Public Relations

Goodwill Industries of San Joaquin Valley is taking a stand against competitors with a billboard that reads, "Say yes to Goodwill and say no to the box." The billboard is posted at the intersection of Thornton Road and Hammer Lane in Stockton, Calif., and will rotate to a new location every two months through June.…

As the Girl Scouts, Turning Points for Children and countless other nonprofits have shown, crisis comes in ways that are impossible to imagine. It’s up to the organization to be proactive and transparent, to have a plan...

Is "poverty porn" making a comeback? That's the term that some people used back in the 1980s to describe attention-grabbing fundraising ads. Back then, the media was filled with images of starving African children in desperate need of food, seemingly all alone in the world. And folks in the West were invited to save them…

It wasn’t that long ago that public relations was something most nonprofit organizations thought they couldn’t afford. They tried to get by with PR volunteers instead of a paid public relations professional staff. Some nonprofits confused public relations with advertising, and tried to get it pro bono from local ad agencies...

One of the world’s largest restaurant chains is weathering a public relations storm. Last week, authorities raided the home of Subway spokesman Jared Fogle in connection with a child pornography investigation. Fogle famously dropped 245 pounds on a diet of Subway sandwiches and made more than 50 commercials for the company over 15 years. Since…

Do you ever think about how much the community knows about your organization? The truth is the community may know your name, but is not aware of the depths of what your organization has done or will do.

Don't ever forget to market yourself. You are your most important product and key to your ultimate institutional success. No less than 100 percent daily effort will do. People are watching you—and you set your own performance bar.

A man dressed in jeans and a rumpled shirt walked into the lobby and asked to see the executive director. Thankfully the receptionist greeted him and found the executive director who was willing to go out and greet the plainly dressed visitor. It is a good thing she did—he proceeded to give her a check.

Did you take the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge? Even if you didn’t, I’ll bet you at least talked about it. Sure, the crazy-viral, social-media-based fundraiser has its critics. But come on! It was creative. It was fun. It was engaging. It was nothing short of a phenomenon! Wow!

One real reason renewal rates, retention rates and long-term loyalty stubbornly remain so abysmally low is because donor scepticism has been left to fester. What an opportunity.