Hi everyone,
Well I am nearly at the end of my internship with Kanyana Wildlife Rehabilitation Centre and plan to use my last blog to sum up my time spent there. Today I want to talk about the importance of public relations in a not-for-profit organisation.
While researching not-for-profit organisations for my internship report I came across a lot of information indicating just how important public relations is to a not-for-profit organisation. Without public relations, an organisation, such as Kanyana, would not have volunteers, would not receive donations and would not reach their aim of rehabilitation because people would not know where to bring sick, injured or orphaned animals.
Previous to my internship I volunteered four hours a week at Kanyana and after spending two days a week there for eight weeks I have seen many more public relations activities taking place. While I do volunteer in a public relations capacity I am unable to produce as many public relations activities as I have been during my internship. I believe this is due to a few different things, one being that I am more aware of what is happening in the office as I am there more so have a better idea of what can be sent out in a media release, and people wanting information have a point of contact. The second being Kanyana taking advantage of having someone in the office on a regular basis with a direct public relations focus. This can be seen the amount of media release I have written in the past eight weeks compared to when I volunteer. Kanyana are now able to say 'Ria such and such happened yesterday are you able to follow this up for us'. Before these things were not attended to as they were either forgotten or put aside as no one had the time to follow this up.
While Kanyana does receive some media attention on the odd occasion, in the last eight weeks Kanyana has seen an increase in visibility causing an increase in donations and people wanting to volunteer. I know feel I have a better understanding of just how important public relations is to a not-for-profit organisation.
Cheers
Ria
3 comments:
Hello Ria.I'm Izni from LUCT Cyberjaya. It's great that you are working at a not-for-profit organization to save wildlife. I would like to ask what other PR tasks do you have to do as a PR practioner trainee besides doing media releases in order to gain fundings and disseminate information about the centre? Hope to hear from you soon. Thanks;)
btw hope you could comment on my posts as well under the label Nik Izni, LUCT Cyberjaya.
THANKS!
Hi Ria, it is exciting to see how all your works combined and turned into good results! I am happy for you too.
I do my placement with world vision aother NGO. From working with WV, I also find out public relations included in lots of different areas, it is just not to be seen or said specificity. As you said, if there is no PR, the public will have no idea how to donate, where the money goes and such. And these questions are always the biggest issues with NGOs. Another problem I found out with NGOs is the lack of resources. For example, the organising and preparation of the event were wonderful. However, there is NO follow up for the event due to no one have the time to do it or generally lack of resources. It reduces the public awareness and may affect the event's completeness.
Compare to Kanyana, World Vision does not focus too much on media relation but the Youth. I am sure it must be interesting to produce materials for the media!
So how did you find out Kanyana gain more public attention than before? Will you continue to volunteer with Kanyana in a PR role or just in general?
I wish you all the best with the rest of the placement and the report :)
Regards
Kath :P
Hi Ria,
I totally agree with you on how PR is so important to not-for-profit organisations. I had my placement with angelhands who help those who are a victim of crime and the whole organization is made up of volunteers except for one paid staff. Without public relations in an organisation like this, they wouldn’t be able to gain any recognition at all. Like you stated that without PR it will be hard for them to receive donations or grants supports by both public and private sectors.
I hope you had a great time with your placement and do you think you would continue volunteering for them after?
Goodluck!
Deanna C.
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