Ask Charity Weblog

I sometimes wonder whether the success of PR is as much about timing as content. If news is thin, you have a much better chance of getting coverage. News is likely to be thinner on a Saturday, Sunday or Monday and in the middle of holidays. Clever organisations time campaigns to launch in August or say on a Sunday. It means working in your "free" time if you're a PR but my hunch is that for the same output you can get five times more coverage if you're lucky. This week the Power enquiry and the Women and Work Commission were both briefing news journalists on Sunday. Both got a lot of coverage in Monday's (27 Feb) national newspapers and the early bulletins. I suspect that if they hadn't been willing to work on Sunday and had tried to push their story midweek, they wouldn't have got nearly as far.

Posted by Charity at 01:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

If you have the ability to record the sound of an event or a conference and would like to upload that on to the web why not try this site http://www.democaster.org/webcasting/client/index.jsp. It looks as if it can be used free by the first of those to use it and will begin charging later. It's developed as part of the local e-democracy project and appears to be open to community groups and charities

Posted by Charity at 05:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

We're really interested in Jeff Skoll who'se been dubbed a filmanthropist. Jeff made his millions from ebay but is now spending them backing films with a political bent (like the forthcoming Good Night and Good Luck about the McCarthy trials). He apparently believes that films can change attitudes and prompt debate and as such are a worthwhile charitable venture. He doesn't back any conventional charities and has funded many commercial successes. Read more about him in the Observer:
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/review/story/0,6903,1681324,00.html.

Posted by Charity at 06:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I often browse the media guardian site to check on new developments, career moves etc. You have to register to access past articles, but once registered you never have to log in again unless your personal log in changes. Yesterday, I noticed that "BBC televsion and radio is to dedicate a week to the subject of death" http://media.guardian.co.uk/broadcast/story/0,,1703671,00.html This mini season is a fantastic opportunity for charities who are involved in the issue and I'll try to find out who the BBC liaison might be. The BBC occasionally does these seasons on particular issues - they are also planning one on homelessness to mark the ?th anniversary of Cathy Come Home. I think charities in the field would like advance information about these seasons to be more widely available. As it is, my guess is that the information tends to stay with those organisations who have been directly contacted by the BBC. We've suggested to the BBC that they should find some way of disseminating this planning information more widely. We'll let you know if they take up the suggestion.

Posted by Charity at 11:34 AM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

Hi, I help run the www.askcharity.org.uk site (I can never resist giving the web address since we're forever trying to publicise the site). The idea of the site is to help journalists contact charities. Is it so hard I hear you ask? well yes and no. We've spent ages trying to track down the media contacts of charities, just in order to persuade those charities to sign up. And journalists and producers must have to do the same. Also no charity website seems to have media contacts details in the same place. Some have a contact number under "contact us", tho usually not the actual PR contact, while others have the info on the "News" webpage. Some give phone numbers of media contacts and not e-mail addresses and vice versa. Forced into a choice, most journalists would prefer a phone number to an e-mail address, because you're never sure if someone will react to an e-mail, but ideally they want as many contact details as possible. This is what askCHARITY is about - giving journalists all the contact info they want. We'd love every charity to give a mobile number but haven't been entirely successful here. Around 50% of the charities registered have given us mobile numbers. Why the reluctance? I suppose because people fear journalists will be calling them at 10 at night. But I wonder. In the case of a small charity whose Director has given a mobile number on www.askcharity.org.uk, how often is their privacy intruded upon and is the benefit worth it?

Posted by Charity at 04:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)