Produced By Team Daniel San

Marketing & Donor

Engagement Planning
FOR: SOBEN, Non-Governmental Organization

December 6, 2010
Table of Contents

I. Introduction
Purpose……………………………………………………………………..….3
Cambodia………………………………………………………………………3
SOBEN…………………………………………………………………..…….4
II. Project Overview
Project and Process……………………………………………………………5
Survey …………………………………………………………………….…..5
Promotional Video …………………………….……………………………...7
III. Reflections – What we learned
IV. Appendix

PART I: INTRODUCTION

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Purpose of this paper
As Team Daniel San we approached this assignment with enthusiasm and drive. Given the
opportunity to partner with SOBEN, a budding organization empowered to see the people of Cambodia
receive education and the life skills that are currently scarce. We shall take you through the processes
that Daniel San encountered throughout this project along with the lessons learned.
Cambodia
Cambodia has a population of over 14 million people and is one of the oldest, established
countries in Southeast Asia (Tranet, Michel, 2009). It borders Laos, Thailand, Vietnam, and the Gulf of
Thailand. The official language is Khmer, and the official religion of Cambodia is Buddhism, which is
practiced by around 96% of the Cambodian population. The country's minority peoples
include Muslims, Cham, ethnic Chinese, Vietnamese and various hill tribes (ORG of Cambodia, 2006).
In spite of the fact that Cambodia's per capita income is rapidly increasing, more than 40% of
population has an income below the poverty line. Rice, fish, timber, garments and rubber make up
Cambodia's major exports.  Tourism is Cambodia's fastest growing industry, with arrivals increasing from
219,000 in 1997 to 1,055,000 in 2004. In Cambodia 50% of the central government budget depends on
donor assistance. Approximately 60% of the population is relying on agriculture for their livelihood
(ORG of Cambodia, 2006). As a result, demand for English as a second language is rapidly increasing.
Today in Cambodia one in seven children die before the age of five mainly due to diseases and
the overall life expectancy is sixty years (ORG of Cambodia, 2006). more than fifty percent of the
population consists of young Khmer men and women under the age of 21, a direct result from the Khmer
Rouge genocide during the mid 1970’s after the US withdraw from the Vietnam War. This genocide
targeted educated men and women, including doctors, teachers, lawyers, and government officials
(Cambodian History, 1999). This has left Cambodia’s upcoming generations with a tremendous lack of
teachers and mentors.
Cambodia’s teachers are severely underpaid and therefore have either quit or charge students
under the table for their lessons. One out of every five children have repeated at least one grade and
approximately three percent of students who begin grade school will graduate from secondary school.
Cambodian government still denies proper funding to support its education system (ORG of Cambodia,
2006).

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SOBEN
In September 2010, James Reinnoldt and a group of University of Washington and Seattle Pacific
University students traveled to Siem Reap, Cambodia as part of a two week study abroad program
focused on the effects of globalization on local communities. Inspired while on this trip, James Reinnoldt
and a couple of students decided to create a non-profit organization which long term goal and vision is to
create positive change in Cambodia through developing the leadership capacity and ability to dream of
the younger generation of the Khmer people. The NGO has been given the name SOBEN, which stands
for “a dream” in Khmer.
The primary mission of SOBEN is to develop the capabilities of the rural poor population in Siem
Reap, Cambodia through innovative educational programs in the two key areas of English language and
life skills training. The English language skills training and development is a tool to aide in increased
economic opportunities to the rural poor in Siem Reap as the area is heavily dependent on the hospitality
and tourist industries. The life skills programs focus on leadership and job training, health and family
planning, environmental sustainability and home economics (James Reinnoldt, 2010).
The organization plans to provide English and life skill classes to selected rural villages within a
30km radius of Siem Reap. The classes will be held five nights a week for one hour for a set term of 12
weeks totaling 50 hours. An average of 20 participants will attend each class. Classes will be held in the
evenings in order to avoid conflicts with public school or farming obligations (James Reinnoldt, 2010).
Classes will be taught by top Khmer teachers as well as by University of Washington graduate students
who will cycle through on an internship basis.

