MAC 342 Community Relations Note PDF

*THE ADVOCATE'S MEDIA* 📡 _...value for all_ *AKUMA ELIJAH* *MAC342* *COMMUNITY RELATIONS* Dr. Oluebube Chukwu, Dr. Ugwu Term paper Topic. Selecting corporate social responsibility projects for community development. A minimum of 10pages. To be submitted a day to the exam. *Course outline...

*THE ADVOCATE'S MEDIA* 📡 _...value for all_ *AKUMA ELIJAH* *MAC342* *COMMUNITY RELATIONS* Dr. Oluebube Chukwu, Dr. Ugwu Term paper Topic. Selecting corporate social responsibility projects for community development. A minimum of 10pages. To be submitted a day to the exam. *Course outline* Introduction to community relations Concepts in CR Objectives Importance Stakeholders in CR Components Community entails a group of people sharing norms, traditions, interest, culture and valies. Identification is the main idea guiding community relations. This means the exhibition of common markers or points which contribute in identifying a specific group of people. *COMMUNITY RELATIONS* includes various techniques or methods employed by various organizations or establishments for the sole purpose of creating or establishing mutual relationship. Community relations is a subset of Public Relations. Community relations is about practical experience. CSR is at the base of community relations. Community relations include activities, projects, exercises which are aimed at maintaining cordial relationships between host communities and organizations operating in those communities. Community relations is pragmatic and realistic. The practice of community relations ensures business sustainability and progress for both parties. *UNDERSTANDING COMMUNITY RELATIONS* The concept of community relations borders on the need for a firm or organization to be a good neighbour. Though there are no laid down procedures or regulations towards being a good neighbour, but an organization can be regarded as a bad neighbour when it fails to embrace the principle of community relations. An organization can operate in an environment without breaking any law, yet so long as it doesn't extend a helping hand to the community, it cannot be regarded as a good neighbour. There should be deliberate efforts on the part of the organization to cultivate a good relationship with the members of a community. Of course it is expected that an organization should understand the way of life of the people within the community of their business operations and respect such while trying to keep the environment clean and tidy. No organization is expected to destroy the values of the host community by their actions or inaction. *OBJECTIVES OF COMMUNITY RELATIONS* 1. To sustain a line of communication between an organization and the host community. 2. To ensure actions and reactions aimed at maintaining a cordial and mutual relationship. 3. To endear a corporate organization to it's host community. 3. To ensure an organization is viewed as a good neighbour. 4. To ensure that publics of an organization view them as socially responsible outfits. *IMPORTANCE OF COMMUNITY RELATIONS* 1. It ensures sustainable development within the community 2. It helps to solve the need of the host community. 3. It ensures peaceful coexistence between an organization and the host community. 4. It ensures corporation between the organization and host community 5. It creates a two way relationship between the organization and host community to 6. It bridges the communication gap between the organization and host community 7. With the practice of community relations CSR is sustained. 8. It provides corporate organizations with media visibility. *STAKEHOLDERS IN COMMUNITY RELATIONS* Stakeholders are indispensable influencial persons that contribute to the progress of a community. A person is termed a stakeholder if his support is vital to the success of an enterprise and without whose support such an Enterprise will cease to be in existence. As a stakeholder, the person's actions or inactions can pose an influence to a given organization and such an individual in turn can be affected by the activities of that same organization. A stakeholder is one who has a legitimate interest in an organization or firm and therefore maintains a stake in the given Enterprise. Stakeholders include traditional leaders, religious leaders, government, employees corporate organizations (health, media, schools etc). *CATEGORIES OF STAKEHOLDERS* _There are five major categories of stakeholders_ *1. Corporate organizations:*I they exist to create wealth for their owners. Being a stakeholder in a community requires such organizations to maintain relationships with the host community. *2. Host/Local community:* as the name implies they are the geographic location in which corporate organization are located. Members of the host communities and the primary members of the organization. The actions and inactions by members of the host community are borne by the organization in the host community. Therefore, it is essential that the members of the communities stand guard to protect the interest of the community. *3. Opinion Leaders:* it's an indirect or secondary stakeholder in any organization.thwy influence the view of other members of the society with their statements and mannerism. They affect the views and opinions of others in no small way. In community relations, opinion Leaders stand in the gap between corporate organization and community. *4. Local Government:* this is the third tier of government and it is the closest to the native community or people. They offer administrative services as prescribed by the Constitution to members of the community. It serves as a critical stakeholder in community relations as they are the most accessible tier of government. *5. The Media:* they play a vital role in disseminating information to members of the community about issues going in within and outside the community. They serve as important instrument of information exchange and knowledge exchange amongst relevant agencies. Relevant information emanating from actions and inactions of host parties are shared for mutual benefits. The importance of the media is highlighted (key) such that there's no loss of information Communication between host communities and organizations involved. Nguru, Ibukpa and one more community donated lands to Nnamdi Azikiwe for UNN. *07-06-2023* *UNDERSTANDING THE COMMUNITY* Community Relations policies and objectives are not determined according to idealistic principles. They arise from assessment of organisational needs, resources, expertise on the one hands and community needs and expectations on the other. Before meaningful policies and objectives can be developed, the organization must know the community. Why community relations usually stress communication from the organization to the community the success of such effort rest on the communicator's (the PR personnel) knowledge of the audience. The effective communicator always listens before acting. The basic ingredient of every good community relations programme is the necessity of officials up and down the line to know their community. Standard Information about the community is useful to the management. Demographic, historical, geographic, economic and other readily accessible data are important, but real knowledge of the community are not found in books. A solid community programmes must be built on the answers to the following questions *1. How is the community structured?* - is the population homogeneous or heterogeneous? - what are it's formal and Informal leadership structure? - what are the prevailing value structure? - how are the communication channels structured? *2. What are the community's strengths and weaknesses?