LESLY SIMMONS, APR

The past month has been a busy and snowy one! While I don’t work in disaster relief any longer, my network jumped into action to send love and relief to the people of Haiti after the disastrous earthquake there. In addition to working with organizations to help ramp up their communications after the event, I also wrote a few freelance pieces on social networking’s role in a disaster.

Social Networks Respond To Haitian Earthquake; Give Loved Ones Relief

Florida Man Builds Network to Connect Haitian Quake Victims, Loved Ones Around the Globe

I also have a few industry related projects in the pipeline–an article for PRSA Tactics on social networking by PR teams to support their work in Haiti, and a paper and presentation at the International Public Relations Research Conference, next month in Miami (which I so need after all this D.C. snow). The paper is on communicating across the digital divide, so its an interesting contrast against so much social media work to look at some of the more old-school ways to get messages out.

Last weekend I had the great opportunity to take a trip to New York City for the first ever Institute for Media Professionals hosted by the National Association of Black Journalists. You may be asking yourself why is NABJ hosting an event for PR folks? What you may not know is that NABJ has a thriving Associate category for “media related professionals,” like journalism educators, and yes, even PR people! This event was a chance for Associates to meet in person, talk about Twitter, and encourage each other during this scary economic period. I think I can speak for everyone there when I say a good time was had by all. Yours truly had the added pleasure of sitting on a panel titled “Using PR to Give Back to Our Communities: Where Corporate Responsibility and PR Meet,” and I talked about some of the real ways volunteering or working with nonprofits can be a great benefit to anyone’s career path.

My friend and APR mentor Jill Kurtz gave me some space to chronicle the event on her blog, Communication in a Web Saturated World. Its a great site for anyone looking at the intersection of online communications and PR–this was a major discussion area at the Institute, and probably is for most PR folks in the industry today, so if you’re looking for resources Jill’s site is a great start.

You won’t get rich–in fact you might not even get paid, but if you are a PR professional looking for a way to give back to your community, working or volunteering for a nonprofit can be the perfect way to go. To the uninitiated, nonprofits can seem totally daunting, either huge and unwieldy or small and disorganized. But the truth is there are thousands of organizations across the country of all sizes that are tackling almost every issue you can think of, and your passion and expertise can go a long way in helping reach those goals.

Having worked for the Red Cross for 8 years, my first recommendation is to follow your heart. Whether you’re a paid employee or an unpaid volunteer, this work can be hard and even heartbreaking at times. You need a committment to the mission of any group you work with to keep you going during tough times. Trust me, any cause you are interested in supporting probably has an organization devoted to it, but if not, it might be your calling to start one.

Finding volunteer opportunities
A couple great sites to start with if you want to get your feet wet in the world of volunteerism are VolunteerMatch.org and NetworkForGood.org These sites allows you to find orgs that are looking for your skill set or who just need some assistance.

Joining a Board of Directors
If you’re interested in offering your expertise and developing your leadership skills, joining the Board of Directors of a local organization is a good way to get involved with a cause. For people of color its critical to take part in Board opportunities; in 2007 the Urban Institute of Washington, D.C. issued a study that 86% of all persons serving on nonprofit boards nationwide are white, and only 7% are African-American. This is so unbelievably not reflective of the ethnic diversity of the United States that we must get involved.

To start, visit BoardSource.org online or on Twitter for insight on what it means to be part of a board, and more great information on how to get the most out of the experience.

Once you’re ready to jump in, create an account and post your profile at BoardNetUSA.org. When related board opportunities in your community come up you’ll get an email, and groups may contact you directly–I was invited to join a board this way.

Job Opportunities
If your financial situation doesn’t lend itself to giving your time away for free, you can do good and do well by joining a nonprofit staff. Since you’ve already found the cause you’re committed to (right?) a great start is going directly to those organizations online or by phone to learn about their hiring plans.

A few other sites you should know:
Idealist.org–a great list of domestic and international internships and jobs, and active message boards
The Young Nonprofit Professionals Network is a nationwide group for people in their 20s and 30s. If you’ll be in DC in April, YNPNs Annual Leadership Conference is scheduled for the 24th and 25th, and its only $35.

This is just scratching the surface, but I hope its helpful. If you have other resources you’ve used in your nonprofit experience, please share in a comment below.

Last year I completed a huge professional goal–earning my Accreditation in Public Relations from the Public Relations Society of America. It took a while–life and work got in the way a few times, but I got it done, and did an interview on what it means for my career with CNN.com and Career Builder.If you’ve considered the APR, check out the PRSA website and consider a Jump Start class. It really helped me to prepare and understand the process. Then just do it!