GenUnity 2022 Q1 Strategy & Implementation Plan

I. Demand: Build on early traction with Boston-based employers

Strategy: We will focus outreach on employers in industries are connected to GenUnity’s upcoming programs (Health Equity, Housing, & TBD) and try to deepen the commitment of existing partners. We will test our framing on how our programs improve civic wellbeing, furthering CSR, ESG, DEI, and HR goals, and learn more about how partners perceive the value creation of our program. We will tailor our program partnership and pricing to the needs of our partners. We will highlight our program successes and learnings to bring employers along as thought partners in promoting civic wellbeing.

Learning agenda: We will deepen our understanding of employer’s civic wellbeing and community engagement needs and their partner (or ‘customer’) journey. Examples questions we will learn about are:

• How do we best position our program with employers? What is the ideal product/price package?
• How do employer needs differ depending on workforce size, connection to issue, budget for CSR, DEI, or HR? How does employer segmenting impact positioning and packaging?
• What types of employers are interested in making multi-year commitments?
• What is the buying process for target employers? What roles can collaborators play?

Targets: Our target revenue per cohort will be $150,000. We will explore the feasible of multi-year commitments and employer coalitions for 3 programs - Health Equity, Eviction & Housing Insecurity, and a new program TBD for launch in Q1 2023. For example, 5 employers could commit to $30,000 a year for 5 years to train 200 Eviction & Housing Insecurity Community Ambassadors. We will take an industry-focused approach and leverage connectors to boost credibility and secure warm introductions for both existing programs and a potential new program (Q1 2023). We will work closely with employers to understand and measure the outcomes and metrics most important to them.

Rationale: This strategy and these targets are based on our learnings from 2021. For our 2021 Fall Eviction & Housing Program, we took an industry-focused approach focusing on developers and retail banks – leveraging connectors like Arthur Segel to secure initial introductions. We were close to partnering with several organizations, but program time constraints as well as an ad hoc sales approach resulted in underperformance. In September, we adapted our approach for our 2022 Spring program. We improved our sales tactics (initial call focused on relationship building where follow up call is scheduled during call for 2 weeks after) and refined our value proposition messaging. So far, we have secured $80,000 in commitments for our Health Equity program and demonstrated potential to reach $150,000.

• Year Up successfully transitioned from one-off internship agreements with employers to multi-year commitments.
• OneTen is a great case study on rallying demand and securing multi-year commitments to create a steady financing mechanism to gradually increase supply.

II. Supply: Focus on improving program quality, cost, and replicability while gradually increasing number of programs and cohorts

Strategy: We will continue to improve the high-quality of our programs to ensure GenUnity delivers for its local partners, increasing awareness and inbound interest. Gradually increasing the rollout of new programs and cohorts will give us time to maintain lean cost structure, reduce program costs, and improve replicability (e.g., figuring out automation, onboarding). This approach will still demonstrate positive momentum for employer partners and funders while building the case for scale.

Learning agenda: We will deepen our understanding of which program design elements are most value-added to member outcomes and how those design elements complement each other. Examples questions we will learn about are:

• How will changes to our action planning process influence the percentage of members who follow through on their plans?
• How will changes to our community building platform and approach affect cohort cohesion?

Targets: In calendar year 2022, we expect to run 2 programs with 1 cohort each - Health Equity (Spring) and Eviction & Housing Insecurity (Fall) – serving a total of 80 people. Gina will take over all program management responsibilities, develop our program playbook, and refine our onboarding process in advance of hiring a program manager-in-training in the Summer/Fall. We will make adjustments to the program curriculum with a focus on using technology to automate time-intensive processes, allowing Gina to spend more time on measurement and evaluation and creative design changes. We will look to highlight the effectiveness and thoughtfulness of our model in relevant outlets for practitioners and employers. We will start scoping out a new program (e.g., environmental justice, food security) to be launched in Q1 2023.

Rationale: We recognize areas for improvement within our program – from onboarding to automation – and we want to focus our attention there before scaling too quickly. Scaling too quickly to new programs and issues risks dividing our resources without the systems, people, capital, and culture in place to guarantee success.

III. Systems Change: Build awareness around the importance of civic wellbeing and test value capture from this awareness.

Strategy: Our work in Boston, while still small in scope, is novel, and interest in our work as leading practitioners in the adult civic learning and leadership development space is growing. We are well-positioned to play a leadership role in field building of the “Civic Wellbeing” space.

1. Individuals (aspiring leaders): Our work deeply resonates with the everyday adults our programs seek to serve, especially our members. These individuals are the best advocates of GenUnity’s vision and continuing to cultivate this community will enable our market building efforts (e.g., employees will increasingly ask for GenUnity / civic wellbeing benefits and help us in shifting our marketing from ‘push’ to ‘pull’).
2. Employers: We can support employers nationally to understand the importance of employee civic wellbeing and community engagement for their CSR, ESG, DEI, and HR goals. This will increase demand for employee community engagement, increase willingness to pay, and grow the pie for all civic entrepreneurs.
3. Potential providers: Because this category is nascent, we need to partner with other providers that can service employers’ civic wellbeing needs and grow the category. We can share our design principles and how we communicate our value add to employers with civic entrepreneurs interested in entering the space. This will support civic practitioners who are already doing amazing work to access a new market to scale and seed innovation from new startups.