Good Deals, Green Living and Strong Communities
Are The Heart Of the SunriseGuide
owner, publisher, Heather Chandler
Latest Coupon Book & Resource Guide Spans Southern ME to Midcoast
Like many people who reach a certain point in their careers, Heather Chandler was looking for something different—not just a job—but something that motivated her to get up and take action every day. With a personal interest in environmental issues, she’d worked most of her career in nonprofits including positions with Maine Business for Social Responsibility, Sweetser and AmeriCorps. She was in the midst of exploring a new path, traveling in the Northwest, when she stumbled across a green education guide, complete with discount coupons. The discovery sparked the idea to start one in Maine. “I fell in love with the concept,” she says. “It made so much sense. It brought together so many of my interests and experiences and seemed like a perfect fit.” Initially advised that a guidebook like this may not take off in areas with fewer than 750,000 people, Chandler believed that Maine was different. “Everything in Maine is regional. Community is not just about the town you live in. I believed we could do it here.”
It took a year and a half to research the viability of putting such a publication together on the evenings and weekends while she continued to work a full-time job. In a definitive moment, she left her job and put all of her efforts into publishing the SunriseGuide with a small team in Portland. “Once I got the courage to jump off that cliff, it all sort of came together,” says Chandler. “I created a business plan and brought on my first sales employee to sell the coupons and ads. That was a nutty summer. I was working 14-hour days and had no life.”
Every business decision Chandler made, including how to publish this Guide, considered the impact on the local community, the employees and the planet. “It would have been less expensive to print our Guide with an on-line printing company or out of state, but we are committed to practicing what we preach,” says Chandler. “To ship the biggest expense of our operations out of state would completely undermine what we are about.”
Organizing and creating the SunriseGuide presented its own set of challenges, but with typical perseverance, Chandler outsourced the graphic design and did all the writing herself. With her technical writing background, Chandler had a knack for distilling the information into easy-to-use sections, creating a “one-stop” shopping handbook on everything that is green, sustainable, organic, and natural in Maine. “I found it to house an amazing wealth of information, beyond what I thought it have...and so colorful and inviting,” says reader, T. Eddy. “There were some stores, restaurants, and information that I had not heard of before...extremely comprehensive. I felt like I finally had my hands on the most definitive guide for sustainable living information in our area!”
With its 5th anniversary edition just printed, the SunriseGuide has grown to include businesses from southern to Midcoast Maine. The $20 Guide contains nearly 300 coupons (almost doubled from last year’s edition) worth more than $8,500 in discounts.
The number of advertisers has also increased from 150 to 230 this year. “For us, this is the most successful advertising approach that we’ve tried and I consider it to be very cost effective,” says Jason Wentworth of Washboard Eco-Laundry in Portland.
The SunriseGuide also contains nearly 65 pages of short articles and resources about green living. Chandler explains, “I’ve always loved community bulletin boards, which are the grassroots communication tool of any community. When I go to a new town, the first thing I look for is one those coffee shop bulletin boards to try and find out what’s going on.” In reflecting on the Guide’s theme this year, Chandler says, “that is really what the SunriseGuide is to me—a community bulletin board in a book.” She points out that so many of the businesses listed are so small they don’t often have an advertising budget or even an online presence. “You may not see them anywhere else,” she says, “so many people love that they discover cool new businesses in the Guide that they never knew about before.”
The Guides can be found through local retailers by going to: www.thesunriseguide.com/buy-the-book/local-retail-stores.html
Student groups, church groups and nonprofit organizations also sell them as a fundraiser. Not only do these groups get to keep a share of the book’s proceeds, but their involvement fosters community building and education about sustainable living, further strengthening the core goals of the SunriseGuide in the very communities it works to support. To date, more than 32,500 copies have been sold.
“We’ve been getting some really great feedback,” says Chandler. “One woman told us that reading the Guide changed her life. She found her carpool buddies, a CSA farm share, and learned how compost. To think that it is having an impact on people’s lives—that is what warms my heart the most.”
