Create a Marketing-style One Sheet for Food Oasis

[fancyham]

We need a quick and convenient way to describe ourselves to food-seekers, service providers, and others.

A bit of marketing text and imagery that tells people what FOLA is, what it can do for them, and who we are.

Something that might be printed on paper and put on a flier.

All HfLA Projects should have a One Sheet

Essentially what is described in this issue is a One Sheet. All HfLA Projects should have one or a few depending on what we are marketing or promoting.

A One Sheet is used for marketing purposes and can be distributed to explain more information about a product or service.

HfLA has a standard format for designing One Sheets for the projects. Below are links to the One Sheets for the Access the Data and 100-Automations projects:

Access the Data One Sheet 100-Automations One Sheet

What we create for Food Oasis should follow this format.

Background

Currently our researchers are often reaching out to food pantries, meal programs, and food-seeker service providers for research purposes (#1441 ). Often, these orgs ask if we are interested in partnering with them. Right now, we don’t have the capacity for that and partnerships are not currently a priority, but we can use this opportunity to tell these orgs who we are, how our site can be used, and to help spread word-of-mouth about our directory.

This might be able to use content that is in development for FOLA's static pages. It might also be useful as a generic introduction to new orgs that we're reaching out to.

The goal

To create a 'marketing' document that can be shared with other orgs that…

• Tells them what we are, how to use us
• Encourages organizations to utilize our directory for their clients
• Encourages them to tell their clients about us via their social media/website
• Can be passed around and forwarded within an org or shared to other orgs
• (optional) Encourages them to look at their own listing and send in corrections

The primary audience for this is food-seeker service-provider orgs.

There may be other marketing sheets aimed at different audiences in the future.

Audience

Social service orgs, food pantries, meal providers that want to give more free food information to their clients.

• May be looking up free food for their clients
• May want to tell their clients about our service via newsletter, voice, or social media
• May want to embed FOLA on their site

Suggested actions

• Research! The best way to know what content to include here is asking some service providers about what they’d like to know! We’ve had some pantries and orgs tell us that they’d like to partner with them… we don’t currently have capacity to do this, but what we can do is help them help their clients.

Suggested outline (please revise/update)

• Should be short and easy to read and use. Ideally one page?
• Screenshots of Food Oasis’s 3 main screens: landing page, list of orgs, single org
• Our URL
• How our free + non-profit directory helps food-seekers
• Explain ways to use our site
  • Search for free food for your clients
  • Update/correct your listing: URL to suggestion form
  • Send us an email with things that would help you help your clients
  • (optional) Embed our directory on your website (and show screenshot)
  • Tell your clients we exist!
• A description of Food Oasis - the organization and why we’re trustworthy and useful
  • We’ve been around since 201X. A project of Hack for LA, and our goal is to… We have a team of X volunteers running the website, and Y volunteers updating records. etc.

How is it now?

Currently our website's About Us and FAQ are quite old. The content written here might be useful for replacing the web content.

Resources

Some possible starter blurbs, and some Chat GPT-generated text (out of curiosity), much of which was wrong :)

[staceyrebekahscott]

@itserindean I'd like to explore this idea as something we should have on our landing page, instead of the the map. The map takes up a lot of space that we could be using to explain Food Oasis instead of having this buried on a later page that someone might not read. We will need to further develop a research plan that we want the UX researchers to look into. Adding this to our backlog.

[staceyrebekahscott]

@itserindean Related to this issue, this is a good episode of Product Thinking podcast: Positioning Your Product with April Dunford

[fancyham]

Check out this old version of the FOLA website — it has more info / navigation in the ‘footer’ than we currently have. On the design team, we were discussing whether the hamburger menu is discoverable enough and thinking about if we should reintroduce the footer (which we removed from the static pages a few months ago)

That might be an option that’s short of putting the full text on the landing page (which could also be fine) but at least would have easy links to learn more. So like somewhere between : only search field — search field and full text from this marketing thing

https://web.archive.org/web/20200512160934/https://foodoasis.la/

[staceyrebekahscott]

We can use the slide deck presentation I created for the Impact Sprints. This is intended to be used as marketing material. I made a copy of it that can be modified, as the original has details about the Brigade Congress 2022. The copy is in the main folder of the Google Drive. Copy of Hack for LA | Food Oasis Overview Slide Deck. It might work for now to make this into a PDF to share if that is easier.

