Strategic giving

“In almost any gift-giving situation, there is some expectation of return, whether is it a tax deduction, a named building, or an enhanced reputation. That’s why anonymous gift giving is so rare. Giving always occurs within a social context that makes a gift reciprocal in nature. Perhaps corporations that give with some expectation of return are only being more strategic and explicit than predecessors who gave with equal expectations but said less about it - or who gave without planning. For a gift to be genuinely altruistic in nature, that is, for it to demonstrate other-centered love, it must have benefit to the recipient as its primary motive and purpose, but not necessarily its only motivation or purpose. Therefore, strategic or “smart” giving may be regarded as ethical.”

from: Media Ethics: Cases and Moral Reasoning. Christians, Clifford. 2001.



Without knowledge of strategic giving this statement comes across negatively.

When I first read this, it seemed to be a one-sided beneficial tool. The gifts purpose is lost in the company’s want of an outcome beneficial to the company itself. After reading this about 10 times, and doing research outside of this, I understood exactly what strategic giving or philanthropy meant.

It can be ethical because it can be a two-sided beneficial tool. The main purpose of the gift giving is to benefit the recipient; however, if it in turn benefits the company, be it tax reductions or name recognition, it is an added bonus.



These are all companies that give strategically:

Home Depot: Volunteers (employees) use materials from their stores to build homes for Habitat for Humanity.

Their main purpose is to help those in need, those who are not as well off as others. Having their name and products shown to viewers or “audience” is the bonus. Their intent was not to show off their name, it is just an extra “gift” to themselves for their generosity to the community.


Exxon/Mobile: The corporate logo features a Tiger, and the company donates large sums to help protect tigers and their environment.

Again, helping the tigers and their environment does not benefit the company. The bonus is just having their name and logo connected to helping the tigers.


Starbucks: They sell Ethos water in their stores, with some of the proceeds going to third world countries to provide cleaner water.

Their main purpose is to help people in other countries have cleaner water. They could sell other water where the proceeds go completely to their store instead of helping a charity. This benefits them by showing that their company cares about national problems, like clean water in third world countries.

This video is an example of how Starbucks helped Africa last year

Another local example is my current job, Strawberry St Cafe. They are having a raffle and bake sale where some of the proceeds go to the Virginia Foodbank.

This benefits the Foodbank and the surrounding community. The Foodbank will get more donations towards their cause and the community will be able to help with that cause by donating. It benefits Strawberry St Cafe because it shows the community that we care about this cause and helping the community.

Strategic giving is something that does not have to be negative, and from the above examples should be looked at as positive.

Here are some sites that further explain strategic philanthropy:

Starbucks and Ethos Water

CECP

Strategic Philanthropy

Huffington Post

3 reasons practitioners should have Creative Commons licenses

Public Relations practitioners have many tools, including the Internet, to help them relay a message to the masses. Many of those tools, especially the Internet, does not specify how a practitioners work can and should be used, and the "fine line" is getting more and more fuzzy. With Creative Commons licenses, practitioners can rest assured their work will be shared, tweaked and built upon the way that they intended.

Creative Commons is a nonprofit corporation that offers free licensing to creative works so that the work is used the way that the creator intended, consistent with the rules of copywrite. This license allows people to share, tweak and build upon others work, all within the license.

3 Reasons PR practitioners should have Creative Commons licenses:

1. Attribution/Collaboration

With these licenses, the number one term is attribution! There are a number of ways this can be done. The first is that everytime your work is to be used, permissions must be granted. Another is attribution with no derivatives, which is what may be most useful to PR practitioners. This means that your work can be used, you will be contacted, and it will be used in its original form to ensure that it is being publicized exactly how you want it.

This is also a great way to compare what the company or individual wants to what the audience wants and needs.

2. Publicity

Not only is this a great way to get works out to the masses, but its free!
When an individual or company uses your work, you have to be attributed. Whether they tweak the work or not, your name is on the work, and therefore is being publicized. This can be a great benefit to a practitioner, especially if the work that is being tweaked is displayed innovatively. The work is being spread throughout the Internet, therefore allowing millions to have access.

3. Beneficial Reasons

By having a license you are protecting your work. By putting it on the Internet, the publics have full access, and therefore causing your business to become more well known, and most likely in a good way. Both parties "win," you and your public.

