Media Relations is an important part of communications and outreach strategy for health centers and other nonprofits. Health Centers have great stories to tell and the media are always interested in learning and sharing our stories. Media relations campaigns can deliver benefits to your Health Center unmatched by any other external communications activity. Here’s a list of some of the benefits:
- FREE Awareness
- Adds Credibility
- Creates Name Recognition
- Invites Potential Donors to Learn More about your Health Center
- Gives Current Donors, Volunteers, Board of Directors, and Advisory Committee Members a Sense of Pride
- Helps Increase Staff Morale
- Recruits Volunteers
- Becomes a Source of Research
- Creates Material for News letters, Annual Reports, etc.
Learn more about the importance of Media Relations and how to pitch ideas to the media in this 10-minute video presented by Dena Reynolds, M.S., Principal and Owner of RVA Communications. Ms. Reynolds is a Public Relations Consultant who helps nonprofits increase their awareness in the community. In 2010, she was awarded “Best in Show” at the Virginia Public Relations Awards.
The video contains RVA Communications proprietary content, so you will need a password to view. If you are a staff member at a Health Center or part of the Virginia Safety Net, you can obtain the password by emailing us: marketing@vacommunityhealth.org
Get these Essential Media Relations Templates shared by the Association’s Communications Team :
- Use a media advisory for your events and activities rather than a press release. Reporters more often read a media advisory because it quickly provides the details of the event or activity. If you are emailing the report, don’t include the media advisory as an attachment. Simply place the information in the body of the email message.
- Be sure to develop a fact sheet about your organization, the program, event or activity. Fact sheets are great to have on hand for many situations. For reporters, fact sheets are essential to helping them include the correct information in their articles and stories.
- Story sheets provide information about who will be on hand or can be available to interview. Including a brief description about the person’s story can help reporters predetermine which people they’d like to interview based on the story theme they intend to write. The descriptions can also help reporters develop their story theme.
