August 31, 2009

PSAs Can Fuel Organizational Credibility

Project Fit America (PFA) found itself on the pages of national magazines several years ago, prompting calls to the small nonprofit in Boyes Hot Springs, Calif., about 50 miles north of San Francisco. The Public Service Announcement (PSA) ads certainly raised the nonprofit’s profile but they didn’t raise much money.
                           
“Being in National Geographic, O magazine, it’s a credibility statement for a charity,” said Stacey Cook, PFA’s executive director. The PSA was a boost to its other awareness campaigns, Cook said, describing it as “a spoke in a bigger wheel,” even though the dollars didn’t follow.

All the attention turned out to be a mixed blessing. A huge number of calls came from parents and schools inquiring about the program, but the campaign didn’t incite as much response in terms of direct funding. “It was not the best use of our time and resources. Actually, it was pretty heartbreaking. It’s tough to take 180 phone calls a day and not be able to match them with dollars,” Cook said.

Luckily for PFA, it didn’t have to invest much in the effort. With huge amounts of unsold ad space after the dot.com bust, there was a search for nonprofits invited to place PSAs in magazines, Cook said. The San Francisco Art Institute chose PFA as a class assignment, developing a PSA from start to finish and sending them to publishing houses.

Operating in 300 cities and 40 states, PFA donates physical education programs to schools around country, including equipment and lesson plans, to foster a love of activity and movement. PFA runs on a budget of less than $250,000 a year, paying for equipment, teacher training and substitute teacher fees, with a majority of the work on site at schools. The average school sponsorship is approximately $17,000.

Estimating the average cost of a full-page magazine ad to be about $65,000, PFA tracked more than $250,000 in free advertising. “If you can get someone to do it pro bono, it’s a great way to test if something works without having to go hard core with your dollars,” Cook said. “We were just lucky, we were in the right place at the right time,” she said, adding that she expects to try it again in the future but a little differently.

Cook believes PSAs need a strong call to action requesting the viewer or reader to do something. “You have to be asked to do something in order to be something you can measure,” she said.

“We never quite found the magic formula to take a print ad and turn it into an item that impacts someone to become a donor” or to adopt a school, Cook said. Cliff Bar was the only funding sponsor found as a result of the ad campaign, after its brand manager spotted the PSA in Oprah magazine.

***

This article is from NPT Weekly, a publication of The NonProfit Times.

Subscribe to The NPT Weekly eNewsletter or any of our other enewsletters and get the latest news and ideas related to fundraising delivered to your inbox