My last day interning for Make-A-Wish Australia was the company's national fundraising and awareness day. “Wish Day” was held on the 17th of April and branches were participating in a number of ways, from shaking cans in shopping centres to attending fundraising events.
I was holding a fundraising event at a local pub, themed “I wish I was a...”, which involved patrons dressing up in attire depicting, as a child, what they had wished to be when they grew up. The night involved a raffle and prize for the best dressed and successfully managed to raise the charity over $1400.
From a PR point of view however, much more could have been done to raise awareness of the day. A primary competitor has since had their awareness day where they received major media coverage and I will be recommending in my final report for the state office to focus on main media coverage through media releases and feature stories to increase involvement and reach the objectives of the day.
From the event, I did learn to take LOTS of photos! If the media can’t afford to send a representative, you can do a write-up and send photos yourself. If you have an established relationship with representatives, it will help alot!
Many charities hold an annual awareness day, it seems that not a week goes past without one! What endeavours would you suggest a charity like Make-A-Wish do to achieve cut through? What media would you approach and how would you create a newsworthy angle?
Thanks for participating over the semester and much luck to everyone in their final reports!!!
xx
4 comments:
It definately looks like an awareness campaign that would take a lot of work, and yes, there are so many campaigns out there to compete against. I found a similar sort of problem when I ws doing my internship at Telethon Speech and Hearing. And I DEFINATELY found out how much goes into making an event work out, all that time and effort before hand!!
I certainly agree about there being many not for profit campaigns out there vying for the same attention.And some of the bigger charities do get a lot more media attention than others which is a pity.
MS Awareness Week is just around the corner where I am completing my placement at the MS Society and from what I've been hearing, there's been a lot of brainstorming about what sort of things can be done to capture some media attention.
In order to get the job done in a highly competitive environment many charities are getting more and more creative in order to stand out from the crowd.
I think doing really unusual or creative stunts will always draw some sort of media attention. Something that really sticks in my mind was that stunt from Hamilton Island advertising 'the best job in the world' which I remember getting all sorts of coverage, locally, nationally and globally which I thought was a bit over the top but yeah...got the job done.
Thanks for your comments girls!
Elise, I was just wondering if you worked at all on Loud Shirt Day? I saw an interesting plug for it on Neighbours where Toadie was wearing a loud shirt and Steph commented on it :P I had it on in the background and it really grabbed my attention!
Peggy, I know the Step Up for MS event is running next week, it sounds really interesting! Have you worked on it? I'll keep an eye out for an interesting stunt :)
I think it is always the best feeling to work with a non-profit organisation when it involves helping others. That is true that there are many other organisations out there competing for the same attention. It is not easy work running the programs but it sure sounds like a good experience and good fun!
Post a Comment