Campaigning For Not-For-Profit

Campainging for Not-For-Profit

Leah Parker

Our group, High 5 PR, was assigned to work with a Norman youth organization called Bridges, formerly known as ILSY for our PR capstone class at the University of Oklahoma. ILSY stands for Independent Living Services for Youth. Bridges is a nonprofit organization, in Norman, Oklahoma, with many volunteers and donors throughout the Norman area dedicated to serving students without a home. The organization is funded by United Way and additional funding is provided by community donations.

Throughout the semester High 5 PR has worked with this organization to create a new name and to spread the word of this organization around Norman area. The former name, ILSY, was hard to say and hard to remember. The organization’s board wanted something easy to remember, a name that conveyed a strong image and respectful for the students within the organization.

High 5 PR is working with two other groups, as well, to suit the needs of Bridges. Each group has done extensive research to come up with the new name and find better ways to promote the organization. High 5 PR performed focus groups and distributed surveys to our target audience, which is young business professionals. One specific task our group had was to recreate the Career Coaching brochure. This is one of the many perks that the students receive at Bridges. The students are paired up with a business professional to help them set goals after graduating high school. This includes finding a college to go to, choosing a degree and finding further guidance for the students to get on their feet.

We are now entering the last few weeks of class and our preparing for our event. This event will reveal the new name Bridges and provide Bridges with the opportunity to get this name out to the community. This event will take place Wednesday, April 23, 2008. There will be a media conference and then the actual event open to invited members of Bridges.

High 5 PR will present our camapain to judges on April 30, 2008. We will present to them what we have done and executed throughout the semester and what the results were.