Tag: community service

Press Release Generator – Sample Press Release on United Way Day of Caring [or Action] Involvement

10-Minute Branding Refresher: How do you build your brand 10 minutes at a time? You start small, and you simply begin. An excellent way to convince yourself to get going is to plan your ending. You can even set a timer. Then, be sure to bask in the success of your huge accomplishment of actually beginning and also appreciate the amount of work that got done. Then, repeat the process tomorrow. And the next day. And so on. You will be amazed at your branding progress . . . 10 minutes at a time.

PR as Another Opportunity for Branding

In an earlier article, we discussed Press Releases as Another Opportunity for Branding.  Specifically, we addressed some of the basic criteria needed to produce a successful PR piece, including discussions about:  Topics, Voice, Audience, Outlets, Format, Quotes and Photos, and Post-Submission Follow-up.  In other articles, we provided the following press release generators:  Identifying Your Content, Sample Press Release Announcing a New Hire, and Sample Press Release Announcing an Employee Promotion.   In this piece, we are providing a template for publicizing a community involvement on the part of your company and employees (specifically the United Way Day of Caring/Action).  We chose this example because such observances are broad in geographical scope and because publication of local and regional efforts is an extremely common and a widely accepted practice.  However, any community service activity is a likely candidate for PR.  (As before, we are hoping these tips will help keep you from getting stuck staring at a blank, crumpled page!  However, recognize the need to customize this template to your own situation.) 

Can this task be done in 10 minutes?  With a template, maybe.  However, you can easily spread the exercise across multiple 10-minute sessions.

In getting started, remember that the rule of the 5 W’s still applies, so we encourage you to review our earlier articles.  We also want to remind you that voice matters – you must write as though you were a totally objective journalist preparing the story.  Similarly, the content must be of interest to the audience of the intended publications.  

As previously noted, announcements of community involvements are a common press release practice that communicate a positive branding message about your organization and your people.  If you perform an internet search on “United Way Day of Caring,” you will find that local newspapers across the country have shown a willingness to print these kinds of stories that are generally perceived to be of interest to the readership.  That said, be aware that some outlets might be willing to include all or most of the information you provide . . . but many will reduce your words to a skeletal, bare-minimum sentence or two.  If that is the standard practice, a quick glance at past issues will let you know the kind of space typically allocated to such stories.

Secondary Benefit

When preparing a press release on a public service activity, you are also realizing a secondary benefit by sending your current employees a message that you care about the community and are willing to provide resources (their time spent during working hours) to help.  By making this quality part of your brand, you help yourself become an “employer of choice” and you encourage customers to treat you as a valued member of the community.

Below is a fill-in-the-blanks-template to use as a starting point in developing your own content:

Your Logo

PRESS RELEASE – For Immediate Release

[Company Name]

[Contact Name]

[Phone Number]

[E-mail Address]

[Date]

[HEADLINE ex.  ## Employees from COMPANY NAME Participate in United Way Day of Caring [or Action]

[CITY, STATE, MONTH DATE] — Recently, ## employees of [COMPANY] took part in the United Way Day of Caring [Action] by spending time at [LOCATION/NAME OF RECIPIENT/BENEFICIARY] performing the following tasks – [LIST THE SERVICES PROVIDED].  Participating for the FIRST TIME-or-# CONSECUTIVE YEARS in this United Way initiative, the crew from [COMPANY] met at their offices before traveling as a group to the work site.

Note:  Body paragraphs then follow this opening (i.e., background information, quotes, company description, etc.)

For those unfamiliar with this activity, the United Way Day of Caring [or United Way Day of Action] is an initiative designed to link company volunteers with organizations that have a special need.  The kinds of services provided are very varied and can range from outdoor clean-up activities to painting and general maintenance—basically whatever service the recipient needs most.  No special skills are required of the volunteers, just a willingness to provide the time and effort needed to make a difference.  According to the United Way, their missions is “. . . to improve lives by mobilizing the caring power of communities around the world to advance the common good.” On the Day of Caring [Action], large numbers of people work to improve their communities by volunteering with United Way.  (To learn more and find the most up-to-date information, see the United Way’s website.)

According to [NAME OF HIGHLY PLACED OFFICIAL WILLING TO BE QUOTED], “[COMPANY] is very pleased to have participated in this year’s event.  As strong supporters of the United Way, we welcome this opportunity to give back to the community and help out in a very tangible manner by offering our time and effort to this worthwhile cause.  We appreciate the willingness of our group of volunteers to help out and are glad to be able to give them the chance to spend this day of work in this manner. As you may know, [COMPANY] has a long-standing history of community involvement.  We believe our staff and customers benefit from participation of this kind.”

Note:  Add a quote from one or two of the volunteers willing to make remarks.  Try to include a description of his/her activity and the way in which the involvement made them feel.  (We offer the following example for you to use as a starting point and modify as needed.)

