Mission, Media: 6 Creative Ways for Nonprofits to Go After—and Get—Press Coverage

• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/nba.30726
• Date: 01 March 2020
• Published date: 01 March 2020

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Vol. 366 March 2020

Mission, Media: 6 Creative Ways for Nonprots

to Go After—and Get—Press Coverage

By Steve Adams, Public Relations Account Execu-

tive at The Cyphers Agency

The Promise of PR

Though the rst day of 2020 is well behind us,

many organizations are still pursuing diverse business

goals with the optimism and excitement a new year

can bring. But the rst quarter can be a challenging

time for nonprots, marking the end of charitable

giving season and the beginning of yet another year

in which they’ll need to continuously attract attention,

volunteers and donations.

The good news? Public relations efforts can offer an

efcient and effective way to accomplish these goals,

generating media coverage that raises the visibility

of your organization, mission and need for support.

Even better? Nonprofits are particularly well-

primed to pursue earned media opportunities thanks

to several factors:

• They are seeking media coverage that will

Also in this issue

Conferences and Events: The 2020 Grant Managers

Network Annual Conference; the Washington Non-

Prot Legal & Tax Conference; the 2020 Nonprot

Technology Conference; the Women’s Philanthropy

Institute’s 2020 Symposium ......................4

Industry News: New rating site aims to assess on-the-

ground ‘impact’ of donations .....................5

Nonprot Research: Study shows ‘reactionary giving’

on the rise as election nears ......................6

Industry News: Research shows more family

philanthropists interested in ‘giving while living’ ......7

Former United Way exec sentenced for fraud ........7

Resources: Charityhowto.com webinar gives tips on

Instagram Stories; Webinar looks at storytelling

potential of Form 990s; Candid webinar explores

theory of change ............................... 9

Employment Law: Legal cases that impact nonprots . 10

News: Briefs from around the sector .............. 12

Foundations partner

to launch new data initiative

The Mastercard Center for Inclusive Growth

and The Rockefeller Foundation have launched

a new online platform—Data.org—that aims to

build the eld of data science for social impact.

The effort is the latest component of a $50 mil-

lion commitment Mastercard and The Rockefeller

Foundation made last year to launch a transfor-

mational model for philanthropy.

The new platform will seek to build the capacity

of nonprot organizations with training resources,

access to datasets and open-sourced tools that help

charities harness the power of data insights and

analytics to enhance their efforts. This will be done

in a way that brings more people and organizations

together to effect positive social change, all while

adhering to principles of responsible data use, the

groups said.

The platform is already featuring resources from

partners such as DataKind, Benets Data Trust,

Community Solutions and the Tableau Founda-

tion, all of which leverage data science to help

solve complex societal challenges.

As part of the site’s launch, the two groups

announced a new $10 million impact challenge

to crowdsource scalable and sustainable data sci-

ence solutions for nonprot, civic and government

organizations.

For more information on the initiative, visit

https://www.data.org. ■

(See PRESS on page 2)

hopefully lead to more social good (as opposed to

more consumer spending).

• Relevant journalists will have some level of con-

nection to what they do and who they help.

• They have plenty of sincere human interest

stories and plenty of sincerely passionate sources

to offer.