 | | Good Neighbor Tool Kit: Leading a Charity Marketing and Public Relations | | ||
|  Nonprofit Nuts and Bolts The Art of Fundraising Recruiting Volunteers and Keeping Them Happy Marketing and Public Relations Leadership and the Board Good Neighbor Tool Kit Main Page Good Neighbor Home Page | Determining Budget and Personnel Time and money are limited resources. Plan how to spend them before you begin: Budget. Your budget will be based on your aspirations. How important are publications to you? How many events do you want to schedule? There are times to be bold and ambitious. There are times when it’s better not to try something if your efforts are going to be underfunded and inadequate. As a rule, for a fairly young, fairly small organization, devoting about five percent of the annual budget to the full range of public relations activities described here would be appropriate. Human resources. Just as fundraising turns out to be more time-consuming than many people first believe, good public relations usually involves a lot of hours and effort. Figure out who in your organization can be responsible for the kinds of activities you want to schedule and how much time they have, or the jobs won’t get done. Don’t plan a special event unless you have people available who will make it a success from invitation to thank you. Don’t launch a newsletter unless someone can write, design, produce, and distribute it. TIP: Around the country—in cities large and small—freelancers and consultants can help you with all sorts of public relations activities. Take them into consideration when planning and budgeting your program. Is it Working? As tricky as it can be to figure out whether public relations is doing your organization any good, try to determine some indicators of your efforts’ productivity. Evaluate your program, reorder priorities, and redirect resources. If you’ve put some energy into placing stories in the news media, how many clippings are piled up at the end of the year? If you sponsored a conference or seminar, how many people actually came? Adjust your public relations program and invest in the kinds of initiatives that seem to work best. Web Sites That Work > | |