Scaling + SPOTIO: How Texas Children’s Brough Blitz Week to a Large Market
As Tarryn Lankford, Assistant Director of Corporate Giving at Texas Children’s Hospital, shares below, engaging a large market takes more than intention: it takes coordination, creativity and the right tools. By leveraging SPOTIO to power a Blitz Week–inspired pilot, their team drove meaningful partner engagement while streamlining visit tracking across hundreds of locations.
Texas Children’s Hospital, located in Houston, Texas, is a large market with more than 2,000 active locations across nearly all of our Children’s Miracle Network corporate partners and programs.
Large markets offer both the advantage—and the challenge—of scale. We recognize the importance of visiting partners and programs in person to share their impact and motivate teams, and at Texas Children’s, this truly takes a village, along with the right tools and resources.
Inspired by Cincinnati Children’s “Blitz Week”—a week-long initiative in which development team members visit partner locations—we began recruiting internally within the Philanthropy Office. This pilot was led by our CMN Program Director, Jennifer Smart. We chose to test the concept during Panda Express’s Lunar New Year celebration in February, with a focus on visiting all Panda locations and, most importantly, tracking those visits.
This effort was only possible with the right tools in place. Our transition to SPOTIO allowed us to execute the initiative effectively. Jennifer led training for participating staff, managed the visit schedule, and tracked all activity in SPOTIO. The web-based platform enabled us to log visits efficiently and centrally without adding additional users or requiring extra logins. All visits were entered by Jennifer through the system, allowing us to successfully track 100% of our Panda location visits.
Feedback from colleagues was overwhelmingly positive. Many shared that these visits were a meaningful and rewarding experience, and they are eager to participate in the future. The training and in-store visits helped staff gain a deeper understanding of CMN, making the experience even more impactful. Colleagues also greatly appreciated how receptive and appreciative Panda Express employees were during the visits, which reinforced the value and impact of the partnership.
Tarryn Lankford
Assistant Director of Corporate Giving
Texas Children’s Hospital
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