What is the Two-Fold Path?

So, if you are one of the two people (Hi, Mom!) who have read the “About This Blog” page, you know that the purpose of this blog is to help the folks who are doing community outreach work blaze their own path to a better strategy for doing community relations (CR).

So what does that mean, you ask (ok, ok, you didn’t ask but you should have)?

This blog is about the yin and the yang of doing community relations, grasshopper (so, with that comment I’ve given away my age).  When you are doing community outreach for a corporation, whether as a CR professional or an employee who is just interested in community service, whether as a grass roots volunteer, or a seasoned CR veteran, it’s important to be doing so for the right reason … to help the community in which you live and work.  Mission accomplished.  That’s the yin.  What now?

The yang of CR work involves creating a strategic focus (emphasis on FOCUS) for your work.  Narrow in on what you want to accomplish with your outreach efforts, tie it to business goals, define a target market on whom you want to reach with your CR message and create a strategic business plan.  (OMG, did she just use the words strategic business plan while talking about community service?)  Why, yes she did.

When you combine the yin and yang of CR you will find that you are now blazing your own trail (more on that in a later blog) to a blended strategy – one that not only helps the community but also helps your company.  And let’s face it folks, if you can prove that your CR efforts help the company’s bottom line, your programs will no longer be first on the chopping block during budget cuts and lay offs.  Self serving?  Perhaps.  But, how much good are you going to be doing the community if your budget is in a shambles?

So, I hope you stay tuned because I’ve got a boat load of examples to prove my point.