Public Relations (PR) plays a crucial role in the success and impact of Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs).
Why NGOs need PR?
NGOs entirely depend on finances on fundraising campaigns.
An NGO has to project itself as a service-oriented or philanthropic organization as to attract the attention of the charitable trust and donors for financial help.
An NGO has to disseminate the information about its service and plan as to enable the people to make use of them.
An NGO has to maintain good media relations so that the media carries their messages both to the donors and to the beneficiaries besides building image of the organization.
Audiences of an NGOs
For a Non-Governmental Organization, the list of audiences comprises of two large categories:
Those critical to fund raising efforts such as charities, foundations, government agencies, individual donors and the likes.
Those who are the beneficiaries of the NGOs programmes
Typical audience of not-for-profit or non-governmental organization are:
The employees of the organization.
The members of the Board of Management.
The beneficiaries of the people served by the organizations.
The leaders or workers whose attitudes or behavior would influence the functioning of the organization.
The individual donors, corporations, charities or governments who give donations.
Similar NGOs involved in voluntary work.
Opinion Leaders – local politicians, elected representatives of local bodies and Panchayat Raj Institutions.
Educational institutions and the student community who can assist through voluntary work.
The media and their representatives.
Effective NGO Public Relations Goal checklist
The PR Goals of an NGO depends on the structure and nature of the organization.
Promote public awareness of the organization’s vision, mission, goals and programmes.
Design and implement a public relations programme for fundraising campaigns.
Induce individuals and institutions to make use of the services of the organization for community development.
Produce publicity material on the services for distribution to the internal and external public.
Enroll and train volunteers for the community welfare programme.
Maintain good relations with the media for fair coverage of the activities of the NGO.
Create feedback mechanism to monitor the reactions of the media and public on the functioning of the organization.
Promotion of the reputation of the organization based on its performance.
Media Strategy
An NGO must adopt a multi-media approach to convey its messages to the varied
target audience. Since an NGO is a service-oriented organization, it might get free
editorial space or time in media, which should be utilized appropriately.
A combination of four media: Interpersonal Media, Folk Media, Electronic Media and New Media is an ideal media approach to carry out public programmes of an NGO.
The meagre carriers are :
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