Success and failure have one thing in common: they are both great opportunities to learn. Evaluating the outcomes of public relation efforts leads to insights on how to improve upon strategies and tactics that will be implemented in the future.
Thrive’s efforts of the past few months culminated into the kick-off event Raise the Roof this past Sunday on November 15th.
Local food trucks came out to support Youth Oasis, Capital Area Special Olympics of Louisiana and Big Buddy. We held a silent auction with items generously donated by local businesses and organizations, with 100 percent of the proceeds going to the non-profits.
Thrive’s efforts of the past few months culminated into the kick-off event Raise the Roof this past Sunday on November 15th.
Local food trucks came out to support Youth Oasis, Capital Area Special Olympics of Louisiana and Big Buddy. We held a silent auction with items generously donated by local businesses and organizations, with 100 percent of the proceeds going to the non-profits.
The afternoon flew by with no major hiccups (and not very many minor ones either). We left Tin Roof feeling exhausted but accomplished. As we sat down the next day to evaluate our event, and the strategies leading up to it, we reviewed our objectives. The first is to generate a sustained awareness to increase attention about Youth Oasis by 25 percent over the next year. Raise the Roof was a step toward achieving this objective. We plan to evaluate the awareness of Youth Oasis by re-sending the survey out to Youth Oasis’s key public. It will be sent out to silent auction bidders, event attendees and those on Youth Oasis’s email list. The second is to increase funding to Youth Oasis from by $2,500 within the next year. This objective is simple to evaluate; by the end of the event we had raised $5,857.31 for Youth Oasis, exceeding our goal by $3,357.31. The last objective is to create and maintain a favorable view of Youth Oasis throughout the next year. To evaluate this we will send out a post-event survey to see if residents of Baton Rouge are more favorable toward Youth Oasis following the event. We also took a look at all of our media placements promoting the event, from Dig, WBRZ, Classic Hits 103.3, WAFB, Fabulous Mom Blog, and Roundtown. Our event was promoted by a diverse, far-reaching group of media outlets, and this helped us pull in 200 attendees.
According to Jim Macnamara, a professor at the University of Technology in Sidney, however, there are some barriers which have deadlocked measurement and evaluation in PR. The first of these, he contends, is an obsession with numbers. The impact that PR efforts strive to achieve often transcend typical metrics. We work to grow so many things besides profits, and “’Human interactions; relationships, feelings, attitudes, loyalties, perceptions and engagement do not yield easily to numeric quantification,'" says Macnamara," in Emerging models of PR measurement. Qualitative research, however, is difficult and time-consuming. And the retrospective nature of evaluation itself, Macnamara says, can turn it into “an exercise in self-justification”. Raise the Roof achieved a lot of things, some measurable and some immeasurable. Though its lasting impact remains to be seen, everyone I observed and interacted with seemed genuinely delighted to be able to take part in the coalescing of the community to support organizations which strive to make it a better place. Beyond dollars raised and awareness spread, there was an amalgamation of diverse individuals for the greater good. Philanthropy means, literally, the love of man, and though love may not be quantifiable, as long as there are wonderful people out there wanting to make a positive impact with us, then our efforts will never be without reward.
According to Jim Macnamara, a professor at the University of Technology in Sidney, however, there are some barriers which have deadlocked measurement and evaluation in PR. The first of these, he contends, is an obsession with numbers. The impact that PR efforts strive to achieve often transcend typical metrics. We work to grow so many things besides profits, and “’Human interactions; relationships, feelings, attitudes, loyalties, perceptions and engagement do not yield easily to numeric quantification,'" says Macnamara," in Emerging models of PR measurement. Qualitative research, however, is difficult and time-consuming. And the retrospective nature of evaluation itself, Macnamara says, can turn it into “an exercise in self-justification”. Raise the Roof achieved a lot of things, some measurable and some immeasurable. Though its lasting impact remains to be seen, everyone I observed and interacted with seemed genuinely delighted to be able to take part in the coalescing of the community to support organizations which strive to make it a better place. Beyond dollars raised and awareness spread, there was an amalgamation of diverse individuals for the greater good. Philanthropy means, literally, the love of man, and though love may not be quantifiable, as long as there are wonderful people out there wanting to make a positive impact with us, then our efforts will never be without reward.
For more information about the Youth Oasis Homeless Shelter please visit:
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Blog written by: Patricia Kane
Source:
Jain, Amit. (2014, July 16). Emerging models of PR measurement. Retrieved November 17, 2015. http://www.prweek.com/article/1303749/emerging-models-pr-measurement
Youth Oasis Children Shelter website
Donate
Blog written by: Patricia Kane
Source:
Jain, Amit. (2014, July 16). Emerging models of PR measurement. Retrieved November 17, 2015. http://www.prweek.com/article/1303749/emerging-models-pr-measurement