‘Tis the season to do good works, so it’s fitting that PR firm Hill & Knowlton Canada announced the launch of its Good Works philanthropy group Tuesday morning.
The new group handles assignments from non-profit organizations and corporations looking for communications support for their philanthropic activities. Company executives say its creation acknowledges a point of differentiation for the Canadian wing of the WPP-owned firm. “Across H&K’s global network, Canada has a disproportionately large number of not-for-profit clients,” said Selena Cameron, vice-president at the agency.
Hill & Knowlton works with not-for-profit organizations such as the Heart and Stroke Foundation, Sick Kids and Toronto’s Sunnybrook Hospital, and handles corporate philanthropic programs for heavy-hitters like Motorola, Interac and Purolator.
Cameron said this is the right time to launch this type of endeavour because “we’ve had many more types of assignments apart from marketing communications and direct-to-consumer campaigns. We’ve also seen a dramatic increase in public affairs and corporate communications mandates over the past couple of years.”
As part of the Good Works launch, the agency examined how the 40 highest-earning non-profits in Canada handled social media in October. The findings show the Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation was the most influential non-profit that month (it was, coincidentally, Breast Cancer Awareness Month), followed closely by the Art Gallery of Ontario. It also revealed that more charities promote their Twitter profiles than Facebook pages.
Cameron said non-profit organizations have become increasingly sophisticated in their use of marketing and social media. “You would assume that the largest, best-funded organizations would have the most resources at their disposal. But in fact, that’s not the case. There are many regional organizations that are out-performing national organizations [using social media]… They’re realizing that the cost of entry might be low, but the return on investment and the ability to engage are huge.”
