You Have to Get Creative

Yes with the media being bombarded with stories from not only phones calls, printed press releases and now emails the reporters can become quite blase.

So think CREATIVELY. Everybody loves to read “good” news about people helping people. Just witness the incredible stories that are shared after national disasters like the recent tornadoes in my hometown of Atlanta. There was this dog that was missing and every one became focused on the dog being found safe and sound. This time that is what happened!

Here's another CREATIVE story.

David Brough, a expert in letter-press printing, volunteered to support Imagine It!, the Children's museum in Atlanta. Using his 1912 press, he presented the old techniques of letter pressing. Intriguing many people, both from the media and from the general public, his presentation positioned the museum as a learning venue for Atlanta's children and tourists.

So here was an example of using the past to show to the future.

Marilyn Pearlman
Pearlman Associates

Community Relations Is NOT an Overnight Fix

Think LONG TERM. Establishing a long-term community relations campaign requires patience and persistence. It is a long process, which does not have an immediate result on your business. That is the main reason why you should BELIEVE in your charity work you do and enjoy it. You should be able to tell yourself: I am going to do this even if I don't get any media coverage at all. Using savvy strategic communication, you will.

Atlanta CBS 46 community relations project took more than three months. It included conducting volunteer-participation surveys among the station's employees, analyzing the data and assigning the right organization to each employee. The results were well worth the time and the effort. The campaign was win-win for both the station volunteers and the community organizations. It produced an ongoing supply of volunteers for the charities and visibility for the station.

Marilyn Pearlman

Founder Pearlman Associates

Three Strategies You Can Use

Building community relations is an important, ongoing process, and crucial to maintaining a positive image and presence in the public eye. By and large, building community relations involves a business giving something to the community for FREE. The business can give goods, money, time or effort. The community is usually represented by a non-profit organization, charity coalition or a philanthropic lobby of public opinion leaders.

Your successful, finance-driven business helping a poor, charity-oriented organization yields news that makes you look good. Positive community relations also gains a favorable REPUTATION for the business, which results in better public acceptance, better employee retention and better recovery in case the business suffers an image blow.

The following strategies that will be discussed in this blog are meant to serve you, the businessperson, as you start building you business community relations. You will find three guidelines for community relations building with real examples from our work and three examples of tactical actions that worked for us. These strategies should help you build your business community relations in a productive and enjoyable way.

Marilyn Pearlman

Founder Pearlman Associates

Two of the MOST Unforgettable People I Have Met

I have been a member of the Atlanta Press Club since the mid-1970’s. Of all my experiences in this organization, the most pivotal in my learning process was my tenure as executive director from 1977-79. In that role, I got to know two of the most unforgettable people I’ve ever known. The first was Zeke Segal, then Southern Bureau Chief for CBS News and president of the club.


Zeke Segal was the model for the concept of “paying it forward” or doing favors for people before they ask for them. He liked to nurture people, to connect them with others—creating a win-win for all. Zeke was my mentor.


Although Zeke used his expense account to eat at Bones, he believed the Atlanta Press Club should extend membership to journalists of any ilk; so he preferred meeting at Manual’s Tavern. He opened the club to journalism students from Georgia State University, Emory and UGA, several of whom later became recipients of scholarships given by the club.


Another role model in the Atlanta Press Club was Vida Goldgar, publisher and editor of the Southern Israelite and later the Atlanta Jewish Times, who first joined the club while still a housewife and a community volunteer. Vida was a mensch, a really good person. She was involved in numerous organizations—probably attending a board of directors meeting every night of the week for many years.


Although I remember many moments of giving, the one that struck me the most vividly occurred just a few weeks before her untimely death. With emphysema making it difficult to walk even a block and an impending cancer operation only two weeks away, Vida accompanied me to an exhibit at Imagine It: The Children’s Museum of Atlanta. She wanted to support a former employee—a letterpress printer whose work was the focal point of the exhibit. The funny thing was that we almost didn’t get in the door, since we were not accompanied by any children!


These are examples in my life of people who epitomize Community Relations.


Marilyn Pearlman
Founder Pearlman Associates

Why Am I the Diva?

Because I have the scars and stars of experience—37 years worth!


Arriving in Atlanta in mid-1970, I taught high school English and Mass Media; and filled my after-school hours with volunteer work for non-profit organizations, which I loved more than the classroom. Through my exposure to the Atlanta Community Relations Commission, I met Andrew Young—later Mayor of Atlanta—as well as my mentor, Helen Bullard, PR person for Mayor W.B. Hartsfield, for whom Atlanta’s airport was named. I also worked on Maynard Jackson’s first mayoral campaign, which neither of us ever forgot. Just a few weeks before he died, I called him and he called me back at 6:00on a Friday night!


In addition, I assisted the public affairs director of WSB-TV—then the local NBC affiliate—in researching community-oriented programming, as well as escorting celebrity guests like Daddy King and Hosea Williams to the studio.


My next job was equally enriching—providing experience and contacts in the community arena. For nearly three years in the mid-70’s, I traveled to 35 Atlanta Housing Authority projects and wrote human interest stories about tenants—children, families, and senior citizens—and the social service programs that supported them.


There I met unforgettable human beings like Susie Labord, president of Grady Homes, and Mary Sanford, president of Perry Homes: the former referred to me as her daughter because I was her diligent ride for weekly community events held at night; the latter taught me about her girlhood experiences with the Ku Klux Klan, as I picked her up for 7:00 a.m. interviews on Today in Georgia at WSB-TV. In addition, I became familiar with the streets of Atlanta. To this day, I know how to get off the expressway and find my way from surface streets where many memories are buried.


Marilyn Pearlman

Founder Pearlman Associates