When Gerry Harrington accepts an Award for Excellence at the Religion Communicators Council's DeRose-Hinkhouse Memorial Awards ceremony in Dallas this Thursday (March
30), it will be a confirmation of his distinctive approach to public relations. As founder and president of New Spirituality Communications in Kingston, NY, Harrington
proved it is possible to successfully combine practices that many people view as contradictory as the sacred and the profane: spirituality and PR.
Having run his PR agency under the moniker of Harrington Associates for 16 years, he rebranded the company as New Spirituality Communications in 2004 as a reflection of
the theological changes in his life. But he makes it clear he is not running a "Christian" PR firm, or one that focuses solely on a religious denomination or theological
issues.
"Religion is a formal way of approaching and expressing one's connection to the divine," says Harrington, who was formerly an executive producer at CNN. "Spirituality
is the feeling one has. It can exist within religion, but religion is not necessary to be present to have a spiritual experience."
Harrington, whose award honors his creation of a 40-page keepsake program for the international conference "Seeds of Transformation: Toward a Spiritual Renaissance in a Time of
Fundamental Change," experienced a personal spiritual transformation in 1998, but only gradually incorporated it into his business. "It was more in the margins of my professional
work," he recalls. "I wanted to bring it out of the margins and into the center of my professional life."
At his agency, Harrington promotes companies and nonprofits that adhere to a spiritual mission, such as Blue Dolphin Publishing and The Hoffman Institute. Even
clients that may not seem particularly spiritual to an outsider have resonance with him - case in point, the Ulster Performing Arts Center. Where is the spirituality?
Says Harrington: "Art is a spiritual expression." To which we say: Amen!
Contact: Gerry Harrington, [email protected]