Media Tips from SparkFarm: Behind the Scenes for North Texas Giving Day

August 2, 2021

Published August 2, 2021 at 4:25pm.

Leading up to North Texas Giving Day, Dallas Doing Good is checking in with some of our favorite nonprofit pros and asking for their help to make the most of our Texas-sized giving event. Today we hear from SparkFarm, a team that has worked hand in hand with Communities Foundation of Texas to make NTxGD a success, connecting with media outlets to share great stories.

For more than a decade, SparkFarm has provided integrated PR, influencer marketing, social media, community relations, and marketing strategy for Communities Foundation of Texas’ North Texas Giving Day. Over those years, we’ve helped conceive PR stories, stunts, and events like student flash mobs, nonprofit concerts, and performance showcases, as well as incorporating celebrity and sports team tie-ins, all of which have helped transform North Texas Giving Day in 13 years from a $4 million to a $58 million fundraiser benefiting 3,000+ nonprofits. This is such rewarding work for us and we feel honored to connect with so many of the nonprofits doing tremendous work in our community along the way.

Besides the awe-inspiring amount of money the day raises and puts back into the community, the event also elevates nonprofits of all sizes through the voluminous media, social media, and marketing attention given to North Texas Giving Day.

So how can you and your nonprofit make the most of the day? From our team’s PR playbook with North Texas Giving Day and other clients, here are SparkFarm’s top 5 tips for working well with media:

1. Be a storyteller.

Journalists tell stories that have a beginning, middle and end, so help you and them by framing your story that way, too. Compelling, timely stories with a hero and villain work best. And villains aren’t always people – they can be a situation, like a pandemic. Define the problem and show indisputable proof of how you solved it. Explain why your story matters now to the audience your journalist reaches. To strip out the superfluous, try writing out your story in 100 words, then trimming it by half. Then, trim again by another half.

2. Compile and offer journalists multi-media assets that bring your story to life and give it depth.

This is includes meaningful, colorful stats, facts, and infographics; high- and low-res photos that are captioned with names and photographer credits; opportunities to grab captivating or interesting audio (for radio) and visuals (for TV, print, and online media); relevant spokespeople trained and prepped for media interviews; and press resources including fact sheets, bios, backgrounders, quotes, and press releases. When possible, we prefer offering professional photography and videography, but sometimes amateur video (SHOT HORIZONTALLY!) works for media, too.

Behind the scenes in the 2019 NTxGD war room. SparkFarm invited TV cameras to capture the action as dawn broke and the day kicked off, monitoring website performance and sharing stats on a big screen. (Photo credit Carrie Dyer/SparkFarm.)

3. Yes to straight-talk and punch, NO to jargon.

Jargon leads to misunderstanding in the best case. In the worst case, the spokesperson comes off as a fake or like they’re hiding something. Clarity gets attention and is remembered. Tip: Read what you wrote to a young child and if they don’t know what your sentence means, look for synonyms that make your messages clear. Some real-life examples that illustrate our point:

Messaging Sins

Beta, Solutionize, Passionpreneur

Win, Bright, Brave

Our goal is to reduce carbon emissions

Messaging Wins

Test, Fix, Entrepreneur

Dominate, Dazzling, Super-human

Our goal is to design 0% Carbon emitting buildings by the year 2030

4. Think in soundbites!

Be colorful, concise and quotable. Quippy quotes are less likely to be edited out of a story, and your audience is more likely to remember them.

5. Be responsive to press requests.

Like, NOW. Not tomorrow. News cycles are 24/7/365, which means when a reporter is on deadline and asks for your input on a story, respond immediately, even if it is to acknowledge the request and confirm their deadline (but then be sure to meet that deadline.) News waits for no one. If you don’t respond in a timely manner, media need to move on to another source to meet their deadline or will drop the story altogether.

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