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Thrivent Builds Publicity Newsletter Archive
July 2006
- Grabbing some attention for your dedication
- Photos of your build site – how to share them with the world
- Newsletters – free promotion for your perfect audience
- What's new on thriventbuilds.com
- Media Watch
- Feedback
Grabbing some attention for your dedication
As summer reaches its peak and hammers continue to pound out their cadences on Thrivent Builds with Habitat for Humanity sites all over the nation, many affiliates are busy planning the dedications that will soon be taking place. As you know, construction must be complete by November 30 with a certificate of occupancy acquired no later than December 31, 2006. This means that, ideally, all dedications will occur before or within the November 30-December 31 timeframe so that families will have a chance to celebrate the holidays in their new homes.
Because it is a goal of the Thrivent Builds alliance to involve more people in combating substandard housing through increased awareness of its programs, we need your help obtaining media attention for each build. Alerting the media to your dedications is an important way you can help reach this goal.
While affiliates have a great deal of expertise in organizing and executing dedications, they may not have the personnel in place nor the tools at hand to reach out to the media in a way that will gain the most notice. Following are some ideas to help you do just that.
- Make your dedication different — Media outlets are always interested in something that is unique in the community, so why not add some distinction to your Thrivent Builds dedications?
- Invite a community dignitary to speak and include information about him/her in your news release.
- Plan to announce the statewide building total for Thrivent Builds in your state and alert the media to this announcement.
- If you are building multiple Thrivent Builds homes, hold all of the dedications on the same day. Twin Cities Habitat for Humanity once held 15 dedications in one day, spacing them out over approximately 8 hours so that the executive director (and the media) could travel from site to site across the Minneapolis/St. Paul metro area. The story appeared in the next day’s Star Tribune, a newspaper with a circulation of nearly 400,000.
- Use these tools — Ease the burden of organizing your event and presenting your story idea to the media by using the tools available in the Awareness Toolbox under “Dedication Materials.” Here you will find:
- quick reference guide (PDF, 37K)
- planning worksheet (Word, 290K)
- invitation template (Word, 279K)
- news release template (Word, 43K)
- newsletter/web text (Word, 19K)
- bulletin insert (Word, 459K)
- print ad template (Word, 155K)
- direct mail postcard
- Tailor the tools to your unique dedication — Remember that these tools are a guide to help you describe the alliance accurately, not a requirement. If you have a special situation where a different news release is required, but you still want to use some of the language from the template, by all means do so!
- Call us if you have questions — If you have other questions or need any help regarding media relations, contact Cheryl Winget or Tara Perre, media relations specialists with the Alliance Strategy Office, and they will be happy to assist you.
Photos of your build site – how to share them with the world
As your build sites are shaping up and volunteers and future homeowners are having fun working together, you’re likely capturing lots of those wonderful moments on film. Some of you have even been sharing those great photos with the Thrivent Builds with Habitat for Humanity Alliance Strategy Office – and it’s great to see your progress!
In order to share those fantastic photos with the rest of the world – such as in newspapers, magazines or the Thrivent Builds Web site – there are a few things we need from you.
- Make sure anyone who is identifiable in the photograph signs a Communication Photo Release form (Word, 51K). REMEMBER: We’ll be asking for photos with release forms as part of your Final Build Report at the end of your Thrivent Builds Homes project. So it pays to collect the signed releases along the way, rather than having to go back and get signatures after the fact.
- If you’re sending a photo to the Thrivent Builds ASO and you’d like us to use it on our Web site or in other publications, please fax a copy of the signed release form to Nicole Doebert at (920) 628-5154 or mail it to:
Thrivent Financial for Lutherans
ATTN: Nicole Doebert, Z8
4321 N. Ballard Rd.
Appleton, WI 54919-0001 - If you mail or e-mail photos to us, please identify the people in the photos of close-up shots. Also, please tell us the name of the photographer – most magazines or newspapers like to indicate photo credits.
Looking for some tips on how to take great photos?
Check out the Photography Training Package (PDF, 261K) from the Photo Services Department at Habitat for Humanity International.
Newsletters – free promotion for your perfect audience
How would you feel about a promotional opportunity that would reach an ideal audience for Thrivent Builds – and that wouldn’t cost you a dime? The opportunity may be closer than you think!
Newsletters are a great place to recruit volunteers or make people aware of events for Thrivent Builds. They tend to be very well-read, because those receiving them have generally asked to be on the mailing list. Also, their editors are often looking for information they can put into their next issue, allowing you to take advantage of an existing, regular channel.
Additionally, once you’ve written an article, there are likely several newsletters with appropriate audiences for it – so you can get even more bang for your buck. Here are some newsletters that would be great places for Thrivent Builds articles:
- Habitat for Humanity affiliate newsletters
- Thrivent Chapter newsletters
- Lutheran church newsletters
To make it even easier for you to take advantage of the great opportunity newsletters can be to get out the Thrivent Builds message, we have several pre-written newsletter articles in the Resources Web site. Here is a list of some of the articles you can start using today:
Thrivent Builds Homes
- Thrivent Builds Homes Announcement
- Volunteer Leadership Recruitment
- Volunteer Recruitment
- Fund-raising Event
- Groundbreaking Event
- Wall-raising Event
- Roof-raising Event
- Dedication Event
What's new on thriventbuilds.com
Thrivent Builds Mobile Journal
Read the latest adventures of the Thrivent Builds Mobile crew from May and June. Is one of the recent entries about a stop in your area? Please link to the journal from your own Web site. This will drive more visitor to both websites. Need some assistance in setting up your link? Contact nicole.doebert@thrivent.com.
Romania Trip Journal
Sarah Auernhammer, a Thrivent Financial consultant, just got back from a Thrivent Builds Worldwide trip to Romania—and she has lots of stories to share. Read about her experiences with her team members and the families in Romania who will soon be owners of the new homes they helped build.
Youth Involvement
Looking for ways to get Lutheran church youth groups or other high school service groups involved with Thrivent Builds? Check out all the ideas on our Youth Involvement page. There’s also a link for recent ELCA Youth Gathering participants to retrieve their Thrivent Builds Mobile photos.
U.S. Gulf Coast
Many Gulf Coast Habitat for Humanity affiliates now are ready to host Thrivent Builds Worldwide teams to help rebuild in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. You can help by recruiting team leaders who can organize those trips.
July Media Watch
While all the media hits for June have not yet been tallied, a number of significant media placement successes are already on the list.
- Early in the month, the Thrivent Builds Mobile’s visit to Iowa’s Quad Cities area caught the attention of the NBC television station in Davenport and was reported on three different newscasts reaching over 105,000 viewers.
- The truck then traveled to Peoria, Illinois, where the NBC, CBS, UPN and PBS television stations all ran news items, as did the Peoria Journal Star. While viewer numbers are not available for all of the TV newscasts, the Journal Star alone has a circulation of 77,273.
- During the last half of the month a group of firefighters who worked on a Thrivent Builds site in Fond Du Lac, Wisconsin, received newspaper/TV/radio/Web site coverage.
- The month ended with some great newspaper/Web site coverage of Lutheran school students who helped fund a Thrivent Builds home in Springfield, Massachusetts.
Read the June Media Hits report. If any of your hits are not listed on this report, please e-mail them to cheryl.winget@thrivent.com, and she will add them. Include the name of the media outlet, the item heading, the date it appeared and a Web site link, if available.
Feedback
Is this newsletter helpful to you? Do you have additional ideas for articles you'd find helpful? Please send your feedback to Nicole Doebert.