The Challenges of Operating a Single Variety Advocacy Group

This is a presentation that I am giving today at the Midwest Grape & Wine Conference in Rhineland, MO.

As the executive director of PSILY, I was asked to deliver The Challenges of Operating a Single Varietal Advocacy Group. I’m not sure this is what they were looking for, but it is what I face daily, with very few solutions. PS I Love You is operating on $25,000 a year (about $20,000 in dues, and about $5,000 from events).

How can any non-profit operate this way? First of all… no loans. Loans would grow it, but we would go deeper in debt, and I not willing to leave a mess for someone else, the day I’m ready to hand over the group to someone else. Not really “American,” but it is what it is. I have enough to worry about running my own communications company.

What follows are the stark realities of running this single variety, wine industry advocacy group …

Let me set the proper stage of why this group was formed: The original mission: To promote, educate, and legitimize Petite Sirah as a heritage variety, with a special emphasis on its terroir uniqueness.

After eight years, these are the challenges that we face daily, in the order of most important to least important:

1. The greatest challenge is to get the wine industry to support the effort from which they are benefiting.
   • With 756 known producer and 142 known growers, one would think that membership should be solid.
   • Of these 898 potential members, there are only 77 companies support PSILY’s marketing efforts. That’s only 8.5 Percent.
     • When we stated in 2002, there were only 65 growers and producers combined.
     • Our eight year efforts have created an atmosphere for successfully labeling, bottling, and selling Petite Sirah; but only 8.5 percent share the continued costs.
   • Most of the members are small wine companies
     • By 96 percent
       • The list of 72 vintners and one grower (Bacigalupi) is on the PSILY site under “Members”
     • The other four percent have real marketing savvy, and pay higher dues:
       • Bogle
       • Concannon
       • Guenoc
       • Mendocino Wine Company (Parducci, Paul Dolan)
       • Michael ~ David
2. Competition
   • How many wine advocacy group are there?
     • AVA
     • State
     • Industry
       • Related ( Wine Institute)
       • Not related (Chamber of Commerce, Rotary, etc.)
3. Workers
   • Unlike other non-profits, PSILY is based in a small town, where volunteers don’t exist.
   • Members are all over the West (CA, OR, WA)
   • Members are also running their own wine companies, so their dues is all they can do to help.
4. Assets
   • People
     • Volunteers are the heartbeat of any non-profit
     • Being a national organization based in a small rural community, there are no volunteers
     • In this case, it means that Diaz Communications gets $37.50 an hour to run the group for all of the following:
       • Administering
       • Marketing
       • Event planning
       • Bookkeeping/accounting
       • Web updates (daily) and redesign (New Website this year)
       • Mailings
         • Physical ~ Vertical Response
         • Emails
   • Places
     • My Diaz Communications office is where it all happens
     • PS I Love You is gifted the following
       • Files are stored at Diaz Communications
       • Phone and Internet
       • Rent and utilities
       • Storage space
         • Files
         • Event assets (table, glasses, water pitchers, dump buckets, sign and sign poles, etc.)
   • Things
     • Assets: Without substantive income, there can be no assets
       • Without assets, there can be no marketing… Unless
       • Everything that PSILY uses belongs to Diaz Communications
     • This kind of group needs a patron, who is willing to work long, hard hours indefinitely
5. Sponsors
   • A great idea
   • Not enough time to pursue

The same mission eight years later: To promote, educate, and legitimize Petite Sirah as a heritage variety, with a special emphasis on its terroir uniqueness.