Non-Profit Communication Strategy and Promotion - Using a Communications Coordinator

For over eleven years, The Old Brewery Mission helped men and homeless women in Montreal, Canada, without a coordinator Journal Communications. A displaced, homeless people are getting younger and new programs to help them leave behind the homeless, the Mission realized that he needed a strong communicator. The goal: to break down old stereotypes about its customers and to get the public excited about the new programs.

Q: How did the Old Brewery Mission get his message out before you came aboard?

Christian: Our Foundation has been a Director of Development and she has done on the communications side, and one of our Council members is a Vice-President at a communications company. They felt the need of someone getting their message in full-time and last year the Foundation has created this position. I am the first person to hold it and I'm lucky to have their great support.

Q: What was one of the first things that you face as a communications coordinator?

Christian: We wanted to change the image people have of us. When people think "The Old Brewery Mission" think of refuge for men of Clarke Street, the cafeteria and dormitory. They think of a bearded old man, usually an alcoholic. Yes, we have customers, but our reality and what we're trying to do has changed greatly in recent years.
The average age of those who use our services is now 37. Now we are more proactive: we have daily programming geared toward a younger clientele. We have programs for reference so you can leave the road. We will always have the emergency services we have planned for 117 years, but now we also have programs for people actively engaged in leaving behind homelessness.

Q: So how do you redefine the image that the public has of you?

Christian: This is a great boat to turn, with 180 employees and 400 customers who use the services at night. The goal is to change the image of who we are on different lines and levels for the public and those working in social services.

Q: What elements should change the perception of the mission?

Christian: I was looking at the site and we had our promotional material and I could see that it does not reflect the true identity of persons served. In addition, they play on old stereotypes. The material he was doing was not a very human customers. I realized that we had to change the situation.
Our director, James Hughes, has started a blog very articulate Directors' that touches on many issues related to homelessness. And 'to reach a wide audience, including our old customers and was also used as a pedagogical resource for classes of Dawson College.
We have a quarterly electronic newsletter that is going very well. We hired a college student to build the database for its readers and the student came up with over 640 different people and organizations with links to homelessness in Quebec, the rest of Canada and Quebec.
We had beautiful pictures taken by a semi-pro photographer who wanted to do more photojournalism. E 'come here many times to take pictures and he inspired me to take an old 35 mm camera and take more shots. You can see those all over our website, our annual report and on our new brochures.

Q: Do you do all the writing and design of your publications and the website?

Christian: I did the basic design of the web, but I knew that I could upgrade our brochures, our promotional materials and annual reports to properly reflect our new image of man. A volunteer that a great graphic designer for us, has taken what we needed and did a great job.
You can rent when we make a big push media. We use Torchia Communications-I have many contacts with the media, but Torchia can really effectively track media for days. We also have a Direct Marketing Consultant for help with our campaign letter, because none of us are professional fundraising.

Q: And what he sees as a communication strategy for Mission for the future?

Christian: I want to make our site more of an active instrument of the community, rather than the style a bit 'is now passive. I also like for us to make a video, maybe 3-5 minutes that would further customize what we do. There are thousands of roads that lead to homelessness and we need to find ways to get that message out there .......