Methods used in a community relations programme

The methods are usually based on a combination of sponsorships, targeted donations, awards, hospitality, employee volunteering, use of facilities, seminars and involves links with areas such as the arts, sport, education, the environment, occupational health and safety, charities, youths, senior citizens, the disadvantaged, disability, heritage and numerous other categories.

Virtually anything can be sponsored provided that it is packaged in the correct way and the price asked for the sponsorship is realistic, when measured against other comparable sponsorships.

For example, a company’s sponsorship programme may be based on a wide-ranging involvement with sport, which can have added benefits of highlighting examples of teamwork, leadership and competitive excellence, and/or involves your employees.

Alternatively, a company could work in partnership with the local community to discourage crime and encourage crime prevention initiatives, especially among its employees. Many neighbourhood watch schemes produce a local newsletter and sponsorship of this could give your company the opportunity to show your employees that you are supporting a concept which helps both them and their families.

One piece in the jigsaw

Since community relations is consistently delivering messages to your key target audiences, it can also have a direct impact on your media relations, investor relations, shareholder communications strategies and many others.

In isolation, community relations may be only one piece in the jigsaw, however it is complementary to numerous other strategies since it gives opportunities for networking with numerous stakeholders whose views and actions can have a direct impact on the future performance of your company. For example, if you have established a rapport with key local journalists, usually on a positive community news story, you can build on this relationship when a crisis occurs, i.e. be given the opportunity to respond. So, through this damage limitation approach, you may even turn a potentially damaging piece into a more positive piece.

This fact was illustrated in the Brent Spar incident when Shell’s decision to sink its obsolete Brent Spar oil platform in the North Sea led to a wave of public protest over the perceived environmental damage. Peter Hunt, head of community and regional affairs at Shell UK, afterwards stated that the publicity would have been even more damaging and the company’s relatively rapid public rehabilitation less forthcoming, if Shell had not already developed close lines of communication with many environmental interest groups through its corporate community involvement activities. These links gave Shell the opportunity to receive a fairer, more balanced hearing.

Community relations is therefore not about being ‘just nice to people or helping the local community’. This may be a consequence of the programme but the concept is based on commercial principles of research, having a vision, devising strategic objectives, implementing tactics, measuring and evaluating the results and deciding how they will be communicated to your key audiences (especially your employees).

There follows a consideration of the concept in more detail.