Abigail Stryker 
One of my favorite client sectors to work with is nonprofits. I’m lucky to have had the opportunity to work with a wide range of amazing nonprofit clients at Maven, including Rebuild Philadelphia, Colorectal Cancer Alliance, Gift of Life Donor Program, and most recently, Creative Philadelphia. One of the reasons I enjoy working with nonprofits is the passion team members have to reach their organization’s goals. I also enjoy connecting with volunteers, community members, or advocates of these nonprofits, and hearing their personal stories.
While working with nonprofits is extremely rewarding, it can also be challenging to garner media coverage within the competitive landscape, especially in Philadelphia. Here are a few tactics I utilize to ensure our nonprofit clients receive the coverage they deserve.
Take time to understand the team.
Nonprofits often have dynamic leadership teams who all have specialized areas of expertise. Take time to meet with each leadership member. Connect with them, learn about their passions and the intricacies of their job. This will help you create a thought leadership plan that doesn’t rely solely on the organization’s CEO. For example, with Rebuild, we regularly position their diverse business and workforce development team members (like in this Bridging Philly episode), fundraising team members, and so on. This allows us to tap different reporters, offer new angles, and reach new audiences.
Know what their audience values.
We hear this constantly in PR – know your clients’ audience, and how to reach them. This is the same rule when working with nonprofits, but it’s worth remembering, not all audiences respond to the same message. Some communities want to hear the statistics, some want a personal story to relate to, and some want a mix of both. During the Colorectal Cancer Alliance’s 45+ Reasons Campaign launch that Maven executed in partnership with Mendoza Group, we learned that the campaign’s target audience responded best to statistics, but only when presented by community members that they trusted. This meant targeted media coverage and community-focused outreach.
Personal stories go far beyond one media hit.
A measurement ethos we follow at Maven is that while gaining many quick media hits may be great for a nonprofit’s SEO, they don’t always drive real results or meaningful coverage. That’s why we prioritize the long game – investing time to learn about our clients, think about what the “right” media hit is for them, and create a tailored strategic approach to achieve it. With nonprofits, the long game usually involves uncovering the personal story of someone who has been directly impacted by the organization. For the Gift of Life Donor Program, this meant taking time to learn about donor mom and Gift of Life Ambassador, Cynthia London, and heart recipient and Gift of Life Ambassador, Earl Jones. Then our team spent time figuring out how to make their stories timely (while important, media needs something that makes a story urgent to cover). PA Donor Day presented that opportunity. Time was spent creating messaging documents, talking points, and coordinating interviews. The result? A feature on CBS3 that was posted to their website and ran an additional four times on the network, a happy client, and an entire state that was moved by these personal stories about hope.
While garnering meaningful media coverage for nonprofits can at times be a challenge, the reward is always worth it. If you invest time into learning about your clients and what makes them special, meaningful coverage will follow. If you’re a nonprofit looking to expand your mission’s reach, let’s connect!
Posted In Media Relations, Nonprofit