[ShruthiVen28]

These are the related static page issues that Content is working on for the About Us and FAQ pages, https://github.com/hackforla/food-oasis/issues/1281 https://github.com/hackforla/food-oasis/issues/1365

Document reflecting our process and proposed updates: https://docs.google.com/document/d/15S6ApvAydqan0esH7WALr2QwSKl_BLe8UJxHo0kSs5I/edit

[staceyrebekahscott]

I have updated the Overview and changed the name of this issue to Creating a One Sheet for Food Oasis. This is a document that all HfLA projects should have. The essentials of what is described in the Overview is what a One Sheet is, but HfLA has a standard format for this and we need to follow it.

Note, this recently came up as something that was asked of the PMs on the projects, which was when was the last time your One Sheet was updated. I searched and could not find one for Food Oasis.

I am moving this to the Content team's project board, to be worked on once the website content is finalized.

[fancyham]

BTW, here’s are some one-sheets from a different Hack for LA projects (BTW, permissions issue with the Design Systems One Sheet link at top — I couldn’t view it)

!https://www.hackforla.org/assets/pdfs/Access-the-Data-OneSheet.pdf https://www.hackforla.org/assets/pdfs/100-Automations-Project-One-Sheet.pdf

I don’t think HfLA’s is the same as what I’m describing here as a marketing one-sheet, though. The above HfLA ones seem to be more about project planning and goals — great for project planning and deciding if one wants to join a project — but the one we’re needing is one to tell folks how to use FOLA as it is now, and aimed at a different audience.

So two overlapping but separate things? While the overview is probably same/similar, a food distributor probably doesn’t care about our long-term goals or 6-month plan, but we would want them to know about what our site does now and how it could help people find food now.

What’s the timeline on the new static content? That’s very similar stuff to what I’m describing for this one-sheet.

[staceyrebekahscott]

We should have different versions of the One Sheet- for new volunteers as the HfLA ones are, to a marketing one. I wanted to change the issue name to encourage us to call it a One Sheet, just so we can be used to the term, while understanding that there are different Sheets for different purposes.

Sorry about that link- it came from the Product Management Google Drive, which I now remember not everyone has access to. Thanks for those links, Bryan. I'll use them to update the Overview section.

[fancyham]

How about we change the title of this one to “Marketing One-Sheet”, and have a separate issue for the HfLA One-Sheet? Or both as part of this issue?

[ShruthiVen28]

Content has drafted a Marketing One-Sheet that @cheesarah would like to use for scheduling interviews. Here is the document: https://docs.google.com/document/d/17TznuNC-U1KUhrSMzv2184jSpt4c5RYIw8hQ70HMquI/edit

PMs and Leads, would you please provide feedback/ approve?

• [ ] @staceyrebekahscott
• [ ] @itserindean
• [ ] @entrotech
• [ ] @fancyham
• [ ] @sei1122
• [ ] @GigiUxR

Thanks!

[itserindean]

The suggest a new listing feature isn't working so I don't think we should reference it or link to it currently.

I was thinking this also needed to work when printed (maybe I"m wrong) in which case relying on hyperlinks at all would be problematic.

[staceyrebekahscott]

Assigned Shruthi and Bailey to issue and moved to In Progress on PM and Content board.

[staceyrebekahscott]

Here is a Link to the current One Sheet for Food Oasis: Food Oasis One Sheet

Erin added it to the Marketing folder in Drive. This is what is on the Hack for LA website for Food Oasis, last update was April 2021.

@ShruthiVen28 @bduhe Could you make your draft look more like this format? I agree that we should have multiple one sheets for different purposes, but they should all look generally the same.

[ShruthiVen28]

We've updated the marketing one page to look like the Food Oasis one sheet. We also created a combined document on our mission and history for @cheesarah to circulate when scheduling interviews as discussed during the Research meeting this week. We're taking feedback this week and hoping to close the issue on 2/2.

[staceyrebekahscott]

@ShruthiVen28 @bduhe There is a specific way that Hack for LA wants its One Sheets to look. I have posted the PM Slack channel to see if someone can send me the Guide for how to do this the Hack for LA way. What you provided looks fine to me. But it does not match how the other One Sheets look for other projects. The Guide should provide the context you need to add the appropriate information.

