Charities €˜missing the point' to get stories in the media
Howard Lake | 8 November 2006 | News
Charity PR attitudes are amateurish and miss the point according to social affairs correspondent for the Daily Express, Sarah O’Grady.
Speaking on a panel session at the Institute of Fundraising’s Fundraising PR and Communications conference yesterday O’Grady said she was constantly surprised at how many charities don’t approach her. I’m surprised with the amateurish attitude of PR departments, she said. Your stories are all very worthy, but simply not newsworthy. You are missing the point.
Both she and Diane Reid, charitable appeals advisor of BBC Television – both of whom are charity trustees themselves and have been involved in fundraising for various causes – agreed that many charities think they have a right to speak or have their story printed, without grasping what will be of interest to viewers or readers.
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Lee Winter, chief reporter for the Kent Messenger Group echoed this. There’s a tendency for charities to send us ideas and then to be slightly miffed when we bury their story on page 40, he said, and explained that to get into the paper at all, the story must be relevant to the paper’s catchment area and have a strong human interest hook.
For BBC radio, charities need to be just the right side of nagging to get themselves heard according to Denis Nowlan, network manager of Radio 4. He said that fundraisers generally don’t understand the constraints under which the BBC’s editorial staff work and that we can’t report your fundraising story unless there’s something dodgy about it. He went on to explain that this isn’t necessarily designed to be a criticism of fundraising or to generate negative media coverage, but that it stems from looking at how effectively you are fundraising and spending public donations and is there anything you could be doing better.
In answer to a question from the floor, all four speakers agreed that press packs – those glossy brochures designed to tell the press how wonderful our cause is – are a waste of time, money and trees. Forget printed press releases as well, said Nowlan. Make a phone call.
About Howard Lake
Howard Lake is consultant editor of UK Fundraising. He founded the site in 1994 and successfully sold it in 2022. As director of Giving X Ltd he is exploring growing giving on a massive scale.
He is the founder of Fundraising Camp and co-founder of GoodJobs.