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Glori ed PRESS Releases Make your story stand out. ! Creative Activist Toolkit 003

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The Creative Activist Toolkit is a series of PDF booklets designed to help today’s youth impact the world through creativity and social entrepreneurship. Produced by the Global Youth Fund and the Creative Visions Foundation, the toolkit chapters are offered free to download. Email us if you would like to contribute a chapter. This chapter helps young changemakers create press releases that will get them noticed.

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Page 1: CAT003: Glorified Press Releases

Glori!edPRESS

ReleasesMake your stor y stand out.!

Creative Activist Toolkit 003

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in partnership with

Creative Activist Toolkit 003

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At some point, every social change project needs to get the word out – in a pretty BIG way. Not just to Facebook friends, classmates and relatives.

glori!ed press releases

What you want is for the world (or at least

your town) to know what you’re doing.

In other words, you want the media

spotlight.

Creative Activist Toolkit 003

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glori!ed press releases

The most common way to get the media’s attention is to write a press release and send it to media outlets.

You can still do that. But there’s one major problem...

Creative Activist Toolkit 003

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There are thousands of press releases sent out every day, competing not just with one another but with news events that don’t need press releases: bank robberies, murders,

hurricanes, etc.

glori!ed press releases

Creative Activist Toolkit 003

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glori!ed press releases

So, how do you stand out?

Let’s consider alternate ways of communicating your story - using what I call “glorified press releases.”

Creative Activist Toolkit 003

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Case Study 1:Invisible Children

glori!ed press releases

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In 2006, the youth-led organization, Invisible Children, planned a nationwide event to raise awareness of the civil war in northern Uganda, and the innocent children caught in the conflict. They asked American youth to walk to their nearest city centers and sleep there – the same way Ugandan children have to seek shelter every night in order to avoid being kidnapped by rebel soldiers.

InvisibleChildren.com

glori!ed press releases

Creative Activist Toolkit 003

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Invisible Children wanted media outlets everywhere to cover this event. So they created this video:

!"#!$%&'%(")*

glori!ed press releases

Creative Activist Toolkit 003

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This is, essentially, a video press release. Like all good press releases, it answered all the key questions: who, what, where, when, why and how.

But what the video did that no words can do was give TV outlets a preview of the ACTION they can film. More than anything else, that’s what TV crews want: to see action unfold. The video press release helped Invisible Children show the action they can deliver.

glori!ed press releases

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Case Study 2:Ashoka’s Youth Venture

glori!ed press releases

Creative Activist Toolkit 003

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In 2009, Ashoka’s Youth Venture ran a global campaign - Invent Your World - to recognize and support youth who are inventing for social change. (This is a campaign I helped manage.) When the time came to let the world know about the top five winners, I knew I wanted to offer something that others could easily forward or copy and paste.

glori!ed press releases

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Since we couldn’t produce a video – the winners were all far away from us – we produced two other types of content instead...

glori!ed press releases

Creative Activist Toolkit 003

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a) PresentationsUsing photos and brief text, we created a brief presentation showcasing the winners and another one showcasing the grand prize winner’s project. We then uploaded them to Slideshare.net. Click on images below to view them.

glori!ed press releases

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b) InterviewWe also conducted a text interview with the top prize winner, 15-year-old Javier Fernandez-Han, and posted the interview, along with the presentations, on Change.org.

glori!ed press releases

Click image to read interview.

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By creating these pieces of content, we wanted to achieve the following:

produce actual content, not just press releases

show people who the winners are (using pictures)

give reporters a taste of what an interview with the top prize winner would sound like (through quotes and our own interview)

most importantly, offer content that others can easily copy/paste and forward

glori!ed press releases

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As you can see on Slideshare.net, more than seven thousand have viewed the two presentations and at least 25 websites have embedded the presentations. Also, media outlets including PBS and BBC have contacted us about the winners.

glori!ed press releases

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ConclusionIn this day and age, YOU are the media. Don’t just issue press releases, CREATE CONTENT. You can tell your story better than anyone. Just look at how Invisible Children documented their Global Night Commute.

!"#!$%&'%(")*

glori!ed press releases

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Check out other chapters...

Creative Activist Toolkit 003

glori!ed press releases

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Creative Activist Toolkit 003

glori!ed press releases

and the six habits of highly effective social entrepreneurs.

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about the author

thanksThe Creative Visions Foundation

The Vancouver FoundationThe Steve Nash Foundation

Jon and Amy Eldon Turteltaub, Joanne MarienElaine Munro, Debbie Riopel, Jaspal Lisa RaiBruce Johnson, Brooke Kuhn, Serge Martin

creditsAmy Eldon Turteltaub Executive Producer

Charles Tsai Managing Director

Photos from Invisible Children, Ashoka’s Youth Venture

Creative Activist Toolkit 003

Charles Tsai is the founder and Executive Director of Social Creatives. Previously, he worked for Ashoka’s Youth Venture as Director of Virtual Program and at CNN as a reporter and producer. www.charlestsai.com

creative activist toolkitThe Creative Activist Toolkit is a series of PDF booklets designed to help today’s youth impact the world through creativity and social entrepreneurship. Produced by Social Creatives and the Creative Visions Foundation, the toolkit chapters are offered free to download. Email us if you would like to contribute a chapter.

Copyright ©2009 Social CreativesFeel free to pass this booklet on but you may not alter the content or charge for it. You may quote brief sections if you credit Social Creatives and provide a link to socialcreatives.org

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Social Entrepreneurship Educator

Charles Tsai

Charles Tsai is a journalist, writer, speaker and consultant for social entrepreneurs.

A former reporter and producer for CNN, Charles ventured into the social sector to

help youth design and implement their own solutions for change. He then helped

Ashoka launch its first global campaigns to support youth-led social ventures.

Now, he has launched SOCIAL Creatives, a new framework to learn, teach and

practice social entrepreneurship.