J.L. Simmons Non-Profit PR Grant 2018/19
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Introduction
Neotrope®, a highly respected PR (public relations), brand identity and marketing firm, established January 1983, is celebrating its 35th anniversary in 2018. To assist struggling and worthy charitable organizations we are again donating services as “PR Grants” to a number of qualified small U.S. non-profit organizations.
The PR Grant program started in 2000 as a natural evolution of our efforts to support local and then national worthy causes by providing services in place of a check, as with our background in marketing and PR, we felt it more useful to help an organization “spread the word” over giving them a small cash donation. The PR Grants program was started to allow charities to “apply” for a grant in addition to our own local interaction with worthy causes.
Although others in the PR field have copied our program name, we’re the “original.”
Starting in 2013, the PR Grant was named after the company co-founder, the late Dr. J.L. Simmons, PhD, who passed away in 2003. The Neotrope Non-Profit PR Grant program is now known as the “J.L. Simmons Non-Profit PR Grant” (but generally we’ll still refer to it as the “PR Grant”).
NOTE: the original location of the information page for this program was: https://www.send2press.com/non-profit/
2018/19 PR Grant “Deliverables”
For this year’s program we will choose 10 worthy causes in the U.S. who are clearly “doing good” and helping those in need of help.
The Neotrope® JL Simmons Non-Profit PR Grant is not a cash grant, but an in-kind services grant to assist charities in raising awareness, courting halo sponsors and philanthropists, and better engaging casual donors, by outreach to traditional media, social media, bloggers and other interested parties.
Specifically, worthy organizations who are selected by our staff to receive a grant will be provided with services that include news distribution (press release dissemination to media) to promote organization activities to media folk (print and broadcast), and a social media promotion campaign to the top 10 social media portals and promoted post on Facebook.
Amount of each grant will vary technically based on how often it is used by a chosen charity; but potentially $2400 per grant.
Recipients will receive free services as part of the PR Grant for 12 months from start of program (expected to be Aug. 1, 2018 to July 31, 2019).
Deadline for 2018/19 grant applications is July 1, 2018.
Examples of PR Grant Deliverables/Features:
• Twelve (12) free press release announcements issued regionally or nationally via Send2Press Newswire (value per release $200). Ideally this would be once per month, but could be accelerated prior to a major annual event (such as 2 items one month, none the next, etc.).
• Social media marketing campaign with each announcement ($99 value).
• Free additional announcement issued identifying the charity has won a PR Grant, with overview of the organization without any specific news needed; written by Neotrope staff (View Example).
Important Notes:
Grant recipients must have a point person to take charge of the services offered, and will require direct involvement and content/news development to gain the most benefit from the grant. “Lazy” organizations which sit back and expect everything to be done for them, or who don’t follow up or self-manage their program, will likely lose the benefits of this grant program’s deliverables.
Neotrope will not act as the PR firm (agency of record) for the grant winner, nor will Neotrope compose all releases for grant winner (content advice and editing/tune-ups will be provided at no cost).
Grant winners will be required to post a graphical reciprocal link from charity website to our site, identifying us as a “media sponsor.” This can be on home page, sponsor page, or similar (this was not required in prior years, but effective this year it now will be.)
Who May Apply for a Grant
All qualified U.S.-based 501(c)(3) charitable non-profit organizations may apply for a grant. Typically trade groups funded by commercial companies, political action groups, and certain other “non-profit” organizations not directly involved in activities “doing good” will not be considered and need not apply.
So-called “not for profit” organizations – not recognized by the IRS as a 501(c)(3) charity – are not eligible for this program.
There is no fee to apply.
Neotrope is providing this grant program as part of our corporate social responsibility efforts to assist those organizations “doing good” in what small way we can. Neotrope may, at its sole discretion, additionally choose other charities who don’t apply this year, have applied in prior years, or catch our interest locally, in addition to the chosen applicants, for this year’s overall program.
Additional Benefits
Additionally, all applicants, whether given grants or not, are immediately eligible for 25% off all Send2Press® Newswire services (discount code for non-profits provided upon request; discount limited to 10% for certain “Premium” programs due to partial outsourcing to strategic partners including PRNewswire®).
To view plans and pricing for Neotrope’s Send2Press® Newswire service, please click/tap button below.
PR Grant Selection Process
We are often asked “how we choose” whom to provide a grant to, and while it will often be a subjective process among our staff, there are some basic guidelines we use to choose worthy causes that we will try to assist.
As to how we choose “winners,” it’s based on several factors including:
a) Doing good, vs promoting an industry or religion or trade.
b) Reach; meaning a cause which serves only one small town and 10 people a year might not be worthwhile as a charity can only really promote that locally and do that on their own; meaning, what we do would not help them anymore than what they can do on their own.
c) We try to choose a mix of things, whether it’s things like charities assisting veterans, helping kids in U.S., shelter dogs saved and trained for seeing eye / companion / therapy / search+rescue, special needs arts programs, etc. Looking at the list of example prior grant recipients is useful to see the kinds of charities we try to help.
d) Some personal bias does creep in — there are likely some things we won’t want to accept: for example a nonprofit trying to keep the confederate flag alive in the South would not get a grant from us. Or, a nonprofit trying to prove we never went to the moon, etc. We have no bias against any race, color, or belief.
Example Media Sponsor Logo Images
Grant winners may optionally wish to link back to Send2Press as a way of thanking us for promoting the charity via this grant program. It is customary to at least mention Neotrope/Send2Press on the donation/sponsor page(s) of the charity’s website(s).
See sponsor graphics here: https://prgrants.com/sponsor-graphics/.
Neotrope® is a U.S.-based company, located solely in Torrance, California.
