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Thrivent Builds Publicity Newsletter Archive
July 2007
- I say tomato, you say tomato: Thrivent Builds writing guidelines
- Every media hit counts—but only if we know about it!
- June Media Watch
- Tools you can use: Publicity Trainings
- What's new on www.thriventbuilds.com: Thrivent Builds Worldwide Gulf Coast Experience
- Feedback
- Newsletter Archive
I say tomato, you say tomato…
Thrivent Builds writing guidelines help you get the right message out to your audienceIs it fund-raising or fundraising?
Is Thrivent Builds with Habitat for Humanity a partnership or an alliance?
We’re so glad you are willing to write about your Thrivent Builds projects and we appreciate when you submit those articles to the Alliance Strategy Office and to the press, place them on your Web sites, and print them in newsletters.
To assist you in your writing activities, we have created some Thrivent Builds writing guidelines. A key purpose for developing these guidelines is to make your life easier. They will reduce the amount of thought you have to put into the tiny details of your Thrivent Builds documents. Once you have absorbed the Thrivent Builds writing guidelines, you can focus more energy on your message: describing the importance of the Thrivent Builds alliance in your community, inspiring Lutheran churches to support your project, encouraging first time volunteers, announcing a home dedication…
Another important reason for developing the guidelines is uniformity—they will ensure that we all talk about the alliance in similar ways, creating parallel depictions for our readers. This will help to eliminate misunderstandings and misstatements by others.
The Thrivent Builds writing guidelines (Word, 30K) can be found on the Thrivent Builds Resources site. You may want to print them out and keep them handy for easy reference or save them to your own
Every media hit counts—but only if we know about it!
Thank you to everyone who spent a little extra time looking into when and where the media was talking about Thrivent Builds with Habitat for Humanity this past month! We hope you’ll continue to pay attention to this important aspect of our work and we hope others will join you in that effort.
In order for the Thrivent Builds communications team to accurately monitor and track the number of media hits that this powerful alliance is generating, we need your help finding all of the newspaper, radio, television and internet stories about Thrivent Builds. Your monthly reporting of “notable publicity” on your affiliate project reports (completed by affiliate project leader) and project status reports (completed by LCSS-TBs) DO matter to us. We’re looking at them to glean the details of each media hit:
- name and location of the media source (include call letters for TV and radio)
- the date
- the title (if any) of the article or program
- the internet address if the item is found on the Web.
Please know how much we appreciate your help with the media tracking!
June Media Watch
Where is everyone reading about Thrivent Builds with Habitat for Humanity?This month, we took a look at all the media hits we have received for Thrivent Builds with Habitat for Humanity throughout the year and from what states they are most often generated. Out of the 43 states building Thrivent Builds Homes, only six states had NOT generated any publicity in the general media yet in 2007…or at least not any media that we know about (see the article above to learn how to better report media hits).
Our "star publicity outreach" states average over ten media hits per month, and this past month was no exception with Georgia, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Minnesota, Nebraska, New York, Ohio and Wisconsin leading the way. These nine states, together with at least a dozen other states that had Thrivent Builds coverage in June, produced 157 media hits. Here are some of those stories and their estimated circulations or audiences:
- June 3, The Buffalo News, Buffalo, NY, "Neighborhood gets new lease on life from Habitat’s volunteers," 183,856 circ.
- June 4, Post-Tribune, Merrillville, IN, Rebuilding ‘Big Easy’ 64,731 circ.
- June 9, Tulsa World, Tulsa, TX Housing exhibit set, 253,021circ.
- June 11, Evansville Courier & Press, Evansville, IN, Habitat home dedicated, 192,446 circ.
- June 22, Arizona Republic, Phoeniz, AZ, Immigrant family realizes dream of home ownership, 433,731 circ.
- June 28, Omaha World-Herald, Omaha, NE, Mobile house exhibit to raise awareness, 184,150 circ.
- June 29, Indianapolis Star, Indianapolis, IN, Hooked on building, 258,696 circ.
If you had media successes that are not listed in the report, please send them to Cheryl Winget at cheryl.winget@thrivent.com or Kelsey Peterson at kelsey.peterson@thrivent.com.
Tools you can use: Publicity Training
Just a quick reminder that there are several short publicity training Webinars to help give you ideas to add to the great work you're doing to promote Thrivent Builds in your area. Topics so far include:
- Successful Branding
- Volunteer Recruitment
- Fund-raising
- Groundbreaking
What's new on thriventbuilds.com
Thrivent Builds Worldwide Gulf Coast Experience
Ten Thrivent Builds Worldwide volunteer work trips are now being organized to assist families who suffered from hurricanes Rita and Katrina. During these trips, volunteers will help a total of five partner families build their homes in Biloxi, Mississippi. Your help is needed to recruit volunteers for this exciting “Gulf Coast Experience.” Trips will take place mid-September through mid-December.
Additionally, to help you recruit Thrivent Financial members for these trip, several materials have been created and added to the Resources site.
- Flier (PDF 684K)
- Bulletin Insert (PDF, 81K)
- Newsletter Text (Word, 46K)
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.
Newsletter Archive
If you would like to read previous issues of the Thrivent Builds newsletter, simply access the Newsletter Archive from this link or from the left navigation bar.