S5 E8: Telling the Story of a Global Non-profit with Leeza Hoyt and Christine Deschaine

Adrian McIntyre: 00:00:01

From the Public Relations Global Network, this is PRGN Presents. I'm Adrian McIntyre.

Abbie Fink: 00:00:07

And I'm Abbie Fink, president of HMA Public Relations in Phoenix, Arizona, and a founding member of PRGN.

With public relations leaders embedded into the fabric of the communities we serve, clients hire our agencies for the local knowledge, expertise and connections in markets spanning six continents across the world.

Adrian McIntyre: 00:00:28

Our guests on this bi weekly podcast series are all members of the Public Relations Global Network. They will discuss such topics as workplace culture, creative compensation and succession planning, the importance of sustainability and environmental, social and governance programs, crisis communications, and outside of the box thinking for growing your business.

Abbie Fink: 00:00:47

For more information about PRGN and our members, please visit prgn.com And now, let's meet our guest for this episode.

Leeza Hoyt: 00:00:59

I'm Leeza Hoyt. I'm the president of the Hoyt Organization, an integrated public relations firm based in Los Angeles.

I have a guest with me that I'm very excited to introduce you. Christine Deschaine. She's the executive director of Bringing Hope to the Family. Christine.

Christine Deschaine: 00:01:13

So glad to be here. I'm the executive director and founder of Bringing Hope to the Family USA. And I'm excited to be here and to talk to you more about our organization.

Abbie Fink: 00:01:27

Leeza, Christine, thank you so much. And I'm intrigued by this organization who Bringing Hope that really got its start, if I'm reading the information correctly, in Uganda and you brought the program into the United States, and as the Public Relations Global Network, we are often talking about the opportunities and challenges of information sharing across not only within our own organizations, but in countries and continents around the world.

So I'm really interested, if you could please, Christine, to just share a little bit about the organization and how it got started. And really what was the impetus to bring that program into the United States as well?

Christine Deschaine: 00:02:17

Well, you know, I visited Bringing Hope to the Family in Uganda about 15 years ago.

y had been in existence since: 2000

then eventually I decided in: 2020

Abbie Fink: 00:03:06

You know, starting a nonprofit organization of any kind is not a simple task, for sure. You had, of course, the history and the success of the work in Uganda.

What were some of the challenges that you encountered as you were developing this and thinking about it from a communications perspective, what were some of the things that needed to really happen in order to successfully launch this program here in the States?

Christine Deschaine: 00:03:38

Yeah, I'm glad you asked that question, because there were challenges in the very beginning as relates to how do we let others know what we've created in the US and how it aligns with our partner in Uganda. So, of course, building a website that tells the story of why we're here and what we're doing across the globe was extremely important.

So we started with that process, and then from there, we realized that social media would be an important part of our communication process because that is the platform that we realize people are involved in and engaged in.

So that's where we decided to bring in Leeza's team at Hoyt Organization to basically take that campaign and bring it to us in a format that would benefit the story that we were trying to tell.

So, you know, website, the social media platform, and being very strategic about that as well, where the Hoyt Organization understands our mission and they understand the story behind bringing hope to the family. So we were very lucky that we were able to, I was very lucky to be able to go to my board and say, basically, this is what we need.

Can we get the support of engaging the Hoyt Organization to create that platform?

Abbie Fink: 00:05:11

Leeza, one of the things that we always do when we're onboarding new clients and new organizations that are going to become part of our agency's roster of client partners is we have to really understand the organization and we need to help them identify their target demographic and who they're trying to reach. And although this organization had a strong and successful history, they were brand new in the United States.

So what were some of the steps that you took Christine and her team through to kind of bring them to being able to tell that story in a way that capitalized on their strengths from their history, but really introducing them as a new nonprofit in the US?

Leeza Hoyt: 00:06:01

Well, for starters, anytime you launch an account, this one or any others, it's dependent on the materials that you're able to provide and making it memorable, compelling without being degrading. There are so many needs in the african continent. You know that I was born in Cairo, so I've got a long history with the continent.

