Bono and Nonprofit Fundraising

U2’s Bono, one of popular culture’s most recognizable icons, recently announced the beginning of the “Red” campaign, to raise money for African aids victims. http://www.joinred.com/home.asp The campaign will feature “red” products, such as t-shirts from The Gap, a line of sneakers from Converse, “red” iPod’s, “red” Razor phones, and Bono even hopes to get a major car company involved to sell a “red” product vehicle. At least 50% of the profits from these products will go straight to Africa for assistance. What are the implications for corporate social responsibility? Cutlip says, “Corporations have always had an obligations to the society in which they operate” (pg. 390). Also in the Cutlip book, on page 450, exhibit 17.1, shows principles of fundraising. Obviously, Bono is running a high profile campaign and has already had some major corporations come on board. How do you see this case fitting into the principles of fundraising mentioned in the book? What principles does this campaign best exemplify? Are there any principles that are lacking or have been ignored? How does this fit into the greater context of corporate social responsibility and nonprofit public relations?

New Media: Creating more threats or opportunities?

The concept of “New Media, New Challenges” if briefly discussed in the Cutlip book pg. 252-254. However, this discussion does not identify new media utilized after the books printing in (presumably early) 2006. Such new media outlets are described in an Oct. 2, 2006 PR Week article on the Office of National Drug Control Policy’s (ONDCP) use of YouTube. The ONDCP is using YouTube to post anti-drug commercials as a part of their “Above the Influence” campaign. The organization hopes that by posting the videos on YouTube, they will be viewed by more people than would otherwise have access to them. The problem with providing these videos online is that they are available to critics who may parody them. Cutlip does not go into detail about the effects, especially the uncontrolled effects, of utilizing new media to convey your organization’s message. How much should we, as practitioners, accept the potential threats of new media in order to have our message reach as wide an audience as possible? Are there ways to control the use of our new media messages with third party outlets? How can we best utilize these new media outlets to create opportunities with the least amount of threat produced by critics as described in the article?

Concentrating the potential of inside

While we tend to think of making relationship outwards, I think this article "Sleepwalking Through the Workday" reminds us of the importance of the internal communication. It is the part that can be easily ignored, but actually is something that should be regarded as the first and foremost step.

Everyone is looking for a better job paying more money, and ready to move whenever the offer comes in these days. Therefore, it is getting harder to concentrate on the employee’s potential, as seen in the survey of the article.

In addition to the productivity problem, however, the reason why this is important is that because anyone of a company can be seen as a representative of it from outside. Also, it is pretty sure that the “word-of-mouth” has a great power in the reality. Imagine, if an employee speaks ill of his/her company, it will make the image of the company worse than anything else to other people who are not relevant.

But still, many employers think investing in making internal communication program does not help them make visible profit. So, isn’t it the employers who should be changed first?

Corporate social responsibility reports

I recently read Richard Edelman’s Oct. 10 entry “From Defense to Offense - The Next Phase for CSR” about corporate social responsibility reports and it raised many questions for me about the role of public relations in a for-profit corporation. It seems that in public relations we perceive our role to not only be that of management that serves the profit-making function of the company, but also to ensure that the company is contributing to society and maintaining a humanitarian reputation. Many of us believe that reputation management is essential to the long term survival of an organization, including for-profit companies. Obviously, not all PR professionals feel that way. What is your perspective on the place of social responsibility, including issues such as environmental concerns and human rights, in a for-profit versus a not-for-profit organization?

Taking it up a notch...

We have reached a point in the semester where the focus of your blog entries will change. You will be receiving two grades per week for the blog entries from here on out.

(1) You will now be creating your own post. You must create a discussion-starting post of your own drawing on the readings from the first part of the semester to comment on an issue or something of interest to PR that interests you. This is how we will continue to discuss issues as we move on to writing basics and format in the class. Requirements: issue you think would be a good discussion; related to PR; pull something from your readings to comment on the issue; neatly and professionally written.
To create a post, you log into http://www.blogger.com/, click on the “Gator PUR Classes” blog name, then do create a post, and finally publish the post. It can help to draft it in Word first and then cut & paste it into blogger.

(2) In addition, you are now required to comment on, or respond to, one of your peers’ entries during the week as well as putting up your own original response. I am placing a post here this week so that you have one to respond to…but I encourage you to respond to a peer’s entry. You will continue to comment by going to http://gatorpr.blogspot.com/ and adding a comment to the entry of your choice.

Struggle with the Media

Besides your organization and public(s), the media is one of the most important relationships to nurture. After our discussion on media relations, many concerns and questions began running through my head. Why do journalists view public relations so negatively? Why do they think that we can never get along? Why do they see us as their adversaries? It does not help that Cutlip, Center and Broom say that “these relationships, although mutually beneficial, remain adversarial at their core, because journalists and practitioners are not in the same business and often do not have the same communication goals” (pp. 268).
Perhaps the most important question that came up for me is what can we do to change not only their view, but to maintain mutually beneficial relationships with the media? I believe that one step in changing these perceptions is for public relations practitioners to begin looking at both professions as having a common goal: informing the public with accurate and truthful information. Moreover, has there been research in this area? If so, what are the findings?