Circle Park Square
Abba Roland had a conceptualization of a very ambitious community driven endeavor that she named Circle Park Square (CPS). She was framing it out in her head for a number of years while she lived in Los Angeles, and started working on it more intensively when she moved with her two teen twin children to Woodstock, NY, and after three years relocated again to Philadelphia, in order to tap into a bigger community. I assisted her in transitioning the concept into something tangible, in a foundational way that can be built on.
Circle Park Square will be the ‘mothership’ for a number of coordinated efforts that connect individual, non-profits, community groups, businesses and corporations - all to enhance one another with their combined interaction in an effort to elevate the community of Philly, and promote and assist the personal growth of the established network of affiliated folks looking to have their own success and also give something back to others within the big neighborhood of Circle Park Square.
Getting It All Off the Ground
Well that’s the concept.
There were a lot of moving parts, and Abba embraced all of them, often concurrently. Forward progress was proceeding slowly, with continued re-thinking of everything along the way - and nothing tangible and real was able to be put into motion.
What Did Life Trajectory Coaching Do?
Find the logical and creative starting point!
Collaboratively think-tanking with Abba, I mapped out an incremental trajectory that made sense and was doable. I explained to her that the broad conceptual overview - in all its wonderfulness - was too ambitious to accomplish right out of the gate, and her trajectory should start with creating and launching initial foundational elements that were doable at the present time. My viable plan was to create an endeavor that was a microcosm of the entire Circle Park Square conceptual universe. Abba needed to first start her universe with just one planet, and expand as time progressed. It made sense to scale the scope of the endeavor into three distinct phases, and then initiate phase one.
Additionally, I felt that although she was a performance and musical artist with an impressive resume, she needed to establish a greater degree of credibility as an entrepreneur. She was also challenged by the reality that she was a single parent for two high school age twins, and the need to earn a living for her family. As a talented creative artist in many areas, Abba had also started making incredible jewelry made from trash and discarded items that she found on the streets of Philly, created inspired fashion from taking reclaimed / recycled clothing found in thrift stores and the Salvation Army, and turned them into amazing outfits and accessories. She also designed some amazing T-shirts with pertinent slogans and content for the world as it is today.
Taking all that into consideration, in a condensed form, here is the plan I conceived, and collaborated with Abba to refine and actively put into motion:
Do a Kickstarter campaign to raise funds to launch a Shopify site where her jewelry and fashions can be sold.
Build up an inventory of items to sell.
Create jewelry and fashion limited editions lines that are themed - each line has ten reasonably priced items and two to five higher priced pieces.
Align each jewelry or fashion line with a group, endeavor or non-profit.
Price each limited edition line so that when it sells out - a donation of between $500-$1,000 can be made to the chosen organization.
Have each organization specify what exactly that future anticipated donation will fund - rather than just going into a pool of donations from others. In other words, decide to have the $1,000 donation be used to send an inner-city kid to a music camp, or a nature expedition, or assist a single Mom with something needed in her life.
Use a portion of the Kickstarter raised money to hire some needed professionals - someone skilled in creating the Shopify, and an experienced digital marketer to promote the Shopify through a targeted and creative social media advertising campaign.
Revolve the entire endeavor around Abba as a person and a personality. Single Mom artist who wants to change the world for the better on step at a time. Once some visibility credibility is received, seek to promote Abba and her concept on local Philly news magazine and radio shows, in addition to local area press and publications.
Display this entire endeavor to others so that they can create their own endeavor, mirroring the overall concept but in their own unique way, with all such efforts coordinated and supported within the CPS umbrella.
I created a detailed shared trajectory timeline in an easy to use task management platform called Trello, and assisted Abba weekly, keeping the focus on the items and tasks that needed to be accomplished.