To learn more about the SunriseGuide, go to www.sunriseguide.com
Like many people who reach a certain point in their careers, Heather Chandler was looking for something different—not just a job—but something that motivated her to get up and take action every day. With a personal interest in environmental issues, she’d worked most of her career in nonprofits including positions with Maine Business for Social Responsibility, Sweetser and AmeriCorps. She was in the midst of exploring a new path, traveling in the Northwest, when she stumbled across a green education guide, complete with discount coupons. The discovery sparked the idea to start one in Maine. “I fell in love with the concept,” she says. “It made so much sense. It brought together so many of my interests and experiences and seemed like a perfect fit.” Initially advised that a guidebook like this may not take off in areas with fewer than 750,000 people, Chandler believed that Maine was different. “Everything in Maine is regional. Community is not just about the town you live in. I believed we could do it here.”
It took a year and a half to research the viability of putting such a publication together on the evenings and weekends while she continued to work a full-time job. In a definitive moment, she left her job and put all of her efforts into publishing the SunriseGuide with a small team in Portland. “Once I got the courage to jump off that cliff, it all sort of came together,” says Chandler. “I created a business plan and brought on my first sales employee to sell the coupons and ads. That was a nutty summer. I was working 14-hour days and had no life.”
Every business decision Chandler made, including how to publish this Guide, considered the impact on the local community, the employees and the planet. “It would have been less expensive to print our Guide with an on-line printing company or out of state, but we are committed to practicing what we preach,” says Chandler. “To ship the biggest expense of our operations out of state would completely undermine what we are about.”
Organizing and creating the SunriseGuide presented its own set of challenges, but with typical perseverance, Chandler outsourced the graphic design and did all the writing herself. With her technical writing background, Chandler had a knack for distilling the information into easy-to-use sections, creating a “one-stop” shopping handbook on everything that is green, sustainable, organic, and natural in Maine. “I found it to house an amazing wealth of information, beyond what I thought it have...and so colorful and inviting,” says reader, T. Eddy. “There were some stores, restaurants, and information that I had not heard of before...extremely comprehensive. I felt like I finally had my hands on the most definitive guide for sustainable living information in our area!”
With its 5th anniversary edition just printed, the SunriseGuide has grown to include businesses from southern to Midcoast Maine. The $20 Guide contains nearly 300 coupons (almost doubled from last year’s edition) worth more than $8,500 in discounts.
The number of advertisers has also increased from 150 to 230 this year. “For us, this is the most successful advertising approach that we’ve tried and I consider it to be very cost effective,” says Jason Wentworth of Washboard Eco-Laundry in Portland.
The SunriseGuide also contains nearly 65 pages of short articles and resources about green living. Chandler explains, “I’ve always loved community bulletin boards, which are the grassroots communication tool of any community. When I go to a new town, the first thing I look for is one those coffee shop bulletin boards to try and find out what’s going on.” In reflecting on the Guide’s theme this year, Chandler says, “that is really what the SunriseGuide is to me—a community bulletin board in a book.” She points out that so many of the businesses listed are so small they don’t often have an advertising budget or even an online presence. “You may not see them anywhere else,” she says, “so many people love that they discover cool new businesses in the Guide that they never knew about before.”
The Guides can be found through local retailers by going to: www.thesunriseguide.com/buy-the-book/local-retail-stores.html
Student groups, church groups and nonprofit organizations also sell them as a fundraiser. Not only do these groups get to keep a share of the book’s proceeds, but their involvement fosters community building and education about sustainable living, further strengthening the core goals of the SunriseGuide in the very communities it works to support. To date, more than 32,500 copies have been sold.
“We’ve been getting some really great feedback,” says Chandler. “One woman told us that reading the Guide changed her life. She found her carpool buddies, a CSA farm share, and learned how compost. To think that it is having an impact on people’s lives—that is what warms my heart the most.”
To learn more about the SunriseGuide, go to www.sunriseguide.com