[NAME AND TITLE OF VOLUNTEER] was one of the people volunteering this year for [COMPANY].  According to [VOLUNTEER], “I was asked to [DESCRIBE ACTIVITY].  Working with several others from my company, we accomplished quite a lot, and the people from [RECIPIENT/BENEFICIARY] seemed very grateful.  Personally, the whole project made me feel very good about myself and my employer.  I hope to come back next year.” 

[NAME AND TITLE OF VOLUNTEER] agrees.  “I was also part of the group that day.  However, my job was to [DESCRIBE ACTIVITY].  I really enjoyed this break from my routine and especially the chance to do some good for others.  I appreciate the fact that my employer supports this cause and allowed me to spend a day away helping without a loss of pay.”

Note:  Your “boilerplate” company description that outlines the products, services, history, location, hours, etc. then gets added.  See our Style Guide for further information.   While the boilerplate language of different companies will be quite individual to reflect the specific history and characteristics of that particular business, a simple example might be: 

“Established in [YEAR], [COMPANY NAME] specializes in providing [PRODUCT/SERVICES] to customers located in [GEOGRAPHICAL OPERATING AREA].  Open [LIST HOURS/DAYS] or available 24/7 online by visiting [WEB SITE ADDRESS], [COMPANY NAME] [IS ENDORSED BY/IS KNOWN FOR] and encourages customers to learn more.  In recent years, [COMPANY NAME] has grown substantially and is looking to achieve similar increases during the upcoming months.”

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Note: As you can see, your boilerplate text provides you with a chance to briefly tell your story while giving potential customers a means of acting on their interest.  The above is just one very basic example.  Be sure to tailor yours to tell your story in the most effective possible way.

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As always, we welcome any thoughts or feedback, and we encourage you to comment by using the space provided below.  We would be happy to receive special requests to provide other sample press releases in the future. 

Want a Word document of this example? Just click!

Good luck!

Branding and the Pandemic

Today, my goal was to come up with a meaningful article about branding that offered some concrete tips useful in the midst of a pandemic.

Nothing was coming to me.    In search of inspiration, I went to google and typed “branding and the pandemic.”

In case you are wondering about the likelihood of those two terms together yielding any meaningful insight, I suggest you search the headline of this article yourself.  Ten full pages of results were returned.  (BTW—I stopped looking through the pages at that point because I grew tired of the exercise, not because the results stopped matching my request.)  The illustration below from page 1 shows some of the many different variations on the theme.

See the bottom of this page for our Special Offer.

Skimming through the headlines as well as a few of the articles, you’ll find that every imaginable subject has been addressed – the good, the bad, and the ugly.  While the amount of information is overwhelming, one fact becomes abundantly clear – branding is important during these difficult times and deserving of every bit of attention you can spare, even though no time and opportunity may seem to be available and the subject of branding may be the furthest from your mind and fairly low on your current list of priorities.

Many of these articles are good ones, and we suggest you use some of your many hours of isolation to acquaint yourselves with the range of insight and good advice being made available.

That said, let me ease your mind – we don’t plan to use this article to reinvent any of those wheels.  Instead, we will remind you to read our earlier pieces on Crisis Management and building some strategic plans for “Weathering the Storm” and identifying parts of your business that you might be able to re-engineer to function in a mostly online environment.

Assuming you’ve already acquainted yourselves with these bits of advice, today’s suggestion is one that might be deceptively difficult to execute:  spend some time on meaningful self-reflection.

  • Who do you think you are as a company?
  • What can you and your company do to ease the burden of the pandemic?  (ex:  make personal protective equipment; serve meals to first responders; deliver products to the elderly)
  • What impression do you want your customers to take away when linking your company name and the pandemic?  Will you be considered a valued member of the community contributing to the greater good?  Will you be thought of as being one of those organizations with so much talent and expertise that you were able to adapt your operations and offer a valuable product and/or service to others while existing under pandemic restrictions?

Once you arrive at an honest answer to these questions through this period of self-examination, what measures can you take to make that happen? Consider:

  • Who you have been (and whether that is who you want to be)
  • The steps you can take to be perceived in the desired way
  • The kinds of plans you can put into place to better equip yourself to deal with crises of this kind in the future.

Once you have a clear vision and understand your brand aspirations, we can help identify useful strategies to implement the results of your self-reflection.

Our Offer to You:

Feel like you need a little assist to make this self-reflection a meaningful and useful exercise?  If so, we’re happy to help other business owners identify opportunities to adapt their resources and skillset to aid their communities (just one of the ways we can do our part during these hard times).  We’ll also work with you on a plan for reinforcing your brand in a positive way while being of service to others.  Just let us know a little about your situation in the comments below . . . describe your business and expertise, and we’ll start brainstorming with you.

Be careful.  Be safe.  Embrace this opportunity to understand yourself and your brand better.  When the pandemic does finally end, you’ll be in a better position to resume more normal activities.