How do you get media attention for your non-profit organization when you're trying to raise awareness
about your mission, or a special project or event?
In this video I'm going to share some of my personal tips from engaging with the media
through my own non-profit organization over the past several years.
Welcome or welcome back!
My name is Amber Melanie Smith and I'm a non-profit founder and Executive Director and I make
these videos here on YouTube all about things relating to starting and running a non-profit,
creating a social impact, and more.
If you are starting a nonprofit or developing a sustainable fundraising plan for a nonprofit
definitely check out my website, FounderToFullTime.com where I have some online trainings for just
those topics.
And I hope that as always you find this video helpful and useful!
Don't forget to give it a like and subscribe to my channel for more content like this.
Okay so whether you are kind of at the beginning stages and you're starting a non-profit or
you've got an organization that you're working with or have started and you um really need
to raise some awareness about some aspect of the issue that you're tackling or a special
project or a special event you have coming up the media can be a great Ally to you and
and especially when you're new or a smaller organization and very few people know about
you or have heard your name getting some media attention and especially repeat engagements
with the media can really help build your credibility as an expert on the issue and
as a non-profit with which of course we know leads to more people wanting to support your
cause so let's get into some of the tips on how to engage the media and get this media
attention so that you can make sure more people are aware of the wonderful work that you're
doing I'm gonna share six tips here and these are things that have worked for me and other
professionals that I work alongside in the nonprofit world and the first one is all about
relationships and it is to build and cultivate relationships with media professionals if
you have been watching my videos for any amount of time you've probably heard me talk many
times about the importance of relationships when it comes to basically everything that
exists in the non-profit World from relationships with donors to relationships with your own
team and board of directors to relationships with other non-profits and businesses in your
area relationships basically make the non-profit world and probably the whole rest of the world
run so same thing here just remember that media professionals and journalists they're
humans too they rely on human connection and personal relationships as well so one practical
thing that I recommend you do especially if you haven't had any media attention before
is to just go ahead and reach out and introduce yourself to your local media professionals
and this could be journalists or media Professionals in local television stations radio blogs you
know digital stuff video Etc whatever type of media attention is most prominent and has
a strong audience and of course aligns with the the way that you'd like to get visible
to your Community.
Reach Out, introduce yourself, make sure they know that you exist who you are your role
with the organization and let them know about some topics that they might be able to reach
out to you about whether it's non-profits in general or something related to your specific
issue area like homelessness or animals or food food insecurity or the environment or
whatever issue you are tackling let them know that you're there and that you have uh information
and expertise that they might want to call upon for a quote or story in the future and
once you've reached out it's important to maintain these relationships over time so
perhaps every couple of months you reach out and remind them you exist and just share something
interesting going on with your organization or something going on in the community related
to your issue area related to your non-profit that they might want to know about just to
maintain that relationship and make sure that they keep you top of mind oh okay if you are
not sure how to reach out to a local media professional or journalist it's pretty easy
most media platforms will have a contact page many even list the name the specific names
of their um of their team members their journalists on a page and sometimes have like personalized
emails or phone numbers for each of those so um that's an easy way just look on their
website to find the contact information and if you're being real strategic about it maybe
even start yourself a little spreadsheet where you are tracking all of the different media
professionals you've reached out to who they work for what types of topics they cover and
their email address so you can build that content a media contact list for yourself
going forward tip number two kind of ties into tip number one and it is to demonstrate
your expertise so in addition to just staying in contact in general with journalists and
media Professionals in your area you want to be a credible contact for these people
so reach out when something is going on in the community and the world that has some
kind of relationship to what your non-profit is working on let's say a huge National report
came out that says poverty is on the rise in the United States well you could reach
out to your local media professional link to that report and say hey this you probably
saw this this report came out nationally I have some information on how poverty is impacting
people in our local community let's talk I you know I'm an expert on this let's let's
have a conversation and see if maybe you can use a quote of mine in an upcoming story once
you do this for a while and really have established that trust and credibility you might even
find that journalists start reaching out to you because they know you're an expert on
a particular topic I've had this happen to me a couple of times where journalists just
know hey Amber is that person who can talk about this or that and they'll reach out and
they'll say hey this thing's going on do you have a quote do you have anything you want
to weigh in on here and of course I'll give them some information and that helps my organization
stay visible to the public eye over time tip number three is to practice and get really
good at writing a simple press release if you have never written one before or you're
not quite sure what a press release is it's basically a short like one maybe one and a
half page long news story about a topic that will be used to kind of pitch a story to the
media in the hopes that they'll want to learn more and make it a bigger story so practice
writing a press release there are lots of great templates and examples online that you
can find for free but the whole idea here is you want to make it really compelling and
and inspiring hopefully or at least thought provoking and consider that journalists receive
a lot of press release a lot of press releases like every day so you're really going to want
to make yours um catch them in the very beginning so I would think of what is the most interesting
thing or the most important part of the message that you want to get across related to whatever
it is you're writing about your mission a special event you got going on a project etc
and put that at the very top I know it might seem counterintuitive because you might think
oh I want to like you know get them to read the whole thing so I'm going to put the interesting
stuff at the bottom but that is the opposite of the approach you want to take because what's
going to happen is they're just going to read the first few sentences and then if it's not
interesting they might put it aside so you want to hook them right in the first couple
of sentences and say your most important stuff up front other than that you want to make