5 social media sites PR practitioners should be using

With social media becoming more popular, many sites are starting to pop up. There is not just livejournal anymore, there are micro blogs like Twitter and Tumblr, networking sites like Facebook and MySpace, video-sharing sites like YouTube, and the list goes on. Below is a list of the five social media sites PR practitioners should be using.

1. LinkedIn

LinkedIn is a professional networking website used to connect with businesses and other professionals.

Why PR practitioners should be using it: LinkedIn is a great way to communicate with people who can directly impact your business. This is a professional site, and therefore, those who you connect with can help give business advice or even point you in the direction of other professionals.

2. Facebook

Facebook is a social networking site where you can add friends, post photos, share “you” and your experiences, and join groups

Why PR practitioners should be using it: Facebook is a great site because everyone is on it! You can make a fan page for your business and invite people to events via facebook. It is a great way to improve customer satisfaction because you can get direct feedback.

3. Twitter

Twitter is a micro blog where you can share information and get that information out as a live stream.

Why PR practitioners should be using it: With Twitter, you are able to listen and respond to what others are saying about your business within seconds. This feedback is direct.

4. YouTube

YouTube is a video-sharing site where you can upload and share videos.

Why PR practitioners should be using it: With YouTube, you can post videos about your company or product and get feedback about what the consumers think about your company or product. Also, if you make your company or businesses YouTube channel, you are in control of the image your business is portrayed as.

5. Digg

Digg is a social news website where you can post articles and others vote on whether they like your story or not.

Why PR practitioners should be using it: Diggcan increase the visibility of your stories, therefore giving your business more social networking opportunities.

CRISIS!

The three most important things that PR practitioners can do during a crisis seem to be the following:

1. Know possible threats and be ready for them:
If you prepare for possible threats and have the solutions to them, you will be prepared to handle the situation and fast. If you have a fill in the blank pre-prepared statement, you will never be stuck.
2. Divide work, finish the job:
Most of crisis management is about speed. The decisions can be made by the team, but the work should be done individually to help with time management
3. Speed:
Speed is everything! If you don’t work quickly to fix the problem, someone else will fill in the blanks for you. In order to get things solved, you must work fast. If the first two above statements are done correctly then this last bullet should be easily done.


PR practitioners play a major role during a crisis. They are the person that a company or organization turns to when things turn sour. Although it may not, and usually is not only one person solving the crisis, the PR person is the one that they turn to. They make the problem solving decisions that have to be taken during any crisis.

A crisis can most definitely be an opportunity. Although something bad has just happened, this can be a chance to make things better than before if the necessary steps are taken. Like with any situation where there are risks involved, there lies an opportunity with the right steps taken and right attitude.

Uses and Gratifications Theory vs. Agenda-setting Hypothesis

A valuable aspect of PR practitioners is the skill in persuading publics. Two communication theories that support this statement include the Uses and Gratifications Theory and the Agenda- Setting Hypothesis. These two communications theories are tied closely together. To explain how, I will first explain the theories.

Uses and Gratifications Theory:

• the audience chooses which messages will be received and acted upon
• the audience also has an influence on the media
• grants power to the individual audience members

An example: A person watching television may choose to watch the commercials or choose to change the channel.

Agenda Setting Hypothesis:

• the media does not tell people what to think, but tells them what to think about (meaning that the media doesn’t try to persuade its audiences to think one way or another)

An example: News channels often have the same top stories

The difference between the two are that uses and gratification theory focuses on the connection between an individual and the message while the agenda setting hypothesis focuses on the media's influence of the message to the audience.

The relationship between the two models goes back to the audience. The agenda-setting hypothesis states that media gives the audience the most important information, or top stories, and the uses and gratification theory states the audience's action to keep or pass through the message. Through the agenda setting hypothesis, media outlets showing the same stories hand feeds the audience the messages that the uses and gratification theory states. Therefore, these two theories are directly related in that they intertwine with each other.

PR practitioners play key roles in these theories. With the uses and gratification theory, PR practitioners give information, or messages, to the media through the publics. In the agenda setting hypothesis, the role of PR practitioners is in the background, or behind the media. Otherwise, PR practitioners give information to the media and the media gives the messages to the public.

A How To Piece: Communications Plan

A great way to figure out what to do in any situation is to have a communications plan. Below is an example based from "Public Relations: Strategies and Tactics." This example doesn’t use calendar or budget, but some situations may involve those components as well. In the end, there is also an evaluation that measures the success of your objectives.



