Public Relations Advice for Israeli Environmental Start-up

Background

For years, land conservation has been done in the "traditional" way. Organizations engaged in purchasing lands for conservation work using a centralized model. Important organizations of this type include The Nature Conservancy, World Land Trust, Rainforest Trust, and Save Nature, to name a few. TiME’s innovative crowdsourcing internet platform gives the donor more control over the specific habitat they are donating to save and seeks to engage a global network of grassroots participants who are passionate about saving the environment. TiME is looking for PR professionals to help them develop a publicity plan, write press releases, and make media contacts and story placements including their recent launch in Israel’s Knesset and a summer launch in North America, perhaps in San Francisco.

The TiME team includes ecological icons such as Stanford Professor, Paul Ehrlich; Gerardo Ceballos, Mexico’s leading environmental scientist/ advocate; noted activist Wanjira Mathai, heading Kenya’s Greenbelt movement (Africa’s largest environmental NGO). While our team includes some of the greatest environmental experts, academics and activists in the world, we sorely lack PR and marketing knowledge. We need the assistance of one or more Public Relations professionals who can bring this project to the attention of the U.S. and international media and help us gain exposure to a global audience of potential participants.

Scope & Deliverables

The consultant or a team of consultants would help with any or all of the below. We are entirely open to consultants taking only a portion of the engagement. Given that the team is based in Israel, all of the consulting would be remote.

1. Review/evaluate organization’s public relations goals
2. Identify the audiences that organization should address to achieve goals
3. Identify the media outlets that organization should target to reach audiences
4. Create a press list
5. Recommend tactics to build relationships with target media outlets

Ideally, we would also receive direct assistance with the following project oriented tasks:

1. Reaching out to and placing stories in the international media
2. Advice on writing press releases
3. Designing a Public Relations strategy - both short and long-term
4. Distilling background materials about the critical habitats and the local partner NGO

Project Results

Our organization is a start-up, launched by seasoned Israeli experts / academics who need help reaching out to the public worldwide. The pro bono assistance will get the word out and attract people across the planet to be part of a global effort to save critical habitat and the endangered species living there. The engagement will help us develop our network and build a grassroots movement to  save hundreds of species from extinction and sets aside millions of acres of endangered habitat. Reaching a critical mass of members and passing the "proof of concept" threshold stage, is our initial goal for the project.

Organization Description

This is My Earth is an international team of leading scientists and environmental activists committed to saving biodiversity by using a crowdsourcing model for financing the conservation of critical habitats. The team  includes ecological icons such as Stanford Professor, Paul Ehrlich; Gerardo Ceballos, Mexico’s leading environmental scientist/ advocate; noted activist Wanjira Mathai, heading Kenya’s Greenbelt movement (Africa’s largest environmental NGO). TiME is registered in New York and temporarily running out of Israel and it enjoys informal support from several universities of associated faculty.

TiME does not purchase the habitat for itself. Rather, after closely vetting the local partner NGO that proposed the site, a contract is signed where they commit to managing the conservation easement and any associated management and the land becomes the property of the non-profit.

Required Skills/Experience

Public Relations strategy and implementation