sure you have your basic details like who what where when why you know your W's incorporated
into the press release and of course very very important certainly a way to contact
you including your email your phone number if you want to be accessible to the media
on your personal cell phone you can include that information as well and your name and
your title with the organization it would really not be fun if someone loved a press
release you sent but you did include your contact information they have no idea how
to reach you or you make it hard for them so make it easy for them tip number four is
to entice the media with an opportunity to cover something that is visually appealing
and obviously this is for the type of media that would include visual components like
television or even a print publication that might have some Photography in it but think
to yourself what might be visually compelling or literally interesting to look at related
to what you're trying to pitch whether it's your your mission overall or special event
or project and then when you're talking to the media or you know writing your press release
really emphasize that I have had media professionals call me um during a big event I was hosting
asking um whether they should come cover it if there's anything that'll be good for them
to capture on camera because that visual component is so important to them and I'll direct them
to some aspect of our event that I think would be visually interesting people are very very
Visual and the news media knows this that in order to get people to watch it's got to
be interesting to look at and when I say interesting to look at I don't just mean things that are
like bright and colorful though you know that could be something um I mean something that's
going to tell a compelling or interesting story with the visual components of it so
a couple of examples might be um showcasing kids having a lot of fun at an event or engaging
with senior citizens you know telling the story of that connection there's there's an
emotional component there you know footage of volunteers working hard to build something
or serve meals for example a personal interview with someone impacted by a specific issue
or even a visual tour of a building or a space that has something important to do with your
mission and something important happens in that space tip number five is to time your
Outreach to the media very strategically and thoughtfully and here's what I mean you know
different media platforms have different cycles for their news different timings of what they
want to put out to the public if you are for example trying to get the television media
to come out to an event that you're having then you want to take an approach where you
are sending a couple of notices to them you want to send a notice your press release out
to them maybe a couple weeks before the event is happening so that they can kind of get
it on their radar but then you also want to send a media alert or a reminder that it's
happening at like three or four in the morning before on the day of your event um and that's
because many television media professionals will be planning their day and what they're
going to be covering very very early in the morning before the rest of the world wakes
up so if you can get your press release or your reminder to the top of their email inbox
the day at the exact time they're going to be planning their schedule for the day you
might get some um you might get lucky and be able to get their attention and and convince
them to come out to your event another thing to consider is that media companies use what's
called an editorial calendar this is probably true of all types of media but especially
with print or digital um media companies and editorial calendars basically a schedule of
what topics or themes they plan to cover over a period of time it can be done for even up
to a year I know some magazines will have monthly themes that they want to cover so
in the month of January we want to cover fashion and in the month of February we want to cover
families and their pets or and so forth so um they are already thinking strategically
and perhaps even thinking how they're going to align what they want to cover with their
own advertisers uh far in advance so if you can get a sense of what the media is hoping
to cover over a period of time then you can suggest to them ideas for articles or media
coverage that could match what they want to do for that period of time as well and then
you're going to capture their attention because you're basically offering them ready to go
content that aligns with the theme that they already planned out for that day week or month
here's a kind of obvious example but let's say that it's a holiday season and your local
media wants to cover feel good stories during the holidays well maybe you have a feel-good
story about a person that your organization served or supported through its amazing Mission
and you want to share that with them knowing that that's what they want to cover at that
time you know exactly when to time your pitch to them to cover your story if you're not
sure how to figure out what media wants to cover a lot of times and this is especially
true of printer digital they will have some semblance of their editorial calendar published
on their website because some of them want uh third-party writers to send them articles
matching those themes so you might be able to just reach out to a magazine or print publication
ask hey you know what are the topics you're planning to cover over the next several months
and to see if they send it to you the media for the television is a little bit more agile
they obviously just want to cover whatever the the biggest news is at that moment though
some of them have broader themes or special programs like a morning show or something
where they want to cover specific topics my sixth and final tip for you today relates
to something very important you want to make sure you do if you get your media attention
and that is to be sure to include your specific call to action you might be nervous about
getting on TV or having your name in a publication or something um but having this call to action
is basically like why you want to do this in the first place and a call to action as
a refresher is what you hope the audience will do once they watch your story or read
your story is it that you hope that they'll donate is it that they'll come to the event
that you're hosting is it that they will sign up to volunteer whatever your specific call
to action is make sure you clearly state it during your media engagement otherwise you
might tell a great story but no one no matter how inspired they are will know what to do
with it so if you're afraid you're going to miss that part practice in advance have you
already gotten media attention for your cause I'd love to hear how you got it and what you
shared tell us about the story that you shared that really captured the media's attention
as I mentioned before if you are starting a non-profit or working on developing your
plan for how you're going to sustainably raise money for your mission check out my website
FounderToFullTime.com where I have a couple of online trainings that cover these exact
topics and if you're looking for other resources and tips and funding opportunities etc.
I have a newsletter that I send out regularly to change makers and non-profit leaders like
you you can find the link to subscribe in the description below the video or in the
comments and of course you can opt out at any time final thing I have a group on Facebook
called Change the World or Bust, and we'd love to see you there we got a couple thousand
folks from around the world talking about the different ways they're making an impact
so come on over and join us there once again I'm Amber Melanie Smith and I hope that you
found this video useful and helpful and I'll see you next time bye