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PART II: PROJECT OVERVIEW

The Project & Process

For our project, we contributed to SOBEN’s marketing and donor engagement planning process
(see figure 1, appendix). We met with SOBEN on October 31, 2010 and were given the assignment of
coming up with a research survey that would reveal the priorities of potential donors, as well as creating a
promotional video to raise awareness of SOBEN and engage donors. We were provided a set of criteria
by SOBEN to follow and established goals for each of the two project components.
The process we pursued to execute each component of the project – the survey and video – was
first to create a master task list of each action item associated with each component (see figure 2,
appendix). After we established a master task list, we divided Daniel San into two subgroups to
coordinate the activities of each component. Although there were coordinators assigned to each project
component, the entire team was responsible for participating in each action item for both components, as
well as collectively setting deadlines. Our running task list also served as an agenda for meetings as the
task list was revised prior to each meeting and the items/tasks to be discussed for the following meeting
was outlined in red. The items pending a collective deadline were highlighted in yellow. Having a master
task list, a meeting agenda as well as assigned roles and deadlines greatly helped in our efforts to
minimize coordination issues and effectively execute our project.

The Survey
Survey Instructions
Team Daniel San created and administered an electronic survey to learn more about charity
donorship. The goals of the survey were to 1) understand the important factors leading to donorship; 2)
understand the preferred form of donation; and 3) 150 responses. We were given the following direction
by SOBEN: 1) the survey must be eight questions or less; 2) no demographics other than job status and
alumnus; 3) the survey must be electronic; 4) results must be sent to SOBEN by December 13, 2010; 5)
SOBEN is to approve the questions and layout before launching; and lastly 6) SOBEN is only interested
in the final results, they would prefer to perform their own analytics for their promotional direction.
Survey Process and Goals

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 We started out our process by assigning Daniel San team members – Mary, Nina and Jared – as
project coordinators for the survey. Although all team members would be involved in the tasks associated
with the survey, these individuals would be responsible for facilitating the tasks and discussions for the
survey and meeting deadlines. Next we brainstormed questions according to the specified goals and
criteria, and presented the questions to SOBEN for review. There were many rounds of feedback provided
by SOBEN and word tweaking before we were able to finalize our six questions. The second step was to
decide on the best survey layout for each question. We experimented with many formats before deciding
to utilize rank order and Likert scales for the most important questions. We went through at least five
formats before our survey was final and launch-ready. The distribution channels pursued for survey
responses were: 1) social networking sites which entailed posts through Facebook and Twitter; 2) UWB
superstar, Ben Galvin and an UWB advisor, Beth Miguel; and a mass email distributed individually by all
SOBEN staff and all of Daniel San. The number of responses we received was 95 despite having a goal
of 150. To appease SOBEN, we extended the survey date to Friday, December 3 with the hope to achieve
SOBEN’s response goal.
Survey Results
The results to our survey rendered the following valuable information:
1. 94% of respondents had donated to a charity within the last three years

2. When considering a charity for a possible donation, we found that:

 Recommendation from family or friends rendered 60% high to moderate importance

 Charity’s focus is aligned with personal values rendered 99% high to moderate importance
 Donations are tax-deductible rendered 23% of high to moderate importance
 Reputable board members rendered 42% of high to moderate importance
 Charity’s programs are located in the U.S. rendered 13% of importance

In addition to knowing whether each criteria was important or not, we understand the degree of
importance as the options within the Likert scale were Very Important, Important, Slightly Important, or
Not Important. We also inserted a feature that allowed a respondent to suggest an important criterion,
which provided the valuable feedback that reputation, the amount of money spent on programs versus
administration, and the success rate/effectiveness is also of high importance for donors. This information
will help SOBEN understand the factors leading to donorship, which will play a significant role in their
promotional and marketing strategy, as well as finalizing their program theory.

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3) The preferred type of donation for a charity outside of the United States is ranked as follows:
1. Directly to the charity’s general fund
2. A partial scholarship for a specific student or a promising student
3. A partial educational loan for a specific student. The loan paybacks would fund new scholarships
4. For a specific student
5. The purchase of a bicycle to be used as a students transportation to school
6. The purchase of school supplies such a uniform and books for a specific student
7. A partial educational loan for a specific student. T the loan-paybacks would be returned to you.

A fill in the blank feature was also added so that the respondent could suggest their preferred type of
donation and include it in the ranking. The feature suggested that a donation to a specific program, a
specific classroom and also teacher education are highly preferred donation types.
Conclusion
This information will help SOBEN understand the preferred types of donations, which will also
play a significant role in their promotional and marketing strategy. SOBEN was happy with the findings,
we did however recommend that they perform follow up surveys addressing these findings in more detail.