* - what are the particular problems of the society? - what is the local economic situation? - what is the local political situation? - what are the unique resources (human, cultural, natural resources of the community)? *3. What does the community know and feel about the organization?* - do the organization's neighbors understand these products, services, practices and policies? - what are the community's feelings about the organization? - do misunderstandings about the organization exist? - what are the community's expectations regarding the organization's activities? *COMMUNICATING WITH THE COMMUNITY* The hub of public relations is communication. Communicating with the community has no single audience. Messages reach the audience through employees, their families and their local media. Other important communication channels consist of a community's opinion leaders, teachers, the clergy, public officials, professionals, bankers, union leaders and neighbourhood leaders. Local organizations provide another important channel of communications in communities; fraternal Civic services, social clubs, cultural, political veterans, religious organization and youth groups provide platforms for institutional messages and ample opportunities informal communication. Organizational managers should be encouraged to be members of such groups and should make themselves available to speak to such groups. The communication channels through which community audiences are reached may range from an informal chat over lunch at club meetings to advertisements in local Mass media. In house publications, brochures and annual reports can easily be shared with community leaders. Some organizations create news letters specifically for their neighbours. Another community-oriented method of organizational publication is the open house which can be very effective if well planned and executed. Successful open houses provide small group tours of organizational facilities with knowledgeable guides. They include films, displays and usually provide product samples for guests to take home. The major message of such activities is the interdependence between the organization and the community. Note Read social exchange theory. It explains the community relations principle very well. *14-06-2023* *CRITERIA FOR COMMUNITY RELATIONS ACTIVITIES* There are several principles organizations can apply to community relations principles or activities. Some of these principles include; 1. Creating something needed in the community that did not exist before. 2. Eliminating something that exist but is now a community problem. 3. Developing a means of self-determination in the community. 4. Broadening the use of something that exist to include the poor. 5. Tutoring, counselling and training. An organization can sponsor educational programmes in radio and television stations to give community children expert tutoring. 6. Activating others to give quality service to the community. 7. Reconstituting and repairing or rehabilitating things that constitute *GUIDELINES FOR EFFECTIVE COMMUNITY RELATIONS PROGRAMME* Once the means are established for receiving on going community inputs, the following guidelines should be used to develop an effective community relations programme; 1. Careful effort should be made to specify the objectives top management wishes to achieve. The organization may seek many objectives, reputation, stability of environment; whatever the organization seek to achieve should be established in realistic and concrete terms. 2. Alternative strategies should be explored and choices made if an organization wishes to improve housing conditions in a city in which it operates, possibilities for actions range from partially funding research into new ways to build low cost housing to actually building such housing. 3. Impacts of community relations programme on the organization and the community should be anticipated; offering training for jobs that does not exist when the training is over helps no one. 4. Attention should be paid to the likely total cost of a not-for-profit action and to the volume of the organization's resources that may be legitimately allocated to community relations. It is not advantageous to either the organization or the community if the organization suddenly discovers that a given programme is costing too much and suddenly stops the service. 5. Many managers have found out certain types of involvements in urban affairs require knowledge and understanding that go beyond the usual managerial and technical business talent. Political skills, deep understanding of community problems and the ability to resolve difficulties in sn unfamiliar cultural setting are requirements for some activities. *21-06-2023* *FIVE STEPS A COMMUNITY RELATIONS PRACTITIONER CAN FOLLOW TO BUILD A LONG LASTING RELATIONS WITH THE COMMUNITY* Community Relations represents a way in which organizations can build long-term relationships with the communities in which they operate. The public relations practitioners charged with this responsibility for developing and maintaining this key relationships should follow a five-step relationship management process as outlined by Ledingham and Bruning, (2001). *STEP1: ANALYZE THE SITUATION* a. List all the key constituencies in the community that can influence the organization economically, socially, politically and culturally. b. Circulate the list of the key constituencies throughout the organization to gain inputs and to ensure that all key constituencies have been identified. c. Circulate the list to key community members to ensure that the community perspective is represented and that community input is sought early in the process. d. Using a likert type scale, ask organizational members their perception of the relationship with each key constituency to provide a basis for comparing organizational ratings to those of community members. e. Identify the needs of the community as well as community perceptions of the organization through the use of qualitative and quantitative research. i. Conduct Focused Groups with community members and round table discussions with internal publics to probe community needs particularly with regards to the dimensions of openness, trust, community involvement, community investment and community commitment. ii. Using a likert type scale, survey community members and quantify their perceptions of community needs and the organization/community relationship dimensions. iii. Compare the perceptions of the relationship of the organization members to those of the community members so as to identify areas of agreement as well as those where perceptions diverge or differ. *STEP2: PLANNING:* a. Create an advisory panel for organization/community relationships of community members and organization members. i. The purpose of the panel is to review the information gathered through the use of round tables, Focus Groups and Surveys. ii. The members of the panel should meet at least quarterly to provide continuous feedback and to suggest necessary adjustments to community building initiatives. b. In conjunction with the advisory panels, develop organizational initiatives that are responsive to community needs. c. Design communication programmes to disseminate information regarding organizations plans with community supports. i. Emphasize the notions of openness, trust building and the organization's involvement in investments and commitment to the community in communication messages ii. Pretest strategic initiatives with randomly selected samples of members of key constituencies d. Design programmes so that key organizational personnel are associated with community relations initiatives. i. Encourage corporate executives to act as spokes persons for the community relations initiatives.