By: Renée A. Prejean-Motanky

Renee A. Prejean-Motanky is a writer and strategic marketing and communications management professional and consultant. Contact her directly at RAPWrites@aol.com.

The answer to this question was poignantly illustrated to me this month when I attempted to confirm an interview with a non-profit CEO to take a look at the role of PR in the nonprofit marketing mix (my planned column topic).

He was extremely apologetic for canceling at the last minute, but explained that he had more important matters that he had to address…This CEO, brought aboard as a change management officer after a regime of fund mismanagement in a Chicago agency (that shall remain nameless) with a nearly 100-year history of service in the community, was addressing the withdrawal of the organization’s line of credit by their bankers and its resultant ramifications. It got me to thinking…

As the corporate scandals of 2002 made abundantly clear, a company's reputation is paramount to its success, if not its survival. Non-profits are no exception.

Reputation can account for a large portion of a company's market capitalization, and can be its most important long-term asset. It affects a non-profit organization in a myriad of ways, including donor support, and the ability to attract and retain clients and employees. Non-profit reputation is based on factors such as:

• Quality of services
• Fund Management
• Stability
• Level of integrity in business practices
• Degree of honesty and openness
• What it gives to the community

Today, with distrust of the corporate world at an all-time high, credibility is an over-riding factor in every arena including the non-profit "business" world. Today all companies are at the mercy of public constituencies. There is growing recognition of the need to foster a good reputation by developing positive relationships with various publics.

There is a formal definition of the term "public relations," yet its meaning is self-evident; it is the management of relationships between an organization and the constituencies upon which it depends.

Quite literally, public relations is managing relations with various publics, a role that grows in importance as reputation becomes ever more critical to business success. Companies can restore trust in a number of ways, many involving traditional PR strategies, such as:

An organization’s reputation, or the essence of how it is viewed by all of its publics, is the leading factor in its ability to achieve success. With this in mind, the battered image of this organization is no small matter. Restoring trust and helping this organization and others to earn a reputation for credibility will require sound public relations leadership. Indeed, with integrity central on the minds of average Americans, the role of public relations today is more critical than ever before.

I accepted this CEO’s apology graciously and offered him a bit of advice. To hand-select a PR professional on the basis of category experience and ability to demonstrate a proven track record for the deliverables required. When he asked, I told him honestly I believed a truly integrated plan that included PR was the only answer…that I have seen it work time and again for many companies. Marketing communications is a team sport, and we're all measured by the wins we help create.

There is no doubt in my mind that if this non-profit is to regain the trust it has lost due to questionable ethics and other business practices, it must provide public relations with a seat at the executive level management table rather than just relying on public relations when a crisis arises.

Research conducted by Jonathan Low and Pam Cohen Kalafut in their recently published book, "Invisible Advantage: How Intangibles are Driving Business Performance," overwhelmingly demonstrates that business institutional investors rely on much more than traditional economic indicators such as profit and loss. Interviews with buy-side investors, who control more than 80 percent of all stock that is purchased, pay significant attention to intangible assets such as culture, leadership, human capital, communications, brand and reputation. Public relations is uniquely equipped to manage these assets, setting the stage for an ever-increasing role in a variety of strategic areas beyond publicity. ^1.

1. 10/18/03 – article accessed on the Internet