The Video
Overview

When we first met with SOBEN representatives the idea of a short promotional video was not even on the
table. We knew that market research was going to be a big component of our project but the evolution of
the video was really birthed out of our directive. After much deliberation we narrowed the main purpose
of the video to planting a seed of interest in our audience. We weren’t really interested in giving the
mission statement or purpose as much as we wanted people watching the video to be curious and actively
research the organization themselves. We were given the artistic freedom to develop the video any way
we wanted. From the script writing to the video footage used, we made all of the executive decisions.

Although none of our team members had previous experience in the production of a higher
quality professional video, we have seen plenty to know what was going to work and what wasn’t.
Tapping our resources to find someone who could help sculpt and deliver the final product was easy
because one of our team’s family members has had extensive experience in audio/video production. We
had a really high collective efficacy for this video and had a lot of fun in the production.

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 Planning and Brainstorming

Long before we came to the decision to make the video we had to really ask ourselves if it was
realistic to write, direct, shoot and go through post-production all in the short time frame allotted for this
project. As the excitement grew for the video, personal commitment of each team member grew as well.
There was a point where we just knew we could pull it off and not have to sacrifice any material quality
because of the time constraints.

We had a blank slate in front of us. We asked ourselves questions such as: should we be in the
video? How long should the video be? Is the purpose to inspire or to educate? At the beginning we were
really spinning our wheels until Mary came up with an idea for the video flow that we all liked and we
were all able to build on. We then had brainstorming sessions mapping out the flow of the video scene by
scene.

Once some of our ideas solidified we had logistics to go through. Finding a camera was difficult
and making sure the video footage would work with the editing software took research. We had one day
to shoot all of the scenes so we needed to have everything planned out in advance. These were all factors
we had to consider and in order to ensure success we had to be meticulous about the planning.

Execution

We knew that we only had one day to shoot the video but that turned out not to be a hindrance.
Because of our planning we were able to complete all of the shots and still had time to spare. The filming
took place on campus in the Student Center. We planned intentionally to film on the weekend to avoid
people studying in order to limit distractions. Being in front of a camera was a lot harder than any of us
thought it would be. We had scripted lines and we were surprised at how difficult it was to remember our
lines and make it look completely natural. After the shooting was done we converted the footage into
Final Cut Pro and began the post-production process. We obtained video footage from documentaries and
informational DVD’s about Cambodia and integrated them into the promotional video. Because of the
difficulty involved in post-production, only one team member worked with our resident professional as to
limit any confusion and streamline the process.

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PART III: TEAM REFLECTIONS – WHAT WE LEARNED

There were many collective learning experiences spurred by our project and also by operating as
a self-directed team. As a group, we feel that there were three very important takeaways in terms of how
this project has impacted our knowledge of team processes: 1) setting roles, norms and expectations are
imperative in order to achieve successes; 2) realizing the benefits of diversity and managing the process;
and lastly, 3) the attributes of a good team member and ways we can become a better team member which
greatly influences the final product and the process taken to get there.

Setting Roles, Expectations and Norms

In beginning our project we defined what type of team we are to better understand the
implications, expectations and the dynamic of the group. Being a self-directed team the determination of
our objectives and goals, and the methods by which to achieve these goals was a collective process. We
also reviewed our grading criteria/team contract to guide the discussion of team expectations. Being a
self-directed team we found the task at hand, being both tactical and creative, challenged our ability to
contribute on both the creative and task management level, while also remaining open-minded. We found
that some of us have more tactical-oriented minds rather than creative minds and vice versa, so it was
definitely a push to have to step out of our realm of expertise or comfort and contribute on both levels.
We leaned hard on everyone’s ability to contribute on both levels because there was no expert within our
team nor anyone familiar with donor engagement, which required us to dig deep on how to approach this
project. Having the expectation of “equal and valuable” contributions that was made clear in both the
type of team we as in declared ourselves addition to our team grading criteria, which helped this process
along.
Another challenge we experienced with our roles and expectations was compromising. There
were fantastic ideas being generated, however, we as a group had to collectively decide which ideas
would best fit the purpose of this project in the timeline allotted. There was a lot of active listening
required by all teammates, remaining open-minded was also required, as was making compromises. Not
having a project manager or an expert to lead us made decision-making very difficult and time
consuming. Understanding our roles and expectations was imperative not only in the creation of ideas, but

