why global tolerance?
communications with conscience
global tolerance
‘We were hugely impressed by the thoroughness, professionalism, sensitivity and flexibility of global tolerance.’
‘global tolerance, the world’s leading communications organisation in the faith arena.’
Edward Peters and Peter Riddell Rajmohan Gandhi peace tour campaign Initiatives of Change
global tolerance is a leading communications agency driven by people who live to make a difference and successfully sell positive stories.
WE FEEL YOU SHOULD KNOW ABOUT PRWATCH.ORG Focuses on monitoring PR, countering spin, promoting informed decisionmaking, advancing transparency and media literacy, and promoting open content media.
You won’t meet an organisation quite like us.
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We help non-profits, charities, social enterprises, NGOs, communities and individuals communicate in any way we can to whoever you really need to reach. People like you, with a heart and a conscience. To do this, we’ll use PR, inspirational marketing, online media and communications training however it’s right for you, your mission and your resources. Unlike other communications agencies, we champion media ethics around the globe, and try to be the media we wish to see in the world. So, to be blunt, we won’t work for anyone. But, for us, it’s never about our clients’ size, status or how much they’ve got to spend. It’s simply down to whether we can build a symbiotic relationship and effect change. If we see the potential for a story or campaign to have an impact, we will do everything we can to serve. Our future depends on it. And it works.
THE GLOBAL TOLERANCE DIFFERENCE The irresponsible media coverage that followed 9/11 was the catalyst for global tolerance. When we started, in 2003, we wanted to make a positive difference in the world by doing what we do best: communicate. gt is funded exclusively by our clients – who we see as our partners - around the world. Our independence is central to our approach to communications. This does not mean that we are objective. Nor are you. Our mutual subjectivity is our greatest asset. When we bring our visions and expertise together, magic happens. We build our relationships through ‘Symbiotic Communications’, developed by listening to and learning from our clients and partners. Symbiotic Communications comes from the realisation that our work with people like you changes both of us. We are not simply experts who solve problems and walk away. Far from it. We learn from you and the people you’re connected to - we are equals in a global movement to inspire change. This is incredibly exciting. And it’s fun. We’re proud to be a pioneering business competing to provide a service. Isn’t that great?
WE FEEL YOU SHOULD KNOW ABOUT CREATIVECOMMONS.ORG A non-profit corporation dedicated to making it easier for people to share and build upon the work of others, consistent with the rules of copyright.
WHO IS GLOBAL TOLERANCE?
The Guardian
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communications with conscience
’We have worked with many communications agencies in the past, but none have been as strong as global tolerance.’ Warren Wright Managing Partner The Gallup Organization
HOW GLOBAL TOLERANCE WORKS From our HQ in London – the splendid HMS President on the River Thames - and our offices in New York, gt plans and delivers powerful, successful communications for its partners around the world. Whether you’re a small-sized social enterprise or The Gallup Organization, we work with you to achieve big results. We have a head start because we share your values, saving you time and money. Our mutual values also allow us to anticipate all the potential risks that come with your desired message and help the media reflect your objectives, keeping everyone’s integrity intact. Together with our core team, we work with a talented international network of conscience-led communicators to bring extra inspiration and value to global tolerance and our campaigns. When your values and work are pertinent to the world leaders and other dignitaries with whom we have relationships, we help you access new and powerful networks to amplify your message. This cooperative way of working is not just right for today. It’s how species thrive. It’s the future.
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communications with conscience
‘The partner network was one of the Charter for Compassion’s great strengths it helped to create the awareness, implementation and ultimately success of the Charter for Compassion.’ Amy Novogratz TEDPrize Director, TED
PR Personal Relations is the new PR. Personal Relations, pioneered by global tolerance, generates mainstream media coverage through an ethical, humanising, solutions-driven approach to stories. gt values the needs of our clients and their stakeholders equally. We always try to tell the truth, and uphold the integrity of everyone in the stories we share. We generate coverage for social stories through our acute editorial insight and commercial understanding of the media. But good news doesn’t sell, right? Wrong. Take the French regional newspaper Ouest France, the most read French language newspaper in the world. Ouest France isn’t a fluffy, worthy newspaper but one which respects human dignity and strips stories down to the essence of the news.
WE FEEL YOU SHOULD KNOW ABOUT DEMOTIX.COM The multi-award winning home of worldwide Street Journalism where you tell the stories.
Like Ouest France, gt focuses on the news currency of stories of transformation and humanity, and promotes solutions instead of preying on problems.
