16 Mar Case study: Does public relations really work?

A nonprofit look at implementing public relations

Beth is an Executive Director of a thriving nonprofit. She first served in the corporate environment and then nonprofit arena for the latter part of her career. She’s driven by the mission of her organization and is passionate, but sometimes nearly exhausted from the constant need for her to keep things going.

She needs to stay on top of grants, funding, legislative issues, volunteers, awareness, team members and so on. There’s always so much to do!

Last year, her organization was awarded an opportunity to secure earned media coverage through a partner organization. Her nonprofit was featured by a few local television stations for a program helping their core audience.

Her board members were receiving complimentary phone calls and texts, their social media page was buzzing with comments, and their website was getting more visits than ever before. And the best part, they were getting phone calls from people who wanted to donate to their cause!

This year, she looked back at that experience and had been wondering how she can recreate that excitement in a more long-term format. One thing she knows is that she needs PR / Marketing but can’t learn how or to do it herself.

When putting together a proposed budget to get support for the organization, she began to ask the question, ‘Does public relations work?’ She needed to make sure her success wasn’t some fluke.

She told us about her search for public relations and marketing firms. She received a proposal from a local tv station with banner ads and keyword mentions. Somehow that didn’t sit well with her because it was seemingly missing numerous areas she wanted to address. She also wanted the feel of having someone more hands-on who would understand and write about their mission in real-time.

She then interviewed candidates to hire internally which turned into another frustrating avenue because no candidate had skills to help with the many areas of securing media coverage, social media, blog writing, email marketing and more. She needed it all. Her nonprofit needed all areas covered and working cohesively.

She then found National Strategies PR. In our initial conversation, we collectively recognized her nonprofit needed support and had the elements in place to make an impact. We informed her getting started would be as easy as 1) Get started with our no-commitment agreement, 2) Let us create a strategic plan, 3) Let us execute the work and generate awareness.

Within the first three months, here’s what Beth’s nonprofit was able to receive:

• Five media opportunities: 3 TV, 2 Print, and 1 Radio
• 56 new Facebook page Likes
• 62 new Twitter Follows
• 64 new LinkedIn connections
• Two new community partners that would cross-promote her nonprofit
• One new major donor
• One event held with community participants
• Three email marketing communications sent to a targeted list
• Overall branding clean up and identity guide created

Beth’s question was clear. Public relations did, in fact, work for her organization.

National Strategies delivers a program where we manage generating awareness for clients through media relations, community engagement, marketing communications, social media and more. We meet with our clients bi-weekly and provide detailed monthly reports so they can ensure we’re meeting their needs.

If you would like to schedule a free demo of our services, email info@nspublicrelations.com.