And the challenge that we have here in America is that for many of us, it's so far away. That key to the content, which Christine and her team has just been awesome in, is bringing it real and making it positive.

So one of the things that we counseled is making sure that we're sharing the joyful moments of what they're doing, making sure that when we post a video, it's creating joy and showing hope. I know that you guys have all seen many of the nonprofits and they're depressing when you look at their media outreach.

Our goal for Bringing Hope to the children is really highlighting some of the positive movements that they've made that have just been amazing. If you have a chance, check it out. You're seeing children that are excited. They're dancing. They're one of the posts that we.

Well, I don't want to get too down in the weeds, but as a result, when we set the stage and Christine and her team, when they visit Uganda, or even the team that they have over there, the content that we get is all centered around towards actionable, positive items. So that it's very fun to look through the feed and see all these children making progress, being excited.

One of the things that we highlighted fairly extensively was in the girls dorm. They were able to raise donations so that they all got new mattresses.

Well, people in the United States take sleeping on a mattress for granted in many cases. And these young girls were so excited to carry on their heads these mattresses up the hill to the dorms.

So I think demonstrating through the social feed some of the positive impact that you're having on a small community really is what creates the engagement and the idea that you actually can make a difference to a specific child or whatever the donation is. And I think Christine and her team have been Uber focused on that.

Christine, why don't you share some of the posts and how you captured them when you went over there last time that we featured on the water wells.

Christine Deschaine: 00:08:47

Yeah, the water wells are always great to document and bring back to the US, to the donors.

We work with villages that have never had clean water, so we go look at their source of water and we basically meet with the landowner and the community development person. And we have an engineer there and we start to build that water well.

And we engage the local community so that they can be paid to do the actual physical work.

But when we just got back and we commissioned two water wells and we delivered two water tanks, and I will say that I've done a few of these, and every time that I'm there and I see the clean water come out of the well with the community surrounding it, the joy and the emotional piece of that comes through every time, every single time. And I think us in the US that are there on the ground, you know, we always say, well, where's our sunglasses? Because we're gonna start to cry.

And we do. So that was something that we did when we were there in July. The team just got back.

The other thing that we did is we had a medical outreach, and we visited an area that has never received any medical care.

So we bring the ambulance that we funded into the area, and we bring our entire medical team that is locally on the ground in Uganda, and we treat, you know, malaria and typhoid. We do prenatal care this time. We actually did some optical services and some dental. We spend the day doing that, too.

So, again, having people line up for the entire day to get medical services is another sort of light that goes off in your head that says, we're serving people who've never received any medical care, and hopefully we're making an impact. And if we see something that is very severe or unusual, we have that ambulance ready so that we can get that particular patient to a local hospital.

The other thing we did is we conduct a building men and women conference. We have a vocational school that serves 150 students who learn skills.

And we spend three days, which consist of teachings and opportunities for them to learn things that they've never heard of before, like how to create a business, those types of things, and to bring self awareness to the things that they need to learn as young adults. And we were able to graduate while we were there, 150 of those students, and they all had cap and gowns on.

And it was quite moving to see the results of our efforts to put those particular students through New Hope Vocational Institute. That's a few things that we did, and there are probably another five opportunities that we took care of when we were there.

But to Leeza's point, there's a lot of joy and happiness and gratitude to the people that we actually serve in that area.

Abbie Fink: 00:12:07

Every nonprofit certainly faces the challenge of keeping volunteers and corporate support, individual support, engaged over time. There are so many worthwhile organizations to provide your financial assistance to and donate your time to.

And some of what you've shared from an engagement perspective certainly speaks to keeping individuals who are interested in your work involved in the work. You're based in the Los Angeles area, but I'm assuming that you get engagement and support from individuals from around the US.

What do you do if that, in fact, is the case? What do you do to kind of keep your volunteers engaged when a mission is not coming up? And how are they doing?