SITUATION

The Communications Director for PRSA is presented with a problem; the PR profession lacks credibility in the United States. As the director, he/she must come up with a plan to generate more credibility.

OBJECTIVES

The objectives are:

• To create awareness about the PR profession
• To give credibility to PR professionals.

TARGET AUDIENCE

• Businesses with Public Relations positions
• Universities (teaching future generations the importance)

STRATEGIES

• Develop many story angles for broad range of media
• Generate event ideas
• Involve universities from all over the U.S.
• Involve businesses from all over the U.S.
• Develop main points to put into the newsletters and public service announcements

TACTICS

• Provide print and broadcast media with media kits (which include fact sheets and news releases)
• Make public service announcements on the importance of Public Relations
• Host special events (networking, invite businesses: local and national, tell universities about the events)
• Send out newsletters
• Have biannual reports (to show the increase in awareness and credibility, or progress)

For this example, the objectives are to create awareness and credibility for the PR profession. These are very open objectives, and therefore must have strong strategies and tactics to fulfill these objectives.

The strategies listed above lead to the tactics needed to fulfill the objectives. Above all, getting word out about PR professionals is what will help the objectives succeed.

The PR tactics used are media kits, public service announcements, special events, newsletters and biannual reports.

By sending media kits to print and broadcast stations, they can take the main points to tell audiences around the world. Making a public service announcement can also help, because news stations can play them constantly.

Networking events are a more personal way of getting the word out. Media kits, public service announcements and newsletters are just information, whereas events are a way to make face-to-face meetings with businesses and university faculty. These businesses are important in knowing about the PR profession because they more than likely have positions available for PR and should know the importance of credibility of the profession. University faculty are important because these are the individuals who teach our future PR professionals. If they teach them the importance now, then those individuals can spread the word and it may become more well known.

I chose these tactics because I believe these are strongest to help get the word out. They all tie together and feed off of each other in helping get word out.

Accreditation: To Be or Not To Be

PRSA accreditation is not well known to many businesses. But why?

Having PRSA Accreditation, or Accreditation in Public Relations (APR), means simply that you are committed to public relations and the ethical practice of public relations. It shows that you have a broad knowledge, strategic perspective, and sound professional judgment. If you are accredited, you are bound by strict ethical guidelines, have demonstrated your desire to succeed and commitment to enhancing the profession, demonstrated skills and abilities necessary in today’s public relations executive or manager, and have successfully completed a challenging review and examination process. More information on APR can be found at the PRSA website.

This accreditation can easily put you above another PR practitioner at a job interview. However, if those managers and business owners don’t know about APR what is the point in paying hundreds to be accredited? On the other hand, shouldn’t a business know about APR if they have that position available? Shouldn’t they want their employees to be as ethical as possible? PRSA is not who should be held completely accountable. The businesses should be the ones to do their research. If they have an open position, they should know all about that position, including accreditations.

A few ways PRSA can help, however, is by getting the word out, posting constant reminders or blogs on their accreditation, and possibly even having representatives go to businesses to teach managers and business owners about APR and the importance of APR. If business owners and managers know more about it, they will look for it when doing interviews and in turn more PR practitioners will want to be APR certified.

Their website is fairly well known. Many PR practitioners constantly go to their website. If PRSA were to put up constant reminders about APR and the importance of APR, many of those practitioners will see that and possibly decide to become certified or even spread the word and tell co-workers about becoming certified. Through their website, they could even start a blog specifically for enlightening practitioners about APR and having practitioners tell their stories of how being certified helped them get their jobs. Since blogs are becoming more and more popular, this would easily sell the idea to many PR professionals.

Additional to spreading the word, PRSA should hold seminars or go to businesses to help spread the word. This method can hold many options.

The first is having open seminars for businesses to voluntarily learn about APR accreditation and why having employees with this certification is important. The downside to this is that not all business owners or managers will voluntarily go to these programs.

Another option is having a PRSA representative go to businesses to teach them the value of the certification. This is a somewhat better option because the owners and managers will not have to physically take time to go to a seminar; the seminar will come to them.

Finally, the businesses that have PRSA representatives already working with them should teach them about the APR certification. PRSA cannot be held accountable for teaching all businesses around the world. If practitioners help spread the word, eventually more and more people will know and want to be certified.

If PRSA and the practitioners who follow them help get word out to businesses, eventually being certified will be something that most businesses will be looking for when doing interviews. This will help keep the profession true and ethical.