What a week to be a member of UNT PRSSA!
We had our weekly meeting on Tuesday with guest speaker, Lori Fickling, Director of Community Relations at Communities in Schools at North Texas, and on Wednesday was a meeting with Fort Worth’s Social Media Club featuring Joe Flowers of FritoLay. On Thursday, UNT PRSSA members battled Dallas traffic to attend SMU’s fifth annual Career Workshop featuring professionals from around the Metroplex and fantastic keynote speakers, Kevin Loughery and Luan Peszek. Loughery is the Media & Public Relations Coordinator for USA Gymnastics and Peszek is the Managing Director of Communications for USA Gymnastics. Thank you to all of the members of UNT PRSSA that represented us well at these events!
For those of you that missed the meeting this week, Lori Fickling talked to UNT PRSSA about her role as a nonprofit communications professional.
Believe it or not, the nonprofit industry is highly competitive. Fickling’s job is to make Communities in Schools “float” to the top of nonprofits people think about when they want to host a fundraiser. The way she achieves this is through relationships in her community. As Ficking said, the most important part of PR is “relationships, relationships, relationships.”
She builds these relationships while attending Chamber of Commerce luncheons and staying top-of-mind by wearing her Communities in Schools name tag wherever she goes. She also builds personal relationships with members of the Texas Legislature, which helps her organization receive the government funding it needs to help students achieve academically through her organization. By attending events and being involved in the community she works in, Fickling is working as the eyes and ears of her organization. She is able to report back to Communities in Schools on what is going on in the communities they help. This is necessary to know so the organization can communicate properly.
Other parts of her job include special event planning for fundraisers and public speaking. Fickling said to succeed in nonprofit, it’s important to read about other nonprofits, talk with other nonprofit professionals, be able to be creative working with a limited budget and staying up to date on the latest technology.
If you’re interested in nonprofit, be sure to come to next week’s meeting. Tuesday, November 20, 4 p.m. in GAB 114. Nelli Tokleh, a former UNT PRSSA member and UNT graduate will come talk about her nonprofit experience.
If you want to learn more about agency PR, be sure to sign up for the UNT/TCU PRSSA agency tour of Open Channels Group on Friday, November 30.Email UNTPRSSA@gmail.com to sign up for a morning or afternoon session. There are limited spots available.
