“Pumping Up Your PR Muscle” Strategic Approaches to Building Your Effectiveness in Non-profit Public Relations
Roy Reid, APR
Consensus Communications

(Download the Powerpoint presentation)

Why Strategic Considerations?
• Establish a strong foundation to build your system
• Expand your personal “portfolio”
• Create more opportunities to build the organization
• Open the door to new and effective tools and tactics - without increasing the budget

Nine Strategies to Build Your Portfolio
• Focus and Prioritization
• Business Minded
• Fund Raising
• Research
• Creativity
• Recruitment
• Collaboration
• Storytelling
• Message

Focus & Prioritization
• Know and focus on core constituents
– Do not be “all things to all people”
• Identify and prioritize the key stakeholders
• Help leadership understand the “spheres of influence”

Business Minded
• Be in the business of “business development”
• Understand how the organization operates
• Find the new channels for revenue development
– Participate in activities that help educate
– Government sources
• Frame your efforts for a return on investment

Fund Raising
• Learn the details of the fund raising process and be a visible part of the process
– Know how to “make money”
• Understand where the greatest return on time and investment are
– Not in the events
• Focus the effort to reflect the cost-per-dollar raised or similar measurement
• Stewardship

Research
• Do not short change your effort
• Be the eyes and ears of the organization
• Not always an expensive endeavor
– Use the constituents’ closest
– Use existing tools
– Use the internet
– Use existing events
• Ask often to determine direction and frame message
• Secondary information / collaborative information

Creativity
• Find inexpensive ways to frame and deliver message
• Tap all the internal resources - finding new sources
• Challenge the status quo
• Engage volunteers
• Expand your role in the organization

Recruitment
• Build a base of volunteers
• Diversify the volunteer base to reflect your strategic needs
• Advisory boards
• Tactical participation
– Public Relations Firms
– Advertising Agencies
– Vendors

Collaboration
• Partnerships
– Media Partnerships
• Know the media business needs and find the shared self interest
– Business partners
– Other community service partners

Storytelling
• The most powerful tool you have is the story of people impacted by your service
• Train your organization to capture every success story
• Organize the stories to share in your tools

Message
• Using research, craft a powerful message
• Train the organization to understand and share the message
• Message drives strategy and tactics
• Stay on message
• Adjust as the environment and research indicate the need to change