Is there work that you're doing in the States? Any support that is happening and how has that engagement happened with the us based volunteers?

Christine Deschaine: 00:13:11

We have events that we conduct throughout the year.

Primarily, those events are surrounded by a visit from the founder of Bringing Hope to the Family Uganda, Faith Kunihira, who founded the organization in Uganda. So we base our events around her visit, and they're very strategic events in the US.

And we also have some sort of a program that we look to support during those visits.

The folks that come and help support on a volunteer basis, they not necessarily have ever been to Uganda, but they do understand the mission and they've seen the results. And so year after year, month after month, those particular volunteers continue to reach out.

They want to learn about what else is happening in Uganda.

They're excited when we come back from a trip, and I just think that the passion that we have for the organization is also transferred to these volunteers, and they want to be part of something.

So the communication is, you know, we also do some videos that we share with some of the volunteers, so they understand what's happening on the ground, sometimes weekly, monthly. So I think the folks that do volunteer that stay with us in the US, they understand what we're doing and they see the results.

So they want to be part of something that they can also talk about for themselves and be proud of the work that they're involved in.

Leeza Hoyt: 00:14:53

Abbie, to your point, all of what Christine is talking about, they are baked into the communications program. And I think that's what's driving the difference.

When you look at all of their social, you see that excitement, and we focus on the people that are involved, the mission behind it, and the values that they're putting out there. So key to the communications program for this agency is to make sure that all those values are baked into everything that we do.

So we're highlighting people that are involved. We're highlighting the volunteers.

One of the key things that Christine did is to put together an awesome board of directors, all of whom are volunteers.

From an agency perspective, part of the engagement with this client was to make sure that I was willing to serve on the board, which, of course, yes, of course. Wouldn't we love that opportunity for every client that we had to serve on their board of directors?

Because I have direct access to everybody on the board, what they're thinking and what the next move is going to be that we then turn around and can bake into the next section of the program.

Abbie Fink: 00:16:02

With that in mind, it's actually going to lead me to the next question about developing your team, team of advisors, Christine.

Christine Deschaine: 00:16:10

Right.

Abbie Fink: 00:16:11

You had to, as you were putting together your board of directors and identifying individuals and what services you were going to need in order to grow the organization.

And obviously, by engaging Leeza individually and then ultimately her firm, the idea that a strategic public relations effort was going to be a value to the, you know, your growth of the organization.

So could you share a little bit about, you know, what brought you to that realization that, you know, utilizing the resources of an outside agency and then what process you went through to, you know, determine that that was going to be the direction you were going to take?

Christine Deschaine: 00:16:56

Yeah, I think when it, when we're talking about communications, you know, we, the board that we have, not everybody has that skill and understands that piece of the organization. You know, everyone has a unique ability to serve on that board.

But leaving that up to me as the executive director, to be able to communicate at that level wasn't going to be the level of communication that we really needed.

And so understanding somebody like the Hoyt Organization and their understanding of the mission, and they have also met some of the folks from Uganda that have come in from the USA, I thought it was very wise to bring them in because I knew their abilities to be able to communicate effectively. And also the social media part is a very unique part of communications.

And Leeza and her team understand that piece, the timing of it, what it needs to look like, the engagement is very important. I think that for me, it was very wise to recommend the Hoyt organization to step in and say, this is what you do, this is what you do.

Well, if you understand the mission, then I'd love to have you come on board and help to tell the story.

Leeza Hoyt: 00:18:20

She turned to us and asked us to create a program that would basically serve as the megaphone to everything that they were doing. And it was the one component that was missing on that business plan.

And we were able to step in and put together a plan that was cost effective, which is key when you're a nonprofit like this, but yet give them the framework and the guidelines for what we needed to make it successful.

Adrian McIntyre: 00:18:48

Thanks for listening to this episode of PRGN Presents, brought to you by the Public Relations Global Network.

Abbie Fink: 00:18:54

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