The Front Door Protocol

The rules

No verified direct address? The company or the assistant gets the letter — we never guess an inbox.
Published channels only. If it is not on their own site or a public directory, we do not use it.
Gatekeepers get thanked by name and asked plainly to forward. They are people doing a job.
One page, one ask, one offer. Anything longer does not get forwarded.
Every attempt is logged with date, channel and outcome, so the next rung is honest work and not a repeat.
Silence is not a no, and it is never a reason to stall. Ladder up and keep going.

Start at rung one. Silence is not a no — wait the stated window, log the attempt, climb one rung. Nobody gets contacted twice through the same door.

1
Published partnerships or collaboration desk
wait 2 business days
The organization's own site — /partnerships, /collaborate, /work-with-us.
It is the channel they built for exactly this, so a message there is expected rather than intrusive.
2
Press, media relations or communications office
wait 2 business days
University media relations, corporate comms, agency public affairs.
Comms teams know who owns a project and are paid to route inbound accurately. Fastest correct forward in practice.
3
Executive assistant, via the main switchboard
wait same day callback, then 1 business day
Call the listed main line and ask for the assistant to the named person by title.
An assistant controls the calendar. One respectful call gets a real answer about whether the ask is a fit.
4
Technology transfer or institutional partnerships office
wait 3 business days
University TTO, national-lab program office, consortium administrator.
For lab work, the office already handles deployment agreements and pilot sites — our exact ask.
5
General contact form, in writing
wait 5 business days
The organization's contact form or general inbox, with the same one-page letter pasted in.
Creates a dated written record even when it routes slowly. We keep the confirmation.
6
Public professional channel
wait close the loop and log it
A public professional profile or a published talk contact, message kept identical.
Last rung. Same letter, same tone. No DMs to private accounts, no personal numbers.

Every person here matters to families we serve. Open one to get the forwarding letter and the switchboard script, ready to send today.