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Community relations
These short items discuss the following:
Community service and your image by Paul Paquet
Doing community work is not only good for the soul, but it's good for an organization. The London-St. Thomas Real Estate Board (LSTREB), for example, sells ceramic-style pins shaped as houses. The proceeds from this
program, called Homes for Hope, are used to fund four shelters for the homeless and for those with substance abuse problems. "We've had massive press coverage every year and in every media," says Melissa
Hardy-Trevenna, LSTREB communications officer. "The coverage has been local, provincial and national." Sound expensive? Not at all. Promoting this program only costs the board $400 a year. But making the
most from community work requires careful strategic consideration. Hardy-Trevenna advises organizations to focus on one charity that it can really help. "(Successful sponsors) focussed on one group to support and,
over time, have become associated with that group in the public mind." You should also be careful about which charity you pick. Here are the questions to ask.
The ethics of sponsorship In some cultures, expecting a gift
to be reciprocated is a grave insult. Apparently, we don't live in one of those cultures. The September issue of PR Tactics quotes a PR officer who says that "rather than simply hand over a check and say goodbye,
today's corporate donors want to see their money used in ways that line up with their business objectives." Corporations will tie donations to purchases of their product, for example, or they may insist that a
university use the money to study industry-specific problems. This is hardly charity. Too many organizations want it both ways. They want the "feel-good" buzz of corporate citizenship, but they also want
to see bottom-line results for the money, treating corporate sponsorship as just another form of advertising. This is not altogether new. After a violent Colorado miners' strike, John D. Rockefeller had to hire PR
godfather Ivy Lee to clean up his image. Lee suggested that his client hand out shiny dimes to kids. But the classic philanthropists, such as steel baron Andrew Carnegie, saw corporate giving as a Christian
obligation, not as a strings-attached business strategy. And many of today's tycoons feel the same way. Ted Turner gave $1 billion to the UN, and pizza king Tom Monaghan is giving away his fortune to charity. All of
these men reaped the PR benefits of selfless giving. But in addition to the PR benefits of corporate giving, there are also social and moral benefits as well, and these latter benefits are diluted by quid pro quo
giving. Moreover, government plans to turn more charity over to the private sector are fatally sabotaged in a climate of "what's in it for me" giving. If the library depends exclusively on business for
funding, then what's to stop the businesses from banning books? (One solution is Imagine, which encourages businesses to give one percent of their pre-tax profit to non-profit groups. Cornerstone is a member of
Imagine.) Leveraging community relations Also in the February PR Tactics, one writer notes that "companies today are demanding more of their community relations," which is becoming "a strategic function that adds returns to a dual bottom line of the company and society" by building brand awareness and recognition. Instead of giving quietly, or even anonymously, today's donors want "to become the supplier of choice, the employer of choice, the investment of choice and the neighbour of choice." Good cause, good PR
For many PR people, backing a cause means getting your client's name attached to an event. But now, many of us are actually making our client part of the event itself. The May 1999 issue of PR Tactics shows how a
number of companies have improved their media coverage this way. One terrific example is Remy Martin. The company is looking for affluent, young customers, and it knows that these customers like independent films and
fringe theatre. So it hosts opening-night parties, wrap parties and premieres. The stars drink Remy cocktails and the press bills the events as Remy receptions.
Cornerstone is a writing and editing firm that uses marketing and PR principles to create "words you can build your business on."
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