Dorchester entrepreneur provides marketing to nonprofit sector

Social Impact Prize winner Michelle Miller Groves (center) poses with (l-r) Nene Igietseme, Boston Impact Initiative Team Member; Deborah Frieze, Boston Impact Initiative co-founder; John Maudlin, Field’s Corner Business Lab co-founder; and Travis M. Lee, Field’s Corner Business Lab co-founder. (Photo: Courtesy Social Good Marketing)

When Dorchester resident Michelle Miller Groves named her startup Social Good Marketing, she knew she would have to do something to impact the community. By targeting her integrated marketing services to nonprofits and setting up an internship program helping college students get experience with small businesses, she has done just that.

And she isn’t the only one to think so.

Recently, Miller Groves won a Social Impact Prize from the Boston Impact Initiative and Field’s Corner Business Lab. The prize provides Social Good Marketing with one year of free office space at the Business Lab’s startup hub, as well as executive coaching.

The Boston Impact Initiative, an organization that provides financing services to Boston businesses and organizations serving urban communities, sponsored the office space. Field’s Corner Business Lab co-founders Travis Lee and John Maudlin will work with Miller Groves as she works to expand Social Good Marketing.

According to Boston Impact Initiative co-founder Deborah Frieze, Social Good Marketing was chosen from a pool of small businesses that applied for the Social Impact Prize. Frieze said her organization was impressed by the company’s “commitment to empowering local entrepreneurs and engaging a diverse network of young consultants.”

Dual impact

The concept for Social Good Marketing was dreamed up by Miller Groves in 2010, while she was working in the media relations industry and also teaching advertising and public relations at Suffolk University.

Miller Groves’ background is in public relations and advertising; she has a bachelor’s degree and master’s degree in the field from Suffolk. She has also worked in online advertising for Wayfair.com. She got her start in teaching in 2008 and has taught at a number of Boston schools. She currently teaches at Fisher College.

What prompted her to start her own business was a perceived need for integrated marketing services for nonprofit organizations and small businesses. She also saw college students with a desire to get real-world experience in marketing and the inability to get satisfying internships with the large companies that traditionally work with colleges.

“Intern with a big company and you spend most of your time answering phones and doing menial office tasks,” Miller Groves said. “Work with a small business or nonprofit and you get your hands dirty with critical industry work.”

Scheming on how to connect interns with companies, Miller Groves started talking to nonprofits and realized she could offer services from her own company for those that had some budget for marketing, and offer interns for others that might not have the funds.

College interns typically do the work for college credit so they are not paid. As a startup, Miller Groves knew she could offer services through Social Good Marketing that nonprofits could afford. In this way, both grounds were covered.

Social media expertise

Integrated marketing weaves together a number of marketing and advertising strategies, including paid advertising, public relations, promotions and social media, into one focused campaign to support a company’s brand.

Social Good Marketing’s particular area of expertise is the creation of content for social media marketing, namely Twitter, Facebook and blogs, as well as search engine optimization, which helps consumers find a business through the web.

Officially launched in 2013, the company’s clients include Roxbury Community College and Brookview House in Dorchester.

The company first started placing interns in July 2013. So far it has placed about 30 students into internships from schools such as Boston University, Boston College, Suffolk University, Northeastern University, UMass Boston and Tufts.

Social Good Marketing generates revenue through its work for nonprofit clients. One of the things Miller Groves hopes to work on while at Field’s Corner Business Lab is finding the best business model to use to support the internship program.

Cultivating capacity

The Business Lab’s Maudlin is looking forward to working with Miller Groves to help her grow her business.

“I think Social Good Marketing is an equally good fit for the businesses we want to support and for businesses we want to be members of Field’s Corner Business Lab,” said Maudlin. “Here is a company trying to provide nonprofits with resources that they need, just like we are trying to do.”

The marketing world Social Good Marketing is entering has been shaken up by the explosion of social media and its impact on reaching consumers, which has allowed small businesses and startups to compete with large, decades-old corporations that once dominated the public relations world.

In this new age of social media, those grizzled PR vets may actually be less desirable than younger professionals who are more tech savvy.

“Companies are even more willing to work with college students because they know they are a technical generation,” said Miller Groves. “They grew up with it, and colleges are now teaching social media in the classroom and how to market it for businesses.”

At the end of the day, Miller Grove stresses, all companies now know they must have a social media presence. And Social Good Marketing has just the thing for them.

“There are so many opportunities to grow Social Good Marketing and really solidify our niche and our space in the market. I just see tremendous potential,” said Miller Grove. “I know Social Good Marketing is in the right place at the right time to grow.”