Public relations for non-commercial organizations

by Sandra Chalmers

The mission

Help the Aged (HtA) works to improve the quality of life of older people in the United Kingdom and internationally, particularly those who are frail, isolated or poor.

A simple mission statement – quite straightforward. Worthy but unlikely to prompt newspaper headlines.

Elderly people seldom present the most exciting photo opportunities. The copy detailing their doings is rarely considered ‘sexy’. A grey-haired 60 year old pensioner is more likely to have been a victim of crime or an accident to justify her place on the front page, unless of course her name happens to be Sophia Loren or Brigitte Bardot.

So how does a charity working for elderly people keep itself at the forefront of public attention? How does Help the Aged raise £ 40 million and achieve a place in the coveted Charities Aid Foundation Top Ten league table for voluntary contributions?

Not-for-profit pr

The answer of course is that it is due to a combination of many different factors. A highly motivated workforce, supported by thousands of committed volunteers, is the key ingredient. But these internal strengths are complemented by external partnerships made with business and commerce, with statutory and other voluntary services.

Indeed Help the Aged’s partnership with companies provides countless illuminating case studies of PR activities. Two are described later in this article.

The public relations activities and strategies of a charity such as Help the Aged do not differ greatly from those of a commercial company. What is interesting is that while there are some fundamental differences in terms of objectives – profits for a commercial company, fundraising for a charity – there are also some important similarities.

A charity like Help the Aged and a Top 100 company are both operating in a highly competitive environment. Our public relations activities and those of major corporations both depend on ‘good stories, well told’ which will benefit, in our case, the welfare of elderly people and, in the commercial world, the sales of a product.

The variety of Help the Aged’s work for elderly people provides plenty of opportunities for proactive public relations. But perhaps the major difference between us and a commercial company is the amount of reactive work we must anticipate.

If elderly people are in the news for any reason, we can expect a huge amount of media enquiries asking for our views. We have to plan ahead whenever we can – preparing a comment in anticipation of Budget proposals for example, or be ready with advice if the weather turns cold – or hot! We keep in touch with what is happening in Parliament to ensure we are aware of forthcoming legislation. When the government recently announced its proposals on long-term care, we were ready to respond.

But sometimes tragic events take us by surprise. The terrible discovery of a pensioner whose body was found in a council flat three and a half years after he had died, held lessons for local government, community care, housing authorities and indeed our whole society’s attitude to elderly people.

Help the Aged decided that these were issues it could not ignore. The horrific event prompted the Charity to organize a major conference and commission a special survey from MORI^* on isolation and independence amongst older people.