I gave the gift of communication this holiday season

This past week I was extremely honoured to participate in the IABC’s (International association of business communicators) annual Gift of Communication.

At first I wasn’t able to attend but with a shift change I was able to attend and I really felt like it was a great learning experience for me.

 

The IABC launched the gift of communication to help local non-profit organizations receive free assistance from IABC members and public relations students to help develop a communications plan. I had the pleasure of sitting with Ted and Sue from The Robert Land Community Association/ Eva Rothwell ResourceCentre as well as IABC member Jane from Xposure PR.

At the beginning we listened to Ted and Sue explain the challenges they faced by running the organization. Their top three were:

1. Volunteers: volunteers come and go; they needed to find a way to communicate better with their volunteers. This organization has only 2 full time members and 6 part time. They rely on volunteers to make their organization work.

2.  Financial Support: Ted explained a lot of support they receive is in-kind, and they needed to find a better way to fund raise and promote events they are doing to get more donations.

3. Update of their web site. So far, no one really updates their website. The site was donated by Mohawk College, so Ted does not know how to customize the site and update it as much as he would like to

Our findings:

The two hours we had together practically flew by! I was very nervous at the beginning but I was eased into it because Jane, Ted and Sue welcomed my own suggestions which made me feel like I was actually putting to use what I’ve been learning for the past three months.

Our big suggestions to Ted and Sue were to start getting more active with Facebook and Twitter. They did have a Facebook page, but there was not a lot of activity. Twitter is easy to get followers and can be implemented with Facebook with sites like Hoot Suite that contain all social media platforms in one location. We suggested asking questions on Facebook to generate discussion and get more people interested in what this community centre is actually doing for Hamilton.

Another problem we addressed was the volunteer issue. Ted needed a way to be able to contact volunteers instantly if he was short. We recommend the application Yammer where you can create a group, invite contacts and then send updates that everyone receives either to their computer of smartphones. Ted loved the idea and I believe will be implementing it ASAP. Another discovery we found was KoodooNation of micro volunteering that if someone posts a document that needs editing or a website that needs to be updates, someone from another part of the world can download it, work on it and upload it back to the site. This is a great idea, especially for non-profit organizations who do not have the time nor money to pay for this work.

 

All in all this was a really great experience. I’m glad I went and it has made me settle my decision to become an IABC member. The benefits are great, and hopefully one day I am the IABC member helping non-profit organizations and teaching students how to effectively design a communications plan.

-A