MCH was a proud sponsor at The Amtower Summit on Selling Products to the Government. The Summit was held on November 5th and 6th at the Baltimore-Washington International Airport Hilton. Peter Long, MCH CEO joined presenters Mark Amtower, Amy Africa, Jim Garlow, and Courtney Fairchild in providing attendees with tips on how to market to the government.

The top advice from presenters at the conference was "stick with it." Marketing to the government is lucrative and worth it in the long run but it can be very challenging. Although the Amtower Summit focuses on marketing to the federal government, the tips provided by many of the presenters were applicable when marketing local and state government offices. Click to continue 

Approval of the FY2008 budget, reauthorization of No Child Left Behind, and Response-to-Intervention (RtI) programs are hot topics in the education market. Although the budget hasn't been finalized, early reports indicate that IDEA Part B should receive $11 billion in funding. Educational marketers are watching closely because 15% of IDEA Part B funding—$1.68 billion—can be used for early intervention products and services including professional development and assessment tools. Other proposed funding increases include $4.2 billion for Title I and $2 billion for NCLB. However, the increases come at the expense of the Reading First Program, currently slated for a 61% ($630 million) cut.

Response-to-Intervention (RtI) is typically viewed as a subpart of IDEA Part B and focuses on early identification of students with learning disabilities. By utilizing RtI, educators hope to increase the number of students who succeed in general education classrooms, thus reducing the number of students referred for special education services.

If you're an educational marketer, the MCH sales team can help reach key decision makers with your products and services. Give us a call today!

Resources
National Center for Learning Disabilities
International Reading Association
Council for Exceptional Children
Education TURNKEY Systems, Inc.*

*MCH is proud to develop its Title I products in partnership with Charles Blaschke, President of Education TURNKEY Systems, Inc. Charles is a leading expert in the field of education funding.

Endowments mean spending, and often they mean spending in a big way. A large-scale example can be found in financial and educational publications that have recently dedicated a great deal of coverage to college and university endowment performance. The Chronicle of Higher Education showcased Harvard University and the impressive fact that it had achieved a 23% return on its endowment investments, growing from $29.2 billion to $34.9 billion during FY 2007. The Columbus Dispatch reported that Ohio State University had one of the worst returns at 10.6% percent, however many investors would be very satisfied with a 10.6% return on investment. The reason endowments matter to institutional marketers is that endowment funds are required by law to spend 5% of their endowment fund every year. In Harvard's case that's a paltry $1.745 billion that must be spent in the 2007-08 fiscal year.

On a smaller scale, other institutions that have endowment funds include private schools, churches, museums, and libraries. If you have products or services that can be used by these institutions, you need to follow the money and make sure your offers are reaching the right decision makers at the right time! 

Click here to view our Colleges & Universities datacard.
Click here to view our Private Schools datacard.
Click here to view our Churches datacard.
Click here to view our Libraries datacard.
Click here to view our Museums & Zoos datacard.

MCH GeoPoints and IONIC Enterprise, Inc. have received a renewed contract to provide data to State and local homeland security agencies for disaster preparedness and response. Click to continue

Click here to learn more about MCH GeoPoints.

The following article generated a lot of interest in October. We're sharing it again in case you missed it.

Postage rates and paper costs are continuing to increase and direct mail marketers can't afford to mail to undeliverable addresses or miss out on automation discounts. In this helpful primer, MCH Response Lab Director Michael Tull, answers questions including:

• Why is the CASS Summary Report important? 
• How much is that missing ZIP+4 costing me? 
• What's the big deal about DPV?

Click here to read the entire article.

Check out Your Niche today. Whether you're interested in group sales or you're marketing office supplies and equipment, there may be institutions you've overlooked. Call your MCH sales representative to get a count on those "why didn't I think of that?" institutions you may be missing.

See MCH at there marketing industry events:

PPAI 2008
January 16-18, 2008, Las Vegas, NV
Booth #5863
Director of Strategic Alliances, Mary English, will present "Beyond B2B: A New View of the Institutional Market" 

Click here to request a quote for any of MCH's institutional databases and services.