply a way of being.

To be an effective manager, staffer, member, or volunteer, you have to be a systems thinker and operator. You have to keep the big picture of sustainability (and your personal role in it) uppermost in your mind when you decide on the individual tasks to do during the day.

Sustainability represents a system of operation and a way of being because it is about:

• A solid mission and delivery of excellent services
• Recruiting, staffing, and managing both paid and non-paid personnel
• Training and professional development opportunities for staff and volunteers
• Managing, and leveraging resources
• Finding ways to increase your resources as needed
• Developing systems and the infrastructure that help people perform their jobs
• Evaluating and continuously improving your performance
• Community outreach, community building, and developing supportive partnerships
• Image and reputation among both current and potential stakeholders-
  • Who knows about you?
  • What do they know about you?
  • Who needs to know about you?
  • What do you want stakeholders to know about you?
  • How will you tell them-what tools and strategies will you use?

These activities to sustain your programs require effective, and sometimes highly strategic communication. Therefore, if you're serious about sustaining your program, you must also be serious about marketing your program.

To be strategic means you will need a plan of action. First and foremost, your marketing plan has to be do-able (which means short and simple). It has to fit into your daily activities and show up in your planner or it won't get your attention, and won't get done. Plus, any marketing activity you perform should cover multiple elements of sustainability if it is truly worth your time and attention. If you approach marketing as an isolated task or just for a specific event, you're not maximizing your time, which is already likely to be in short supply. Make the most of your time by setting reasonable marketing goals to help sustain your program. For example, combine your marketing goals with your volunteer recruitment goals or the recruitment of new community partners; connect these goals with big events, such as Make a Difference Day or end-of-service activities.

Remember that one definition of sustain is to support the spirits; to encourage and inspire. That is precisely what effective marketing contributes to program sustainability, because it allows you to show your passion for your work and your mission. Marketing provides the means to attract people and resources to your project in exchange for the opportunity to serve, and/or to be served. You owe it to yourself, your colleagues, and your stakeholders to use marketing as a tool to encourage and inspire you in reaching your goals. Consider the ideas below for use in your program.

• Find ways to showcase and inform stakeholders about your mission
  Use report cards, book markers, speakers bureaus--whatever tool reaches the people who need to know about your services.
• Position your agency to be an attractive partner for a community sponsor or ally, then trade resources
  For example, in exchange for placing a member or volunteer at a site, ask for hours of service from their media specialist or fundraiser. Or provide a service specifically designed for a corporate sponsor in exchange for "seats" in their professional development training classes for members of your staff.
• Collaborate in your marketing efforts
  Form publicity committees or participate in media campaigns with other agencies.
• Evaluate everything as a tool for continuous improvement
  Make adjustments to systems and service delivery before your funders ask you to do them.