PRSA Colorado Newsline

In honor of the recent PR Boost on Aug. 15th, PRSA Colorado is doing a series of blog posts on nonprofit public relations in August. At PR Boost, each volunteer, who must have a minimum of three years experience, will consult with two nonprofit organizations during two separate 60-minute sessions. If you’re interested in contributing a blog post, please contact Liz Pope at evpope@gmail.com.

This year posed a double threat to non-profits. A change in the media landscape coupled with unprecedented economic conditions has inspired the non-profit world to explore new frontiers to build brand awareness and engage donors.

Despite these challenges, The Children’s Hospital Foundation wanted to lead the pack of an estimated 351 hospitals using social networking sites, according to ebennett.org’s Hospital Social Network List.

Like many other nonprofits, the Foundation decided to rethink its online presence related to one of its annual fundraising events, the Courage Classic, a 3-day cycling tour through Colorado’s high country that draws 2,000 dedicated riders and has raised more than $22 million, over the past 20 years, for The Children’s Hospital. At first glance, the Foundation wasn’t sold on  a social networking site being the right outlet for Courage Classic cyclists since the average rider age is 45. But after reading data like this,

According to a report in March of 2009, Inside Facebook noted that there were more Facebook users 26-44 than 18-25 today. And in a separate report, they also noted that Facebook is seeing massive increases in adoption among users 35-65. In fact, the fastest growing demographic on Facebook is still women over 55.

they knew they needed to remove the “age goggles” and create new ways to engage their average rider, and possibly reach an entirely new audience.

Continue reading Put Your Audience in the Driver’s Seat