Best Positive Public Relations Story

Class 700-800

Greenwich

Objectives

We believe that we needed to increase the visibility of Scouting in Greenwich. We wanted to increase the opportunities that the community would have to learn about the local Scouting programs in Greenwich.

For us to increase our membership outreach, our fund-raising potential, our access to more volunteers willing to give their time to Scouting, we felt it was important to take a marketing approach.

Our objectives were to foster a more positive image of Scouting in Greenwich, as well as make the Greenwich Scouting program more visible to the community.

It was important for our internal audience of Scouters and youth members to see themselves in the media, as a form of recognition and inspiration for future endeavors.

It was also vital that our external audience, to include our Friends of Scouting community donors, also saw that Scouting is alive and well in the Town of Greenwich.

Our goal was to increase the visibility of Scouting with articles in the newspapers. We believe that the more positive stories that residents hear about Scouting, the more likely they will choose to be supportive and involved in our programs.

Planning Process

Our strategy included the following:

• Create relationships with the media and get to know their needs and interests
• Create opportunities where we could tell the public in Greenwich about Scouting
• Issue press releases about our major Scouting events and get published

Our tactics included the following.

1. Natalie Pray, vice president for marketing/public relations, has brought new ideas and new contacts to our efforts. She has also helped us to network in Greenwich by having us attend garden parties and home events to further spread the Scouting story.
2. We contacted the local congressman to get an up-to-date media list, since they are often in touch with the media. Then we took the time to contact those media people to better understand what they are looking for. We met with media decision-makers to establish a relationship.
3. We sent out press releases for our major events, which included the Eagle Scout recognition dinner, the council annual recognition dinner, the National Scout Jamboree, the Laws of Life Essay Contest, and the Town of Greenwich Fourth of July ceremony.
4. We developed, with the assistance of Chait Video (a Greenwich company), an 11-minute video about the Greenwich Council, Boy Scouts of America. This video included sound bites from many youth members and adult leaders and was premiered at our Eagle Scout dinner with great success. With the help of Chait Video and Swanson Productions (a company based in Largo, Florida), we purchased the rights to edit the Swanson successful-parent video, Now More Than Ever—Join Cub Scouting, a 10-minute video that is designed to recruit parents into Cub Scouting.
5. We developed several radio PSAs using the resources of the national BSA marketing group and the local radio station in Greenwich, WGCH. For an investment of about $900, we have those PSAs running many times each week for the month of September, a prime month for recruitment.
6. We enhanced our www.greenwichbsa.com Web site to include links to all the major Scouting Web sites developed by the national office. We also partnered with doubleknot.com to further enhance our Web site. Now we are able to create council e-newsletters with the signup and maintenance of all e-mail addresses being handled by doubleknot. We have established an online Scout Shop to sell Greenwich Scouting stuff. We maintain a calendar online that includes contact and event information for all our meetings and programs.
7. We continued to help the Town of Greenwich create a Fourth of July celebration as a way to celebrate the nation's history and provide visibility for youth programs in Greenwich. Eagle Scouts carried the flags of the original 13 colonies in the opening ceremony. Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts read short passages about citizenship to a large community audience.

Impact

Attached are the articles that we have been able to generate in the newspapers, television, and radio. These include:

Our membership for 2005 was up 1.0 percent overall and up 1.8 percent in traditional youth. We had balanced growth for Cub Scouting (up .3 percent), for Boy Scouting (up 1.9 percent), and for Venturing (up 11.1 percent).

We have achieved our 2005 Friends of Scouting commitment, raising $284,442 (158 percent) toward a goal of $180,000.

We also raised over $137,491 from December 1 to December 31, 2005, for the 2006 Friends of Scouting campaign.

We achieved the national Quality Council award for 2005.

What Was Learned

We learned that it is important to tell the Scouting story over and over again with our internal audience and with our external audience.

We learned that effective marketing can create a better sense of community support and good will for Scouting in town.

Effective marketing can create a climate that leads to more membership outreach, increased fund-raising, and quality programs.

We are prepared and better positioned in 2006 to once again tell the Scouting story and create a positive public relations effort in the Town of Greenwich.

The Merits of Marketing (marketing.scouting.org) is a resource for local councils, developed by the Marketing & Communications Division of the National Council, Boy Scouts of America.