However, the Sheet created for Sarah to use for her interviews looks fine. Thank you for getting that done so quickly.

[ShruthiVen28]

Marketing one-pagers are here: https://drive.google.com/drive/u/1/folders/1nwC-I03vcyRSxKTYYkpX-K8Wu2e6UDRY

Social media blurb for Facebook Buy Nothing Groups: "Are you looking for free food in the Los Angeles area? Check out Food Oasis. Food Oasis is a nonprofit organization that connects people with free food resources in Los Angeles. Visit www.foodoasis.la/about to learn more and spread the word to help others access this helpful resource. "

[cheesarah]

Hi Shruthi,

I am wondering if we can do something more along the lines of this

“Are you or someone you know struggling financially in the wake of cut SNAP benefits and high inflation? Food Oasis aims to help by making free food resources easy to find with a simple zip code search. Information includes what kind of food is available and eligibility requirements. Visit www.foodoasis.la/about http://www.foodoasis.la/about to learn more and spread the word to help others access this helpful resource. "

Sarah Eunkyung Chee

“Love is the bridge between you and everything” Rumi

On Mar 30, 2023, at 6:49 PM, ShruthiVen28 @.***> wrote:

Marketing one-pagers are here: https://drive.google.com/drive/u/1/folders/1nwC-I03vcyRSxKTYYkpX-K8Wu2e6UDRY

Social media blurb for Facebook Buy Nothing Groups: "Are you looking for free food in the Los Angeles area? Check out Food Oasis. Food Oasis is a nonprofit organization that connects people with free food resources in Los Angeles. Visit www.foodoasis.la/about http://www.foodoasis.la/about to learn more and spread the word to help others access this helpful resource. "

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[ShruthiVen28]

Hey @cheesarah yes, that should work! Here is what Content passed on the research team last week regarding modifying the blurb; sharing here if it's helpful:

This is the more formal blurb based on discussion at the research meeting (on 4/4): “Are you or someone you know looking for free food in the Los Angeles area? Check out Food Oasis! It is a free online website run by volunteers that connects people with food pantries and meal programs. You can visit the website at www.foodoasis.la/ to find organizations near you using our map of up-to-date food pantry and meal program listings. Spread the word and help others access free food close to them! ”

We also took a look at some FB Buy-Nothing groups, and the tone on there is very casual, so we recommend something like this:

“If anyone is looking for free food resources in the Los Angeles area, I wanted to point you to Food Oasis, www.foodoasis.la/, an organization I volunteer at. This free online website is a map of food pantries and meal programs in the Los Angeles area.”

Some recommendations we have here is to:

• Reach out to Buy Nothing admins to let them know you are promoting FOLA and what FOLA is
• Ask Admins to pin FOLA website on pinned posts or under files (depending on their set up)
• Monitor posts and share the blurb or website on requests for free food

If folks want to add something about SNAP, we recommend stating that “SNAP benefits have been cut” not “ended” since that is not true (and might cause more panic) We stayed away from “people need this resource!” because that is more marketing and promotional, which is different from our current voice and tone. Hope all this helps!

[fancyham]

This might also be a good opportunity to be concrete: "Food Oasis lists 600+ free and active food pantries and meal programs in the Los Angeles metropolitan area"

Not sure what we use here in California, but SNAP is the national program, but folks in LA might access those benefits via CalFresh, so you might need to use "SNAP / CalFresh benefits" or a variation if the audience is in LA. (ask around)

Also, I think tone can and should change depending on context and goal. If we're talking about social media blurbs, this very falls into the marketing realm so I personally think it's fine to use a casual, vernacular marketing tone. The goal is to make this friendly and pass-on-able… to be reblogged or whatever it's called nowadays.

[fancyham]

Re-opening this issue for a periodic update of the One Sheet that Hack for LA has for us (at Bonnie’s request). Our current one is from 2021-04 (April).

Note that this one is aimed at people trying to understand what our project does and what its near-term plans are. Not quite ‘marketing’ to potential partners as in the top description, but this is one of the many “one-sheets” we’d want to have.

Here’s the new 2024-05 (May) draft:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ymRN7inCCxq5u9D0MiI9I0Mdc1kNTZqkd_a15s4ktL0/edit

When it’s done, we should send to the HfLA admins or lay it out and make a PDF ourselves using the previous one as a style template.