Alley has always believed in the power of bringing people of all kinds together and creating an environment where we can support, enable, and celebrate everyone (no matter gender, background, ethnicity, or sexual orientation). It is with this belief that we’ve built our ecosystem and actively work to support under-resourced founders and creatives to create better representation and more access in the workplace. A diverse and inclusive workplace and representation in media are more important than ever because it is our responsibility to show the world our differences and celebrate them. Diversity, innovation, and technology are the three most important things to create change and to further growth of businesses, individuals, and communities. Which is why we wanted to lead with action and take it a step further with the launch of our All In Fellowship. In partnership with Verizon, we opened our doors in our Palo Alto coworking space with the sole mission to connect the top-tier technology companies who have infinite resources with diverse founders and teams who have limited resources. It is our focus to equip founders with a unique competitive advantage, which includes access 5G technology, event programming with industry experts, the support of our extensive mentor network, enrichment office hours and access to physical space to work from.
Alley’s platform exists to create accessibility and to provide growth opportunities to people with great ideas, so why not use it to its fullest extent.
Goal -
Provide workspace - subsidized space for 3 months
Provide mentorship with experts, entrepreneurs, and corporations
Provide media exposure
Design events and programming for support
It was important for this program to have it’s own brand representation so we got to work on developing a name, logo, landing page, and campaign.
Name - A name that was motivating, supportive, and inclusive was important. Although we wanted to keep Alley’s name attached to the fellowship we wanted a name that encompassed everything we were trying to achieve. We wanted to go all-in and put all of our resources behind this project. We dropped the ‘ey’ from Alley, and decided on the name All In.
Logo - One of the key elements of our brand is that ability to activate our logo’s top to be whatever we would like it to be. When we created this logo it was important that it was versatile and represented everyone in Alley’s community. For this program, we activated it to illustrate the connections to people, resources, technology, and opportunities.
Website - A landing page was essential to bring in applicants and highlight the cohort. Providing a dedicated space on our page for our residents, mentors, and partners, furthered our commitment to provide recognition for their companies.
Campaign- Utilizing our social media, email marketing, website, partnerships, public relations, and media relationships we spread the word through the entrepreneurial and startup communities in the hopes of reaching the most applicable candidates, mentors, and partners.
Once all applications were submitted we selected the fellows, mentors, and partners that were going to be a part of the program. We asked where the fellows needed the most support, paired them with the best mentors and started to curate events & programming.
Once our fellows started, our campaign didn’t stop there. We used:
Digital tools like issuu.com to make sure they had everything they needed from us. Their welcome books included how to connect with Alley’s community, how to connect to their mentors, events & programming, and partnership information.
Social media to highlight the cohort members and to showcase what they were working on.
A dedicated newsletter to provide a channel for resources and communication
A dedicated Slack Channel to connect with Alley’s community and resources
Specially curated programming and events, so they should explore best practices and use our events as a tool to succeed. Events included office hours with VCs, workshops, founder chats, and panel discussions
To celebrate the success of the cohort we organized a pitch night for founders to pitch a panel of judges from VC firms, incubators, and corporations. We invited the public via our social channels.
We had the ability to gather the community through our digital channels to produce something in real life that not only impacted the individuals within the program itself but everyone who touched it.
Launch statistics:
With the launch of this campaign and the successful applications that we received, we were able to fill the entire Alley Palo Alto space. We brought in 28 companies consisting of 60 individuals. For each company, we selected the best mentor for them based on what they said they needed in their application and interview process. We had a total of 55 community partners that helped us spread the word and contributed to the events and programming. Last we had 38 events and workshops that were specially curated for the fellows.
