The attempt to create relationships

Creating relationships with those in the community is essential especially for a non-for-profit organisation. Communicare is holding National Families Week from May 13th- 21st this year. National Families Week, is about helping children understand how important family is and how working together as a family will allow them to live a healthier lifestyle. 

Not many people in the community seem to know about National Family Week, so this week my task was to ring up different IGAs to see if they wanted to partner with us to get the word out there about the event. Communicare was going to provide everything like colouring and drawing competitions as well as posters for promotions (because for a non-for-profit, any free type promotion is positive), all that was needed was the space to place the items. 

In my several years as a PR students and doing work placements, ringing organisations is now something that seems to get simpler, if you follow the steps which is introduce yourself, the organisation and explain why you are ringing. I followed this procedure when calling the first IGA and success, they agreed to lend us their space to promote National Families Week, Upon that everything seemed downhill, everyone had a different reason such as, they did not have any space, they do not work with local communities, their managers were overseas etc and couldn't help. As time went on, and the ringing continued, I had another three IGAs agree to helping Communicare out with National Families Week. 

Ringing up the different IGAs, most of the managers and supervisors I spoke too, were nice and easy and speak too, whilst some were intimidating, which meant I had to change my approach on how I explained why I was ringing. 

Though at times intimidating, it was a challenge and none the less it was research for Communicare and the marketing and media team, as we found out why the different IGAs could not help us along with the ones that could. 

Till next time :)

Being in charge of so much

Today,began another day at Communicare. Being a non for profit organisation, Communicare's marketing and media team, in in charge of all the PR, media and marketing aspects all the different sectors within the organisation. 

This week, the team was looking into helping youth services put together their Youth Expo which was being held on the 12th of April. This was being done through getting companies to attend to present their organisation, on how they are able to help the youth that are disengaged from society, as well as ensuring there was enough refreshments and enough advertising was done for the event etc. 

Youth Services, wanted the team to put together a A5 booklet of all the different vendors, what they did, who they were with their details etc, for all the individuals whom were coming along so  they could have a reference to go back to at the end of the Youth Expo if need be and here is where I came in. 

There were a range of thirty different organisations, which I had to research and find out what they did and their location. Some of these organisations I have never heard of and some I had previously. Most of these organisations were non- for-profit organisations, which were moving to support the Youth Expo. This made me realise that non-for-profit organisations tend to stick together to support each other to ensure ones success and in turn it is also a way for them to get themselves out there and let individuals know about the services they have. 

Putting together the booklet  was one of my tasks, but in the office the other lingering question was "how do we get more people to like out Facebook page". Since I started at Communicare, this has been a raging question, to get more likes on their fFcebook page. The reason for this I personally believe is because of the massive success of the use of social media and social media is a something most individuals turn to before they do anything else upon turning on their internet accessible devices. This question is yet to be answered yet, as the right type of strategy has not been found to attract individuals from every age demographic. 

Until next time 

Asvinder 

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!