Some donors request applicants in their guidelines to prepare one more document besides the “normal” parts of the proposal: a media outreach plan.
In this article, we explain what a media outreach plan is and why donors want to see one in a proposal.
A media outreach plan basically is a document that explains how you plan to reach out to media outlets. The goal is to inform the general public about your project and your work. It explains in detail how you are planning to place stories and information about your work. This can be in newspapers, the radio, the tv or any other platform that disseminates news and information – social media included.
In the media outreach plan, your organization has to explain how you want to share your experiences and information about your work. This has two benefits for your donor. On the one hand, many donors want to get publicity through you. If you place articles in the newspapers about the funded work, the donors also get coverage. On the other hand, by sharing your knowledge and your experiences, you make sure that other organizations can also benefit from it and scaling up of the project can be easier.
If a media outreach plan is requested in the guidelines of your donor, make sure you write a good one. Discuss with your team how you could present your work to the general public. There is no one format for a media outreach plan, so you can organize it as it seems best to you. Sometimes a text suffices, but if you have several outlets you want to work with, a table might make sense.
Do not propose things that are highly unlikely to happen, like coverage from a national newspaper or a big tv station. Keep it realistic. Your local or regional newspapers, radio stations or tv channels might be really interested in your work, and local coverage might lead to regional or national coverage. Also, use your own social media channels and look for other ways to internally promote your work. Make sure you understand clearly in which way the donor wants to be featured – branding might be what the want with a logo, the name or not at all.
Eva is based in Germany and has worked for nearly a decade with NGOs on the grassroots level in Nepal in the field of capacity development and promotion of sustainable agricultural practices. Before that, she worked in South America and Europe with different organizations. She holds a Ph.D. in geography and her field of research was sustainability and inclusion in development projects.
