Reach Out!
Create Partnerships
Get Other Organizations Involved in Your Education Efforts
Community organizations often work together to bring assistance to the communities they serve. By sharing resources and partnering, organizations can reach more people than one organization working alone.
Some ways your organization can coordinate with partners include:
- co-branding, printing, and distributing consumer publications
- co-sponsoring a community meeting or fair
- coordinating a series of workshops on consumer topics, with experts from several organizations serving as speakers
Identify Appropriate Partners in the Community
Start with organizations in your community that people trust and that you have worked with in the past. Reach out to these organizations to determine if they would be interested in working together on a program to educate consumers about their rights.
Consider reaching out to:
- neighborhood associations
- civic groups, local business groups, chambers of commerce
- professional associations
- legal aid groups
- groups associated with places of worship, or schools
- other community-based organizations
You may also consider local government agencies in your consumer education initiative, like the:
- local consumer protection agency
- office of the Mayor, the city council, and/or the city's attorney
- state Attorney General
- local police department
It's helpful for consumers to get know these agencies because, in many cases, they are the first to respond when consumers report problems.
Decide What Projects You Want to Work on Together
Once you've identified groups interested in working on an education project, think about what type of cooperation would work best. Take into consideration joint resources and the level of cooperation you expect. You could work together to:
- develop a publication on an issue of interest to both organizations. You don't have to re-invent the wheel; you can use the content from a consumer publication already developed by the FTC and include the partner's logo as well as your own. This increases the level of trust consumers place in the information. Co-branding is a great way to distribute timely and accurate information from a source consumers trust.
- coordinate a community meeting or a series of workshops on different consumer topics and invite representatives from your local consumer protection agency, the local police, and a neighborhood group to talk about common frauds in the community and where to go for help.
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