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| Chicagoland Marketing
Initiative |
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| UU Chicagoland Marketing Initiative
(CMI) A program of The Chicago Area UU Council This just in -- Beverly Unitarian Church generated a piece in the Beverly Review, reporting their press conference Saturday, February 9. Lieutenant Governor Patrick Quinn helped launch their new electric vehicle rapid recharging station. They also appeared on Fox News Saturday evening. Well done! Link => Check out an interview with Mike by Ian Evison, Central Midwest District Congregational Services Director, in the current District newsletter, The Midwesterner (link) Our latest work: Mike is currently working individually with PR programs in congregations. These are his projects:
Here are some areas Mike can help you with: How To Do: • Press Releases • Media Kits • Awareness Campaigns • Meeting the Media • Press Conferences • Crisis Communications • Web Options • Using All Media • Identifying Stories • Collateral Material Development Processes -- meeting with your PR group for: • Identifying Ministry • Visioning • Developing Shared Vision: With other congregations Within your congregation • Translating from Church-speak to Media-speak • Establishing Your Congregation as an Authority • Identity Development And in the process of preparing materials for the press: • Reviewing Materials • Editing • Connecting with the Media • Networking • Project Tracking Take a look also at CMI Program Resources (link top of right column), which are being added to continuously. Mike sends along the copy for an article he recently did which included reference to the architecture of the Countryside UU church in Palatine (link) ******** Take a look at our ad supporting the Planned Parenthood Clinic in Aurora, published in the Aurora Beacon News! click ******* 2007-8 Program The Chicagoland Marketing Initiative will continue to engage consultant Mike Murschel to work with the public relations teams of individual congregations and clusters of congregations to identify stories, get them written, and bring them to publication in local and regional print newsmedia. His first project of 2--7-8 was with the congregations of DuPage and Joliet (Third, Unity Temple and Hinsdale are also participating) to develop an ad in support of the opening of the Planned Parenthood Clinic in Aurora. The ad was developed in consultation also with John Hurley, Director of the UUA Office for Advocacy and Public Witness. The ad appeared in the Aurora Beacon-News and expressed the support of those congregations, along with that of the Chicago Area Liberal Ministers Association (CALM), and the CAUUC Board of Directors. See announcement above. Other projects will be developed through the year with public relations teams of congregations, individually and (ideally) in clusters. By the end of the year, public relations people should feel more knowledgeable about designing and bringing to fruition their own public relations projects. History Over the past two years, the Chicagoland Marketing Initiative has been gathering folks from the congregations of the greater Chicago area to develop skills and strategies for programs of marketing and public relations. In the first year, they staged workshops engaging the services of UUA consultant for marketing Valerie Holton, and consultants for public witness John Hurley and Rob Keithan of the UUA Department of Public Witness and the Washington Office for Advocacy. In a second year, they continued the program with Mike Murschel, consultant for public relations, who has conducted monthly workshops on the skills and strategies of public relations and working with the media. CAUUC and CMI propose to continue this program through FY 2007-8. Because the CAUUC catchment area is so far-flung, from Rockford to Elkhart, Indiana, CMI has chosen to offer opportunities for congregations to develop their own public relations teams, and to collaborate regionally, to work with the media of their individual communities. Mike Murschel is Elgin-based and is very comfortable working with community media of varying sizes. His career has been in writingfor religious organizations, which is an added plus. To fund the program we solicited a contribution from the member societies of $2 per member added to their $1 per member CAUUC contribution. Sixteen congregations contributed $5000. to fund the program and sent their public relations teams to the workshops offered by consultant Mike Murschel Additionally, the PR teams of six congregations engaged Mike to work individually with them in crafting and targeting press releases. The workshops are designed to help congregational public relations teams develop skills and strategies to work with the media. Topics included developing an internal system for communication between church event organizers and the public relations team, so PR people can successfully target press releases; identifying press media that might be receptive to stories about the work of our congregations; developing other ways than the press to advertise the programs and events of our congregations; developing strategies for contacting the press and building relationships; formatting press releases; developing a media kit for your congregation; optimizing and evaluating the effectiveness of your church website; and more. As is so often the case, the various PR programs in congregations were/are at various stages of success in development, and much good attention was given to helping congregation identify and work on the next step for their particular group in developing an effective PR program. Here is an overview of what the CMI has done this year (FY 2007): • CMI engaged consultant Mike Murschel, who has conducted workshops for PR teams from CAUUC congregations: Forty-seven people attended one or more of these workshops, representing 15 congregations. • Mike Murschel consulted with six congregations directly, at their request, assisting them with developing press releases for specific congregational events. • Mike has developed a press release intended to elicit press response to developing a story about anti-war activism of members in four congregations with a lifetime of anti-war activism (to be “rolled out” close to the 40th anniversary of the start of the “Tet” offensive in the Vietnam War). • Sixteen congregations contributed financially in FY 2007 to the CMI initiative through their contributions to