Press coverage for your non profit group is always important. It keeps your name and your cause in front of people. Keeping people informed of your actions will pay you back three fold. I’ll explain that a little more in depth in the article.
Getting the Ball Rolling
Contact you local radio stations, TV stations, and newspapers. Those places everyone thinks about but also contact your local chamber or commerce and tourism boards. Select the next biggest town or city close to you and contact their magazines, TV and radio stations. Find out about networking sessions for businesses and attend those meetings.
Other organizations you can contact are city, county, state or provincial councils, Professional associations and civic groups. All of these groups get approached by the media and will be able to direct them to your organization.
Establishes the Organization as the Expert
Keeping in touch with the media should be viewed as a long term relationship. By keeping your name out there and contacting newspapers and radio stations from time to time you will become the go-to-guy for your cause.
3 Way Payback
Staying active and generating press coverage can return your time investment three fold. It will lead to more donations because people become aware of your organization. More volunteers will show up and more people in need will come to you.
Think Strategically
Send all these organizations a package about your charitable organization and your fundraising. Periodically keep in touch with them by sending those newsletters through the year containing information about new employees, special events, promotions or grants.
Target your press releases to certain outlets. Certain newspapers may be interested in a release that may not play as well as to radio station miles away. The earlier you can deliver your press release the easier it is for these media outlets to prepare and run it a few times. You may even help the radio or TV stations out by preparing a couple of sentences as a voice over for the ad. You might want guide them to let them know what segment of their audience you would like to market this to.
After all these things are looked after, every 3-4 months sit down with your marketing department to see if your charitable organization is getting in the news and if your audiences awareness of your has increased.
