As you may have noticed – thanks in part to people in team jerseys staggering out of bars at 9:30am over the past few weeks – the (soccer) World Cup is taking place at the moment.
Being British, I’m used to watching World Cup matches in big, beery crowds. It’s all part of the fun: there’s nothing quite like the camaraderie you get from watching your over-hyped, overpaid team crash out of the tournament yet again with a large group of sweaty and disappointed strangers.
So as the World Cup approached this year and I realized I might not be able to find such a crowd in New York, I was dejected. “After all,” I thought, “there can’t be that many people in New York who want to go to the pub and bellow at the England soccer team at 10:00am on a weekday.”
As it turned out — I needn’t have worried. There are plenty of people in New York who want to do just that. All I had to do was find them, and with the help of friends and some googling, find them I did.
For nonprofits, finding supporters for your cause might sometimes seem about as difficult as finding British soccer fans in the Big Apple — particularly if your cause is very specific.
But as I’ve seen this week, there’s an audience out there for almost everything, it’s just a question of finding them. One call to a friend led me to meet more soccer fan friends – asking your existing supporters to forward your latest online campaign could introduce you to many of their like-minded friends and family. A quick Google search led me to a bar full of fans – a quick search of Meet-ups and Facebook groups might reveal new prospects ready and eager to join your cause.
But be careful: finding your audience is only the first step. Just like the England team, if you don’t deliver on the promises that lead new prospects to join your cause (like, oh say, being the best English team in the last 10 years or having a genuine chance at winning this thing), you’ll quickly have a disappointed and potentially rowdy crowd on your hands…
