Telethon time!

Hello fellow bloggers and PR enthusiasts!

Being giving the opportunity to intern at Telethon was a scary, yet exciting thought. I expected to walk into a huge office with a whole team of people and different departments carrying out their various duties for this infamous organisation. Little did i know!! The team at telethon consists of four people. Yep that wasn't a typing error I said four.

This team of extremely hard working individuals cover all aspects of the not for profit organisation ranging from an executive manage, marketing and events, events and administration and accounting and bookkeeping, all working efficiently together to run this organisation 365days a year. Telethon is infamous for the attention it attracts on its weekend in November, however, its operations don't stop there, its community and corporate fundraising efforts run all year long, and its communication with its various stakeholders and beneficiaries is daily and its up to these four people to make sure its all done effectively.

Telethon does not have the budget for a PR department, 100% of its donations go towards a selected number of beneficiaries each year, and until recently most of its social media and PR strategies were run through a company called socialite media who offered their services for free. Telethon now takes care of its own PR with all of its social media activity coming from the members within the office and its news and print exposure comes from the support of Seven West Media.

On my first day i was informed that the major two projects i would be working on would the Beneficiaries Function and the Telethon Kids appeal. The beneficiaries function is one that sees telethon hand out grants to all the charities receiving funding from last years record breaking total of just over 16million, it also acknowledges its million dollar partners, which are those companies who donated a million dollars or more over the telethon weekend. The telethon kids appeal sees telethon partner with 92.9 and over the course of two weeks raise the funds to provide Princess Margaret Hospital with new equipment they need from a 'wishlist' they create. I look forward to contributing my skills to both of these events and gaining much knowledge from the team at telethon.


Stay tuned for updates!

Caitie
x