Public Relations Team

The main purpose of the Public Relations Team is to be the public face of AguaClara and raise awareness about international water related issues--specifically, the quest to provide access to safe drinking water.  On this page, our public relations group outlines how AguaClara strives to meet these goals.

To gain awareness and exposure for the AguaClara cause, the Public Relations team works at making posters and giving presentations to many interested parties around campus including the Global Health Student Council and the ENGRD 1050 seminars. The Outreach Team has participated in Campus Sustainability Day, Ithaca's annual Into The Streets--a city-wide volunteer service day, . The team has organized benefit concerts at the Nines in Collegetown. We also sent press releases to a multitude of local media outlets including the Cornell Daily Sun, Cornell Chronicle and the Ithaca Journal. We plan to contact area schools and community groups to arrange presentations and lessons for local students. We will facilitate these presentations but everyone on the team will be required to attend. In order to make this efficient we can develop a generic lesson plan that can be used and modified depending on the situation.

Educational materials have been designed for AguaClara. We have developed Pamphlets, Brochures, and Info Sheets along with other promotional materials. As part of getting our name seen around campus, we have designed and printed posters and created t-shirts in past semesters. For the web, a new website has been designed and the wiki is being restructured. The website has been translated to Spanish. We are in the process of getting banners for tabling events. Also, a new brochure was made in Fall 2010 by a former AguaClara alumni. In December we will be at the Ithaca Alternative Gift Fair, which allows people to donate money to non-profit organizations in honor of someone else and we will also be represented at another gift fair at Willard Straight Hall. Tau Beta Pi had a technical fair which AguaClara tabled as well.

Recruiting

We will work to recruit other people based on skills needed. This includes promoting AguaClara within the Civil Engineering Department, the College of Engineering and also to different departments around Cornell. Potential examples include someone with educational experience to work on developing a lesson plan, people from biological or health related departments to organize measures of the effectiveness of our efforts, and people from social development departments to study how our efforts are affecting local communities and populations. We will make presentations to ENGRD classes and to other organizations that have expressed interest around campus, advertise in the Sundial, and put up posters in various places on campus. Also, presentations will be made to high school and middle school aged students who are developing interests in engineering. We can also table on North Campus at RPCC or on Ho Plaza.

Recruitment material and Public Relations Working Group Tools can be found by browsing Outreach Resources. 

In Fall 2010, recruitment was not a project the Outreach team pursued, as class enrollment is at an optimal volume.

Website

The website is a crucial component of AguaClara because it is typically the first point of contact for outsiders.  Our team created the public website in Spring 2010 in order to create a better relationship between the AguaClara Team and the general public.  We plan on using this resource to streamline the process for keeping past and current members updated on AguaClara progress and to help educate possible sponsors about our project.  The site is also used to provide general information about AguaClara, advertise for fundraising events, highlight the recent achievements, centralize a channel for online donations, and spotlight team members who are currently working on projects.

We face many obstacles in refining and updating our website.  Our complete guide to utilizing and improving the site can be found at the Website Resources page.

In Fall 2010, several changes were made to the website, including its translation into Spanish. Aguaclara had been using Google translator to reach to the Spanish speaking community. However, it was crucial to have an independent website designed specifically for people interested in Aguaclara but with no knowledge of English. Since Aguaclara's technology was designed for Latin American communities, website translation was a priority for the outreach team. We worked with a native speaker, and the website is complete and went live in January 2010.

Having an independent website in Spanish is a way to reach more people and potential sponsors. Outreach members should be careful when update the content of the website. Since the Spanish version is independent it also needs to be continuously updated.  This should probably be done by a native speaker who is willing to incorporate the new information from the original website into the translated version or trying to adapt the content of the Spanish website to cover things that do not need to be constantly updated (such as news, student spotlights, etc).

In addition to its translation, the website has been updated with new student blurbs, new donors and partners, and a new section under Get Involved was created: Aguaclara course credits in Fall 2010. Since a large percentage of the inquiries we get from the website are related to student participation in the project, the outreach team thought it would be convenient to have class information in the web to be accessed directly.

AguaClara on Facebook

During Fall 2010, the outreach team spent most of the time on public relations material. We tried to get the AguaClara Facebook page;updated so new members can join and it could be used to advertise outreach events, such as the concert. Old officers need to be contacted by new members, so that they can pass on their role and future outreach teams can update new information on Facebook.

Benefit Concert

In the past, the outreach team has organized benefit concerts at The Nines in Collegetown. The best way to do this is to call George, the music coordinator at The Nines, at 607-272-1888. The best time to reach him is 12-5 PM on Tuesday. During the event, The Nines will donate a percentage of sales to AguaClara, and we can decide to charge an admission fee which goes directly to AguaClara. In the past the admission fee has been $5. The Nines charges $120 to hire a sound guy for the concert which can be paid out of revenues at the event. All other expenses should be incurred by outreach team members out-of-pocket to be reimbursed after revenues have been collected. (AguaClara's proceeds) = (percentage of sales) + (admissions) - ($120 sound charge) - (reimbursements for out-of-pocket expenses).

Book the event for a weekend night well in advance. Try to book student talent (bands from JAM Program House tend to work well) because student performers will help promote and bring their friends. You should not have to pay the talent; find people who will play for free for a good cause. Work with the promotional staff of The Nines to print flyers and quarter-cards. If necessary, pay for printing out-of-pocket and reimburse yourself from the proceeds. Promote online and organize volunteers from AguaClara or elsewhere to promote. Post flyers around campus and Collegetown, and distribute quarter-cards on Ho Plaza and elsewhere. Be sure to let people know that AguaClara will receive some of the proceeds from food and drink sales will benefit AguaClara as well. It might be a good idea to sell advance tickets.

The Latino Studies Program may co-sponsor the event as they did for Fall 2010. They are interested in what Aguaclara does, and they can provide a graphic designer, free color printing, and more importantly, they will advertise the event through several listservs. For more information about it, contact Marti Dense at (mfd1), the LSP program coordinator.

Posters used in previous concerts are stored under outreach resources – graphics.