CAUUC, totaling $5000. CAUUC also budgeted and contributed $1000 from the Clarence Darrow Fund for First Amendment Freedoms. What CMI will do in FY 2008: • Continue staging workshops, sited to be accessible to clusters of congregations, on a bi-monthly basis across the CAUUC region. • Increase consultant’s work with specific congregations that request his assistance to work with the “next steps” of their particular charge, perhaps conducting half-day workshops with the congregation’s publicity team. • Expand the number of “cluster stories” Mike develops for the year, i.e., stories highlighting activities shared by individuals at multiple CAUUC congregations. Background The CMI was formed by a cluster of Chicago-area congregational leadership, for the purpose of developing marketing and public relations initiatives involving the several congregations of CAUUC. This next year, CMI will be engaged in a program of public witness in the greater Chicago area using news media. A consultant skilled in public relations and grounded in UU principles will work with congregations to turn their work promoting UU values into news stories focusing current social justice issues through a lens of UU values. The purpose of this program is to support the development of marketing and public relations events, skills, and programs in congregations of the greater Chicago area, in order to *Make Unitarian Universalism more visible in the world, *Support values-based work of Unitarian Universalist congregations, and *Attract people to our congregations who are interested in joining our congregations in order to have a values-based platform from which to change the world. The UU Chicagoland Marketing Initiative (CMI) grew out of workshop offered by John Hurley and Valerie Holton at the Central Midwest District Assembly in April of 2005. The CMI began meeting regularly in May, 2005, with representation from 8 congregations in the purview of the Chicago Area UU Council (CAUUC). The mission of the CMI was established to raise the visibility of Unitarian Universalism in the world by developing and sponsoring marketing and public relations initiatives among the congregations that comprise the Chicago Area UU Council. However, it was felt that groundwork needed to be laid and many more congregations brought on board before an effective program of marketing or public relations could be launched. Through FY 2006, CMI staged three workshops in conjunction with a fourth offered by the District. We brought together marketing and public relations people from the congregations and offer training in • readying congregations for visitors through “Radical Hospitality,” a workshop presented by District Director for Growth Dori Davenport; • developing marketing strategies for individual congregations through the workshop, “Marketing 101:Developing an outreach strategy for your congregation” presented by Valerie Holton, UUA consultant for marketing; • possibilities for public relations and public witness through the workshop, “Public Witness for UUs: Engaged Faith, Effective Action,” presented by John Hurley and Rob Keithan, UUA staffers for public witness and advocacy. • Direct Mailing, through the workshop “How to do a Postcard Mailing in 3 Easy Steps,” presented by Dan Ashley, marketing committee chair of Second Unitarian Church, Chicago. • In designing a program for church year 2006-2007, CMI has taken its lead from John Hurley and the UUA initiative for public witness. Congregations in CAUUC have become increasingly vocal about social justice issues, such as the war in Iraq, civil marriage for all, the environment, fair trade, fair employment practices, etc. Further, congregations have participated in processes in which they have agreed to speak out on issues in the name of Unitarian Universalism and themselves as a faith community. Much of that speaking out has, however, been confined to their literal and figurative front lawns. It seems to be the right time to enhance their efforts by developing skills to use the media to carry their voices further than their front lawns. A consultant working with PR people in congregations will help them develop skills of their own to carry on the work past their initial experience with the consultant. Mike Murschel has been hired and is now working with public relations volunteers in the various congregations to compose and get published the stories of public witness through congregational activities as they live out their UU values. Mike Murschel Mike Murschel, an Elgin-based church image consultant and free-lance journalist, has been hired to fill this role through March, 2007, at which time CAUUC and CMI expect to win further funding to continue work with Mike through a matching grant from the UU Funding Program of the UUA. Mike is a writer, facilitator, and theologian. He has published 1400 feature articles for local, regional, and national publications, scripted video productions and events, and provided public relations through features, productions, and products for organizations reflecting some 30 faith traditions. He currently writes the "Faith in the Valley" weekly column for the Elgin Courier-News. Mike holds a Master of Arts in Religious Studies from the Lutheran School of Theology in Chicago and a Bachelor of Science from Northwestern University in Radio-TV-Film with an emphasis on writing and classical studies. Mike has served as Associate Vice President for Communications and Marketing for the Lutheran School of Theology of Chicago, and is on staff at the local congregational level. Mike will work with congregaitons to shape the stories of their social justice efforts, particularly as they work in collaboration with other UU churches. He has offered a mini-workshop in early October for CMI on the basics of public relations work and will offer a second workshop in November. Mike and the CMI are looking forward to deepening the connections among UU congregations, pooling resources to build on congregational health and to spread the good news of liberal religion in Chicago as never before. Mike has led two workshops, "3-D Media: Discovering, Developing, and Delivering your message" in October and November. He is now in contact with PR reps working to develop a story "laterally," telling our long commitment to international peace efforts and anti-war activism, dating from the sixties to the present. A third workshop will be scheduled for mid-January. |
CMI
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