THE PUBLIC RELATIONS PROGRAM

The Center for the Development of Non-Profit Sector launched its project the “PR for NGOs” within its counseling and experts helps activities. The main goal of this project is to establish contacts and strengthen presence of NGOs in the media and broader public, to identify journalists interested in cooperation with non-governmental organizations and to promote the exchange of information among NGOs. Consequently, the NGOs will be helped in obtaining their basic communication skills and tools necessary for the systematic activities in their relations with public and, thus, be able to more clearly convey their messages to clients, media, governmental and international institutions and general public.

The daily news about the work of NGOs

In order to promote the exchange of information among NGOs and to strengthen presence of NGOs in broader public, the public relations coordinator broadcast daily news on NGO activities at the website of the Center for the Development of the Non-Profit Sector. The realization of this segment started in October 1999. The news is broadcast on the daily basis (in Serbian and English). Since October 2000, the news is sent to non-governmental organizations, interested institutions, media and individuals in the country and abroad once a week by e-mail (currently, to 1647 e-mail addresses).

Training of NGOs for Public Relations

Within its Public Relations Program, CRNPS launched the serious of seminars designed for persons who are responsible for public relations in an NGO. The trainings are conducted by PR experts and renowned journalists and editors. The topics of lectures and workshops are as follows:

The Journal “Non-Profit Sector”

The main goal of this project is to inform NGOs about the plans and activities that CRNPS carry out in improving their work, as well as to provide them with useful information and advises.
From the beginning of 2001, this newsletter developed into the journal for information, analyses and education in the non-profit sector. The situation imposed the need for such a journal that would deal with the development of the third sector and, through different exchange of opinions as well as the analyses, discussions and expert articles, help in the development of the sector.

Counseling - Contacts with the Media and Non-Governmental Organizations

Within this program, the NGOs are provided with advises in establishing contacts and keeping the communication with the media, while the media are provided with information on work and activities of non-governmental organizations. For the purpose of this program, the Media Guidebook for NGOs is published, in order to improve the NGO contacts with the media.

Survey

The survey “Media and NGOs in Serbia” (conducted by CRNPS and UNDP, in the end of May 2002, covered 306 – local and national, public and private media), has shown that media editors are considerably interested in topics connected to the NGO sector covered in their publications. According to these stances, the “third sector” topic is socially important, attractive to the public, and what is even more important, it is commercially viable in the information market. The general opinion is that media and NGOs are connected with a joint interest in the new structure of society. The extremely benevolent and wide support to the NGO sector by the surveyed journalists, was made relative by their extremely generalised understanding of the significance and the role of the NGO sector in modern societies. This has shown that a declarative social desire and the absence of a strategic approach to the topic were incorporated into this positive stance. Misunderstandings between media and NGOs are the result of specificity of the ways of financing the non-profit sector, and a widely spread doubt that NGOs operate with relatively large assets for this country.