The Secret Life of an Intern: Final Episode

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

The Secret Life of an Intern: Episode Three

Throughout my internship I worked a lot on a new campaign Make-A-Wish Australia was launching, “Swearing Can Help”. The initiative is being spearheaded by comedian Kevin “Bloody” Wilson and involves placing a Swear Can in the workplace and any offender who may slip up and drop a swear word places their fine in the can. The can is aimed at assisting cleaning up language in the workplace in a fun and light hearted manner whilst raising vital funds for seriously ill children.

The campaign is targeted at blue collar workplaces and I set to work with the marketing assistant creating databases of possible industries and businesses within the geographical location of the office (West Perth). Industries we focused on included car salesmen, mechanics and hospitality venues. We began cold calling these companies and presenting our spiel and also walked down streets surrounding the office, approaching businesses directly off the street.

We got knocked back quiet a lot (which is always expected in cold calling) with a few successes. There was a lot of backlash from the volunteer branches as t whether this campaign aligned with the company’s values and from businesses who didn’t understand the concept in the short amount of time available to pitch the idea in a cold call/visit.

What are your initial thoughts of the campaign? What other industries would you target and what would be the best way to approach these?

The Secret Life of an Intern: Episode Two

This week has proven to be quiet interesting for the charity industry with Starlight Children’s Foundation announcing a slash in its services due to the economic downturn. I’m currently interning at Make-A-Wish® Australia and I found that this was constantly confused with Starlight as they both grant wishes for children with serious/life threatening medical conditions (this is Make-A-Wish’s sole purpose). Starlight announced that as part of the cut back it 200 of the planned 439 wishes are likely to be funded. Any parent with a child enrolled in this program would have been in panic and Make-A-Wish is now trying to ensure the public that this is not the case with our organisation and we are more than capable to take on any wishes which Starlight cannot fulfill to ensure no child is left out.

We used the (at the time) upcoming Easter weekend to reassure a few contacts that we still have a strong structure and would like to help in any possible way. The marketing assistant and I traveled around to close businesses where there were established relationships, taking a moment to drop of some Easter eggs and talk to contacts. We went to Princess Margaret Hospital and spoke to one of the social workers who liaises constantly with parents and I think this special touch reassured everyone of the organisations abilities.

The experience highlighted how developing relationships is necessary to any company and the occurrence also emphasized how outside factors can affect the business.

The Secret Life of an Intern : Episode One

My internship is being undertaken at Make-A-Wish foundations WA/SA state office, located in West Perth. The state office conducts the company’s marketing and has more of a corporate focus, concentrating on establishing and nurturing commercial relationships to benefit the company and enable the benefit to be passed onto the facilitation of children’s wishes. I chose to apply for this foundation above others as I strongly agree with the philosophy of the company ‘To grant the Wishes of children with life-threatening medical conditions to enrich the human experience with hope, strength and joy’.

My first week has been primarily focused on the attention of members. The company has recently struck an alliance with a networking group to form Wishes of the West. This assembly runs networking events, with all proceeds being donated to the Make-A-Wish Foundation. The board is compiled of young individuals, primarily in the marketing industry and was established in December of 2008.

It has become evident, the importance of members, particularly in a not-for-profit environment. As it is imperative that these relationships are cultivated, much of my time has been dedicated to assembling membership packs, including all the necessary information to attain the utmost involvement from these affiliates and also sending attendees of the events, membership information in an effort to provoke enrolment.

This part of my internship has really shown me that PR is not always glitz and glamour! It takes a large amount of leg work to get to the final result however I believe that as the placement grows closer to the campaign dates it will brighten up somewhat and involve more creative opportunities!

As for now I am left with no fingerprints, as they have been detached from peeling off too many labels!