Part One of Two
Being frugal and innovative is nothing new to nonprofit PR. But the first recession in a decade, coupled with the effects of Sept. 11, has led many nonprofit communications
departments to get radically creative in pooling resources with other organizations, thereby extending not only their budgets but also the impact of their PR efforts.
"You get from each organization a whole bunch of contacts, media contacts, different audience contacts, that you may not have in your Rolodex," says Sandra Gordon, director,
public education and media relations for the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons. Her recent campaign on preventing sports injuries in children was a partnership with the
Arthritis Foundation involving a joint brochure and Web site and a full-bore media program that provided great exposure to her members. AAOS surgeons served as spokespeople in
VNRs and a satellite media tour. "The reputation of each of the organizations is enhanced by being associated with each other, and there is a bigger audience to get your message
out to," says Gordon.
The AAOS now makes a practice of determining which nonprofits would be appropriate partners for a given campaign. By teaming with the National Osteoporosis Foundation and the
American Orthopedic Society for Sports Medicine in the past, Gordon has spread the cost of an expensive print ad campaign. Many nonprofits now approach the AAOS for such efforts,
in part because Gordon's seven-person staff is happy to do most of the work if other nonprofits share the cost. "Partners really don't have to do much. They just have to come up
with the money," says Gordon.
New Models for Lean Times
In another example of innovative PR pooling, the marketers for some of Atlanta's largest cultural attractions now meet monthly to coordinate events and campaigns. The coalition
members are learning to ride each other's coattails by creating shared themed events like the recent "Atlanta Celebrates Picasso." The event was a major exhibit of the master's
work which became a citywide celebration, with the several cultural organizations passing audiences from one venue to another in a sort of tag team effort. The botanical garden
rendered a Picasso painting in flowers, the public theater company put on a play involving Picasso and Einstein, from which both the Jewish heritage and science museums could spin
off exhibits related to the physicist.
Divide and Conquer
For several commercial and community development groups in Franklin County, Ohio, pooling PR resources freed each group to focus more on core competencies. Starting in 1998,
the Chamber of Commerce, Visitor's Bureau and others kicked in $75,000 each to form a total budget of $350,000 for a Columbus/Franklin County News Bureau to promote the region's
image nationally. "The advantage is that it allows the other entities to focus specifically on their niche market and not distract them from their mission," says Marilyn Tomasi,
president of the Bureau since September. The groups that fund her efforts can target their own trade presses more effectively, because "they know there is this entity whose sole
focus is to try to position the overall image, the overall market, to the mainstream press," she says.
As the Bureau's one FTE (with one part-timer and three interns), Tomasi pulls information and resources from member organizations, but her job is to translate local expertise,
industrial innovations and successes into national stories. The effort paid off big last year with a Wall Street Journal feature on the vibrancy of the Columbus market and
community. Columbus is not only concentrating its PR funding but also the measure of its success. "It's more about quality than quantity," says Tomasi. "Better to get five
substantive pieces about this market than to get 105 Columbus, Ohio mentions."
(Contacts: Kristen Gabriel, 323/650-0606; Sandra Gordon, 847/384-4030; Marilyn Tomasi, 614/226-6928)
Editor's Note: In the second installment of "Pooling Your PR," read more about how to identify partners, implement joint campaigns and overcome the hurdles of working with
other organizations. Watch for Part Two in the March 11 issue. Contact Steve Smith, [email protected], or 302/235-5529, with leads on
this topic.
Finding Your Sugar Daddies
The only thing smarter than pooling PR resources with other nonprofits is finding the right for-profit company to underwrite your campaigns. Now that community development
organizations have funded her Columbus News Bureau, Tomasi is soliciting local private companies to volunteer 10-20 hours a week of PR services for the Bureau.
And in order to fund a world tour of ortho-paedics-related stories and artwork (PRN, Aug. 27, 2001) Sandra Gordon of the AAOS secured hundreds of thousands in funding and
volunteers from top medical companies. "There's more than one way to skin a cat when you don't have the money to do what you are doing," says Gordon.