LAW COMMUNITY RELATIONS CASE STUDY:

NEIL DYMOTT CHARITABLE CONTRIBUTION PUBLICITY

Neil Dymott, a San Diego-based multi-service law firm, had no real policy when it came to community contributions.  People asked them for money and they generally gave it.  End of story.  While they were pleased to be in a position to be able to help out with the individual “pet projects” of the firms partners and key staff, the new marketing director questioned whether or not there was a better way to approach charitable gifts.  The McRae Agency was asked to help promote a specific community donation as a test to see if there was any news value in it.

One of the partners was particularly active with a nonprofit organization called Barrio Station.  One of the students in that community was a gifted inventor, and had earned the right to compete in a statewide competition but, coming from a low-income family struggling to stay afloat, he lacked the $800 needed to attend.  The firm decided to send him to the state finals by giving him $1,000, which included donations from several staff, as well as the company itself.

We decided to jump on the “feel good” nature of the donation and seek some media coverage for the firm, helping to position it as a good corporate citizen.  (Of course, it always had been, but no one knew about it.)  Given that the check presentation would be happening in just two days (in order to allow the student to compete in the state finals the following week), we had to act quickly.  We decided on a simple, but effective media strategy.  We would draft a one-page media advisory to send to the local print and broadcast media and then start working the phones and emails.

Results

Neil Dymott was very pleased with the media coverage we were able to secure, particularly on such short notice.  We received four local television stories, including in-studio interviews with one of the firm’s partners, as well as a story by Diane Bell, one of the San Diego Union-Tribune’s most popular columnists.  We also secured stories in the San Diego Metropolitan, San Diego Daily Transcript and San Diego Business Journal.