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In short, global tolerance takes PR personally. We are media people ourselves so we know how it works. This is also why we champion media ethics across the globe, and speak out against abuses of power and sensationalism when we feel it’s necessary. So, we’re under no illusions. When we plan a Personal Relations campaign for you, we’ll be utterly realistic. We’ll always aim to manage your expectations.
gt workS
global tolerance
gt has managed the communications for a huge range of social change-makers across the globe, from environmental campaigns to cancer awareness initiatives, and even for Wallace & Gromit!
GALLUP AND THE POLL OF THE MUSLIM WORLD Spring 2007 and The Gallup Organization needs to share the European findings of its Poll of the Muslim World, the largest social research study ever conducted. There’s a very real danger that the sensitive data in the Poll could be misinterpreted, fuelling further misunderstanding and hostility towards the Muslim community. We’re hired to brief policy and opinion formers and help make sure the groundbreaking research findings are presented sensitively and accurately in the media. Our global communications strategy includes carefully crafted messaging reflecting the integrity of the data. gt creates a launch event, manages a press conference and works with worldwide media influencers to help set the tone and accuracy of the coverage. We use our networks to brief faith leaders, plan and hold private meetings with government and other influential leaders. The Times, BBC News Channel, New York Times and Al Jazeera are among those who cover the event. Without exception, the global media coverage reflects the overwhelmingly positive picture painted by the sensitive Poll. A motion in the British House of Commons recognises the importance of the research findings. Warren Wright, Managing Partner of Gallup, works closely with us. He is delighted with our work and says, ‘Dealing with data that can be interpreted many ways, it is rare that the media gets it right. global tolerance - somehow - made the media get it right.’
Does it work? Our Jedi Knights campaign for Interstellar Tolerance reached 700 million people around the world. What do you think? 9
communications with conscience
global tolerance
INSPIRATIONAL MARKETING ‘The whole
We practice inspirational marketing. There are big differences.
gt works
Aspirational marketing is a tool of the world of competition, ‘perfection’ and survival of the fittest. Inspirational marketing belongs in the world of cooperation and enabling all of us to thrive.
BRITISH COUNCIL AND A NEW GENERATION OF AFRICAN LEADERS Throughout 2010 we help the British Council promote its Strategic Leaders Programme in South Africa, Kenya, Rwanda and the UK. The pioneering Programme offers tools to inspire Africans in government and business to become better, more socially conscious leaders. Our work begins with providing a training session on ‘Media, Leadership and Empowerment’ to 65 African leaders at the London conference in January 2010. A global tolerance cameraperson follows and interviews the leaders during the five day course. We produce a 30 second video and five minute promotional DVD to capture the benefits of the Programme for online and offline audiences. The beautiful brochure for the Programme we create is distributed internationally, together with the DVD. All of the African leaders we meet are special people and we learn a great deal from them and about the challenges they face. Like them, we become better leaders.
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Inspirational marketing focuses on our soft-wired desire to help, be useful, serve the common good. By marketing messages in this way, we tap into a more powerful, more helpful human motivation than unreachable desires or fears. And it works. Every single campaign we create has an inspirational element to it. We only ever work to inspire hope and encourage people to learn, to work together and do something positive: to live with compassion. We use all the tools at our disposal to create marketing material that connects your target audiences and wider society in an immediate, powerful and exciting way. Even though our aims – like yours – are totally different from those of conventional marketers, we still need to create memorable, exciting, provocative campaigns. To do this means working with inspired, dedicated creative people. Our team is not just great at what they do. They love doing work that is helpful.
campaign was exemplary, showing true professionalism, creativity and an amazing understanding of what makes a strong news story.’ Wallace & Gromit’s Children’s Foundation
WE FEEL YOU SHOULD KNOW MORE ABOUT INSPIRATIONAL MARKETING Google ‘Simon Cohen: What’s better than perfect?’ and watch a TEDx talk on our pioneering approach to marketing and communication.
global tolerance rejects the traditional world of aspirational marketing, in which people are motivated to think and act through an endless spin cycle of unfulfilled desire and poisonous fear.
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communications with conscience
global tolerance
‘I have worked with a wide variety of communication professionals in my entrepreneurial career and this team is uniquely worthy of recognition.’
ONLINE MEDIA
WE FEEL YOU SHOULD KNOW ABOUT SOURCEFORGE.NET The world’s largest open source software development web site providing free services that help people build cool stuff and share it with a global audience.
The question we ask is: how can online media be used creatively to enable deeper human relationships and serve social change?
