How (and When) to Talk to Community Based Organizations About Claiming Their Programs

Step 1: Identify a pilot group of key Community Based Organizations

• Pick 10-15 Community Based Organizations (CBOs) that you either already have strong relationships with, or who you believe will be critical participants in both serving and referring individuals. Think about selecting a diverse group of organizations that have strong community ties and relationships with other providers.
• For Professional and Enterprise Customers, you can also look at your Analytics to identify programs that are being clicked and referred to the most, and reach out to those providers.

Step 2: Make sure programs are listed on the platform

• Add any missing programs through Suggest a Program or add several programs using this template.

Step 3: Reach out to those providers (see this article for more detail on ways to do this)

• Reach out to your initial group of CBOs in the way that makes the most sense for your organization
• Send emails: Send out an email to each organization welcoming them to the network and sharing the custom link for them to see and claim their listings. Follow up with a reminder email or phone call if they don’t respond.
• Make calls: If you have an available staff member, block out 1-2 hours to call through the list of CBOs.You can welcome them to the community and follow up with the email link for them to complete the process of claiming their listings.
• Host a meeting or event: Host a meeting or event to bring your group of CBOs together so they can learn more about what you are creating. Have a computer or tablet available to help people claim their listings on the spot.

Step 4: Have programs claim their listings

• Have CBOs claim their programs so that they can unlock their referral dashboard and reports.

Step 5: Set Up Training

• Set up a training for all of your CBO partners to learn how the platform works.
• Aunt Bertha can support you by either providing the training or by providing you with materials to facilitate your own. Aunt Bertha also offers a weekly group training for all customers on Wednesdays at 1pm CT that partners can join.

Step 6: Encourage providers to add search boxes to their websites

• This is super easy to set up! Interested CBOs can sign up here and the Aunt Bertha team will take care of the rest. Click here for sample email outreach.

Step 7: Expand your network

• After assessing your initial efforts, identify subsequent sets of providers to reach out to
• You can identify this list of CBOs by asking each member of your initial CBO group to identify (and possibly support outreach efforts to) 5-10 of their key partners.