The Leprosy Mission is an international Christian development organization that diagnoses, treats and offers specialist care, including reconstructive surgery, to leprosy patients. Their aim is to transform and empower the lives of people affected by leprosy. As well as providing healthcare, they offer rehabilitation, education, vocational training, small business loans, housing and fresh water supplies and sanitation to tens of thousands of people each year.
The Issue
Capturing the attention of the media is rarely an easy task. But trying to pique their interest when your cause doesn’t directly affect anyone in their audience? That’s a whole other story. One the Leprosy Mission of England and Wales is quite familiar with.
Leprosy is not a disease that people suffer from in the United Kingdom, so despite its impressive and worthwhile cause, The Leprosy Mission of England and Wales routinely faces barriers when it comes to media relations and getting their stories picked up.
Like any charity, donations and engaged volunteers play a vital role in the success of The Leprosy Mission. By raising awareness, media coverage can help drive donations, campaign engagement, and volunteer activity.
The Solution
The Agility Outreach platform allows The Leprosy Mission of England and Wales to access a database of over 1,000,000 individual journalists and media across the globe, and zero-in on those most likely to be interested in their work. This means searching for journalists and outlets using very narrow search parameters including region specifications and an intersection of topics like international development, charitable work, and Christian publications.
The Outcome
With saved search parameters, The Leprosy Mission of England and Wales can access a dynamic list that updates automatically with new contacts. From this saved search, they have the ability to choose the niche journalists and outlets that best align with their work and values and create a comprehensive list of media contacts they can reach out and send email pitches directly to through the Agility platform. Saving lots of time (and frustration) using these tools, The Leprosy Mission of England and Wales is able to build relationships with their targeted lists and secure coverage that way. One of their recent successes included the outreach and a targeted distribution of a press release through Agility that resulted in coverage in outlets including The Telegraph UK, Yahoo! UK and Ireland, and The Daily Telegraph.
