Ask Charity Weblog

Here at askCHARITY we sometimes try to find out whether journalists are getting responses via our Answer Service. This allows journalists to send a request for information or a case study to hundreds of charity PRs who then respond directly back to the journalist. We were aware of a problem with requests for case studies of people in debt and contacted a couple of journalists - from BBC Breakfast and the Mirror - to see whether they got any responses. It was a bit disspiriting to hear they got no responses at all. The charities concerned said that the deadlines were too tight and that it was very difficult to get debt case studies because people are unwilling to talk about their debt problems. I'm sure that it is difficult to persuade people to talk about their debt problems in the media but I'm not convinced that its more difficult to get people to talk about debt than it is to get people to talk about having HIV or manic depression, yet some people seem to be willing to talk about those health problems. There seems to be a real difference in culture between finance charities and health charities. While in health, nearly all charities offer case studies and have a "file" of them, in finance, charities are more reliant on campaigning on issues. I understand the difficulties with debt, but it seems sad that journalists have a struggle trying to get individuals to talk about such an important subject.

Posted by Charity at 10:18 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

In the wake of the Unicef report and other children's charities response to it, Peter Preston wrote in Monday's Guardian. He is pretty critical of charity PR which he accuses of "bandwaggoning". Both article and comments well worth reading http://media.guardian.co.uk/presspublishing/comment/0,,2016232,00.html

Posted by Charity at 02:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Its often been quite difficult to track down information about forthcoming BBC Campaigns and schemes. I went to the launch of Connect and Create, the BBC's new staff volunteering scheme the other day. It was a great scheme but most charities probably had no idea it existed. Now the BBC CSR and partnerships department have made a big effort to open up their channels of communication. BBC Outreach, as its now called, has launched a new website http://www.bbc.co.uk/outreach and a newsletter about BBC seasons and CSR work. The first one tells of a seaon on Climate Change in April and BBC School Report News Day on 22nd March. Anyone can subscribe to this newsletter by going on the website.

Posted by Charity at 05:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

We heard about a clever campaign run by The School Food Trust. The trust was an organisation with no media profile, who were struggling to make journalists away of their existence. So they set about identifying a handful of key journalists they wanted to befriend - journalists who they wanted to nurture, journalists who the trust wanted to be able to call with potential stories. They didn't want to explain to the journalists the whole history of the trust or every detail of what they do, initially they just wanted the journalists to know of their existence and to remember their name. Over a week they sent those target journalists at national papers a school dinner everyday (along with a trust branded apron, a trust menu and tea towel) - all delivered directly to their desk. Inevitably it got the journalists' attention; in fact it got their whole office talking about school dinners.

Posted by Charity at 10:52 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

As part of the process of all TVs switching over from analogue to digital, there will be some spectrum available for other purposes. This could be used for more TV, local or national, or for any other purpose which uses radio waves - from Wi-Fi to radio mikes used for an amateur dramatic production. Its quite hard to get one's head round the technical aspects of spectrum but it could have big implications for community groups and charities. If you are interested in responding to Ofcom's consultation, the coalition Public Voice has some information on how to do it http://www.public-voice.org.uk

Posted by Charity at 09:26 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)