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The Internet is being shaped by the relationships formed by individuals who want to make online connections as equals. These are people who will not be sold to or persuaded lightly. They want to be informed and make up their own minds. Like all of us, right? gt creates powerful websites, social networks, virtual dialogues, apps, widgets, spiral videos (much nicer than ‘viral’!) and other forms of online media to catalyse social change. At the same time, we provide people with the tools of discernment needed to make decisions about our planet’s most pressing problems. gt helps you form relationships and build networks with your future supporters. If you want to know whether our approach works, ask us about Tole-rants, Faithbook, the No Fly Summit or our cutting-edge research for UNESCO. You’ll soon find out.
gt works
Farhad Mohit CEO of Gri.pe and Founder, Shopzilla/BizRate
TED & THE CHARTER FOR COMPASSION - THE BEST IDEA HUMANITY EVER HAD Karen Armstrong receives the TEDPrize in 2009, and the Charter for Compassion is born. The Charter is a collaboration that seeks to change the conversation around religion by inspiring people of all faiths, as well as the nonreligious, to build a peaceful and more harmonious global community. It’s called ‘the best idea humanity ever had’. global tolerance is hired by TED to use our influential networks and communications expertise to build and manage a global partner network for the Charter. The number of partners grows exponentially. We conceive and build Charter for Compassion Connect. This social network allows the Council of Conscience, which includes Archbishop Desmond Tutu, and partners to keep in touch, share news, promote events and host virtual dialogues around compassion. We secure and work with over 150 partner organisations around the world to commit to compassionate events, policies, programmes, or promotions around the Charter. There are over 225 events, from Compassion Concerts to Compassion Curricula in schools in 32 countries across all continents. The campaign inspires hundreds of thousands of people across the globe to sign up for the Charter. In 2010, the highly respected Fetzer Institute takes over from TED as managing partner and global tolerance is hired to continue our successful work. Our involvement means a huge amount to gt, and we integrate compassionate activities into the heart of our business.
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communications with conscience
‘global tolerance media training is excellent - the quality of speakers and food is fantastic!’ Farhan Rehman Blue Baloon Foundation
COMMUNICATIONS TRAINING gt has trained thousands of social change-makers – at UNESCO Power of Peace, the Parliament of World’s Religions, the Universal Forum of Cultures, the World Economic Forum, Save the Children, to name a few. Without exception, they say they’d recommend global tolerance training. So, what is it about our communications training that inspires such high praise?
The guest journalist speakers won’t just tell you what they’re looking for, they’ll share how you can work with them to your mutual advantage. If you have a great story, they’ll grab it with both hands. We empower you to work with the media, and not be used or abused by it.
We don’t just teach the principles – we apply them with great success in our PR campaigns, inspirational marketing and symbiotic communications. As people who work with the media every day, we are able to share cutting-edge insights and opportunities for selling social stories. So you can trust us. The training covers the fundamentals of advocacy and working with the media, from writing press releases to advanced broadcast skills – whatever will be most helpful for you. We also leverage our relationships with top journalists to ensure they join our sessions as guest speakers, when appropriate, to collaborate and cross-pollinate with you.
WE FEEL YOU SHOULD KNOW ABOUT AVAAZ.ORG A global online advocacy community bringing peoplepowered politics to global decision-making with 5.5 million members in every country on earth.
To begin with, we share your values, have a deep understanding of what you hope to achieve and know why getting the media on-side is so important to you.
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’global tolerance provided the perfect combination of skills to help us with creating and communicating our interfaith project.’
Read the front cover back story at globaltolerance.com/brochure
Rabbi Shoshana Boyd Gelfand Executive Director, Movement for Reform Judaism
WHAT NEXT? Since 16 November 2003, UN International Day of Tolerance and the day gt started, we have seen tremendous and exciting changes in our world. People who have been marginalised, often by these changes, and the organisations which represent them, are increasingly using social media to voice their own concerns. We’re helping to make them heard. We can do the same for you.
Our expertise and shared values mean we know how to use the best ways of communicating your, and our, message. We always do everything we can to protect the integrity of what you’re trying to do and say. In a sense, we are you. So, however we’re working with you – PR, inspirational marketing, online media, communications training – we are going to do everything we can to be helpful. If you’re open, and want to explore what you’re trying to achieve with people who share your commitment to being the change we wish to see in the world, we’d love to talk. globaltolerance.com/contact
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WE FEEL YOU SHOULD KNOW ABOUT TED.COM The home of thought-provoking and always fascinating short talks on technology, entertainment and design.
To have any kind of impact and worth, what is being said has to be understood and engaged with by an audience without being diluted. This is where global tolerance comes in.
‘The purpose of life is not to be happy. It is to be useful, to be honourable, to be compassionate, to have it make some difference that you have lived and lived well.’ Ralph Waldo Emerson.
HMS President 1918 Victoria Embankment London, UK EC4Y 0HJ t: +44 (0)845 054 0064 w: globaltolerance.com Company registered in England and Wales. Company number 05118713. © Copyright 2010 global tolerance ltd. All rights reserved.