Grant to provide minority and women-owned non-profit organization or small business in Somerset County with a no-cost marketing and communications services

R&J Strategic Communications, a full-service integrated marketing and public relations agency, announces the launch of the Make a Difference Grant program. Aligning with R&J Strategic Communications’ Make a Difference mission, the Make a Difference Grant program will provide one minority or women-owned non-profit or small business organization in Somerset County with a no-cost marketing and communications strategy from one of New Jersey’s most experienced firms.

“Many of our area small businesses have been negatively impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, but minority and women-owned businesses have been some of the hardest hit.  Business owners have had to make some tough decisions about how to use their resources over the past year and a half, and marketing and public relations activities are often the first to be cut when resources are scarce,” said Scott Marioni, President of R&J Strategic Communications. “Over the past 30+ years, R&J has developed and executed highly successful, strategic communications campaigns for a broad range of clients, from large multi-national corporations to smaller, regional businesses and non-profit organizations. Through the Make a Difference Grant, we are looking forward to putting our expertise to work for minority and women-owned organizations here in our community who have had to make sacrifices throughout the pandemic.”

The Make a Difference Grant is built around R&J Strategic Communication’s time-tested approach to developing marketing and communications strategies that help businesses and non-profit organizations reach their goals. To start, the grant recipient will receive a one-hour strategy and discovery session with executives from R&J Strategic Communications where key stakeholders from the selected small business or non-profit organization will have the opportunity to discuss the critical communications and marketing challenges facing the organization.

Building upon the strategy and discovery session, R&J Strategic Communications will utilize the expertise of its deep bench of in-house communications and marketing experts to provide strategy recommendations outlining how to solve the organization’s critical communications and marketing challenges. In addition, R&J will provide a website audit to identify areas in need of improvement and a social media audit to ensure brand consistency and unified voice across channels. Following the initial discovery and strategy process, R&J Strategic Communications will also schedule monthly 30-minute check-ins with key stakeholders for six months and provide support in securing Google Ad grants and additional free advertising programs for non-profits, if applicable.

The inaugural grant program is now accepting applications from minority or women-owned non-profit organizations or small businesses headquartered in Somerset County with 25 or fewer employees. The application window will be open until June 30, 2021, please visit pages.services/randjsc.com/r-j-mad-grant/ to learn more about the Make a Difference Grant and to complete the application.