Partnering with a non-profit organization is a great way to connect with your community. However it can get challenging.

When working with a non-profit, know what will truly help their cause. Listen carefully, as most will not assert themselves aggressively. For example, collecting canned goods for a food pantry might seem to be helpful, but finding transportation and distribution for the goods could become more of a hassle (and more costly!) than a cash donation to the organization. Most non-profit organizations could use donations more efficiently than the tangible items that are donated at the fields.

While it is up to you to determine how best to partner with a non-profit, once you have crafted a relationship, TourneyCentral has a lot of tools to help you push your message out. (An example of these features can be seen on the MASC tournament site. They partnered with the Butler County Special Olympics for their 2014 event. Check out what the MASC is doing!)

Our advice:
1. Use DEALS. You can add to five non-profit, community-based organizations like Special Olympics, parks dept, museums, etc., that do not involve ad placement or in-kind donations free of charge. They would appear under the DEALS and in the sponsors just as your paid placement woudld. You can rank them so that they always appear at the top of the list.

This includes as much content as they want to provide, including a deal, link to their donation page, a flyer (downloadable pdf), a video, twitter, and facebook.

2. Include news stories on the front page. Our latest software update allows you to make one story sticky, i.e., always appear at the top. The news story can include photos and a video as well.

3. Use the broadcast tool to send out a special email to the teams that only include the charity..this can be a rich HTML email (we can help with that…)

4. Use your twitter, facebook, vine, Instagram and Google Plus accounts. Promote, promote, promote. Be generous.(Start here if you are new to social media.)

Regardless of how your program shapes up, do something cool enough for us to write about (like the MASC) and keep us in the loop. We love bragging about our TourneyCentral soccer tournament events.

Advice on this article offered by Scott Sliver. Scott Sliver (Sly-ver) is Executive Director of The Hope Foundation of Greater Dayton. On twitter, he is @hope4dayton or @scottsliver and by email scott@hope4dayton.com.