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also in making decisions and carrying out tasks. During tough times of disagreement it helped that we
had our expectations for each other outlined as there were a few times we revisited these expectations to
recalibrate.
When it came time to execute our ideas we created a detailed list of each action item related to
the different components of the project and assigned individuals and deadlines for each task. By using
the preplanning approach we tackled the following issues: 1) we were able to accurately coordinate our
strategies and activities and decrease confusion and frustration; and 2) the task list created a diffusion of
responsibility which increased identifiability, promoted involvement, and increased personal
responsibility and in all, helped us Enhance Successful Team Performance and motivation. The task list
also served as our agenda for each team meeting, which helped us stay focused, and on task individually
and also as a team.
In conclusion, we all agreed that defining roles, expectations and responsibilities in advance by
way of defining team makeup, goals, code of conduct, task list and agendas have helped minimize
coordination issues, which is one of the root causes of teamwork frustration. We also agree that this type
of approach has allowed us to steer clear of unnecessary and inefficient conflict while reaching out to all
learning styles and also allowing fair recourse in the event something goes array.

Realizing the Benefits of Diversity and Managing the Process

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 As a team we understand that diversity leads to better decision-making and multiple viewpoints,
which leads to more creativity. We also saw it as an advantage that our team is not only diverse at the
surface-level, but also the deep-level which added even more insight to our project and our ability to
generate more thoughtful discussion. We all come from different backgrounds in terms of our
demographics and also our work history, which lent itself to a wealth of knowledge, skills and ability
(Keas). However, it also posed as a challenge as our tactical and creative styles varied, as did our
wiliness to make compromises in which sometimes-efficient conflict would lead to inefficient conflict.
Having gone through conflict in our Real World Exploratory project mainly due to the diversity within
our group helped us to better understand how to use the diversity as strength rather than have it be our
weakness. It required us to better communicate through active listening, inviting and accepting different
perspective, which spurred us to begin asking other teammates opinions instead of constantly pushing our
own opinions and in some cases, concealing our own opinions. In our development of accepting diversity
and harnessing it as strength we collectively realized that we were getting past our own biases, mainly the
halo bias and fundamental attribution error.
The attributes of a good team member
One of the most valuable experiences we collectively agreed having is the understanding that you are
only as good as your team. If you do not have the full support and backing of your team even the
superstars of a team cannot succeed. Trust, respect, a positive attitude, and motivation must constantly be
given and received by all teammates in order to create an environment conducive to success in addition to
realizing the full potential of success. This type of environment will lead to team cohesion and also lent
itself to psychological safety where groupthink can be prevented and learning can be encouraged. In this
type of setting a greater level of group interdependence can be achieved – reciprocal interdependence –
where teams are able to perform better and also learn from each other, which makes a job more
gratifying. A good team member strives not only to satisfy the technical or functional aspect of their job,
but also seeks to improve the task management and interpersonal skills to mitigate both internal and
external dynamics which is also a significant determinant of a team’s performance. A good team begins
with good teammates, and being a good teammate is learning to hold egalitarian values while also
working towards developing and applying the attributes of a good team member.
Reference Page

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1. “Cambodian History”. (1999). Tourism of Cambodia website. Retrieved November 18 th, 2010 from
http://www.tourismcambodia.com/tripplanner/general/cambodia-history.htm
2. James Reinnoldt. (2010). “Cambodia NGO proposal”. Retrieved October 2010 from SOBEN proposal.
3. National Institute of Statistics, Ministry of Planning. (2008). General Population Census of Cambodia
2008 – Provisional population totals. Retrieved November 16th, 2010 from
http://www.docstoc.com/docs/17162737/General-Population-Census-of-Cambodia-2008
4. Official Royal Government of Cambodia Website (ORG of Cambodia) (English Version). Archived
from the original on October 5th, 2006. Retrieved November 14th, 2010, from
Cambodia.gov.kh
5. Thompson, L. L. (2008). Making the Team: a Guide for Managers (3rd ed). Upper Saddle River, NJ:
Pearson Prentice Hall.
6. Tranet, Michel (2009). The Second Prehistoric Archaeological Excavation in Laang Spean. Retrieved
October 17, 2010, from http://www.smartcambodia.com/index.php?
option=com_content&view=article&id=841:the-second-prehistoric%20.com

APPENDIX

Figure 1

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Figure 2

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