Introducing not for profit PR

Hi all, My name is Martin Kruit and I have ben doing my placement at Communicare Inc. for that last couple of weeks. I thought I would get a feel for it first before I started my blogs so I had something decent to write about when I got to it. Communicare Inc. was not my first choice for doing my placement but after unseccessful attempts to find work I was introduced to through a friend to a member of the marketing department of Communicare who set me up with an interview, highlighting just how important your personal networks are in this industry! At the time I had not heard of Communicare and I had no real idea about what they do, as I am sure there are a few of you who also don't know here is some information about the organisation and the roles I have been assigned. Communicare is a not for profit organisation located in Cannington. Their vision is to provide excellence in support services to the community and operate five different service areas. These are are; Childrens Services; Family Services; Training and Development Services; Employment Services; and Therapeutic, Accommodation and Domestic Violence Services. There are 280 employees at Communicare along with a large volunteer base, the organisation helps in excess of a quarter of a million Australians each year. As for my placement, I am located in the Marketing and PR department, made up of two full time workers and now myself - helping out two days a week. This small team is in charge of all marketing, PR and fundraising efforts for the organisation. At the moment the organisation is in the middle of the development of a new educational facility for at risk high school students and the marketing and PR department is in charge of a bulk of the fundraising neccessary to the building of this school. My roles are mainly based around working on some of the fundraising events that are taking place this year as a part of this fundraising effort. I was initially excited I had landed a placement and was very happy to be assigned the charity golf day as the main event I would be working on, I had previously written to some sporting clubs with the aim of gaining placement but was unseccessful so I has happy that my work would at least be somewhat sports related. Most of my duties on this regard have been sponsorship related, locating businesses and writing letters asking for donations or supplies for the event. After initially just working on the golf day my list of task grew. I have been attending event plan meeting for next year's youth expo which has been interesting to see how events are set up from the very start. I have also started working on the quiz night where I have been using some of the techniques learnt at uni such as media releases and community service announcements. I have also enjoyed learning to use the 'In Design' program and am starting to get some tasks involving making flyers, brochures etc... All in all it has been a good start to my placememnt. There are a lot of things to learn in the real world that you can talk about in class but are not the same until you get out there and do them for yourself. I look forward to the rest of my placement and will let you all know how things are going in my next blog post. Until then Goodbye!