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Canadian Careers - Public Relations Articles
Public Relations for Non-Profit Organizations in Canada
Extend your Budget and Be Creative for Non-Profit Organizations
By Maryse Cardin
Extend your budget by Working with Corporations
Corporations are always looking for ways to improve their reputation with the community and raise awareness of their products and services. Non-profits are in a perfect position to form a partnership with these corporations to help them meet their objectives. By forming a partnership with a corporation, you can attract valuable expertise and funds to help your non-profit.
Corporations choose to work with non-profits based on whether their target audiences and messaging are similar or compatible. For example, a food manufacturer making low-fat foods popular with women may associate itself with a non-profit group that works on women's health issues. Simply by associating itself with the right group, the credibility of that corporation goes up as it receives third party endorsement from the non-profit group. Corporations spend large budgets on tactics to find and reach the right audience. When you know that, you can approach specific companies that are targetting an audience similar to your supporters or members with a custom-tailored proposal.
Be Creative
Make the proposal creative and put yourself in the corporation's shoes to see what would be attractive to them. Every non-profit out there is offering logo placement to their supporters and sponsors. It is so common that this no longer constitutes a real benefit. Think outside of the box when offering public relations benefits to working with you.
Some options include:
- Featuring the corporation in your newsletter
- Featuring the corporation on your website
- Conducting joint media relations so that your non-profit and the corporation both receive coverage. For example, you could appear together on an open line radio show to talk about some issues.
- Speaking opportunity: invite a company spokesperson to speak at a special event or to be a presenter during an awards show to help them raise their profile
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