December 26th, 2012
Be A Professional Community Trust, Achieve Your Goals And Be An All Round Winner!
I have just been approached by a Football in the Community Trust, which has asked whether it is eligible to apply for the free PR support, to a total of £600, on offer from Catapult PR. The answer is ‘yes’, most definitely!
This leads me to focus on some of the excellent pro-active work tackled by such Trusts, the one that has caught my eye being Bolton Wanderers FC, which actually seems to be doing more than the concept says on the tin – very refreshing. I love the heart campaign that they have got going on there, which to me shows some lateral thinking, rather than the typical ‘we just do football’ thought process, which drives me mad. My experience of working with football in the community programmes stretches back years and was earned before I founded Catapult with teams like Everton FC and Stoke City FC, where we certainly strayed beyond the norm and did things differently, when football in the community was nowhere near as developed an idea as it is now. We also did some pretty good stuff with England Under 21s promotion at the agency I worked for then. If there’s one thing that drives me mad, it’s lack of commitment and lack of vision, which is why today’s approach at least makes me think that some Community Trusts do care about their product and aren’t just happy to be part of that malaise of living off funding and caring not a damn about community engagement or exciting propositions for sponsors. Good on Bolton for being a Lancashire football in the community programme that’s being innovative too.
Hopefully, my charity support (at face value £600, but I’ll give a lot more than that, if I believe if the cause shows me that they are passionate about what they do and really want to go for it), will enable the charity to really pursue their goal and live their dream. My mantra has always been to dream and be passionate about what you do, because if you reach for the stars, the possibilities are endless. While my patience and staying power with those who can’t be bothered are legendary for their short lifespan, I also struggle with those who cannot explore the possibilities of ideas, who cannot think outside the box and who do their organisations a grave disservice by not investigating different avenues – a lack of duty of care in my eyes. Unfortunately, apathy often rules.
My free PR time offer for a charity of good cause need not just be spent on promoting existing projects, but on enriching a charity’s work with ideas, helping it with pitches for sponsorship funds from elsewhere and contributing ideas on how to make sponsorship zing rather than wallow in mediocrity and ‘an ad in a programme’ or a ‘banner on a fence’. God save us all from that! My aim with every campaign is to set about it with the goal of making it an award winner. A PR award would be a real bit of kudos for any cause or charity – and would also make a few potential sponsors sit up and take notice going forward, helping them in the long term and not just the short term.
If you are a vibrant trust or charity that actually cares, you’ve probably got a good chance of winning the support, given my loves and hates within the world of business. Email for an application form now, as this round of free PR support closes on Dec 31. It’s not difficult to do and well worth your while. If you’re ethical, hardworking, passionate, professional in your dealings with other organisations and are reputation-focused, you will stand a very good chance.
