Students
PR CAMPAIGNS
FOSTER
LOVE 4 BY COURTNEY VAN WINKLE
Throughout the Spring 2018 semester, public relations students in Professor Emma Wertz’s class had the opportunity to assist Foster4Love, a non-profit organization. Foster4Love places children with foster care families. The organization was established on March 29, 2017 by founder Jen Moody. Moody, a foster parent herself, puts together the organization’s events. Foster4Love currently has over 500 children in its care and has three events that they put on throughout the year to support these children. There are many aspects of a campaign that can help Foster4Love thrive. Moody is thrilled to have the help from Professor Wertz’s campaigns class (PR 4465) in aiding her efforts to promote her organization and get the much deserved help from KSU’s public relations students. Moody has said that, “getting the word out and putting [Foster4Love’s] thoughts into actions,” is what she is most excited about. Creating a way for these actions to be strategically executed is only part of what the campaigns class does. The campaigns class is the capstone for public relations majors in the School of Communication & Media. Throughout the semester, students put together a cohesive campaign for a client and gain real-life experience in the process. The campaigns class gives students a hands-on experience on how to match objectives with the needs of their client, isolate problems and solve those problems. Professor Wertz’s favorite part about teaching this class is, “seeing the students put together concepts that they’ve learned, even in their lower-level Communication classes, putting together the bigger picture as they finalize their campaign books, and then they put that into action into plans that their clients can use.”
In each class, there are multiple groups that prepare a campaign for a client, providing a few campaigns to pitch to these clients. Wertz has received feedback from previous clients saying that having multiple campaigns has helped them to implement parts of each campaign into select aspects, if not the whole campaign itself. The campaigns that students work hard on all semester will have a lasting impact on these clients with one of the sole purposes of connecting these companies/organizations to its key publics and establishing how public relations can benefit them. Not only are students benefiting the clients, but it allows KSU to give back to the Kennesaw community in a positive way. The completed campaigns allow students to add samples to their portfolios and showcase all of the hard work to future employers. It’s a great addition to each student’s portfolio and should feel like a badge of honor for getting to help a real client. At the end of this semester, after all of the hard work has been pulled together to present each group’s campaign to Foster4Love, one group will be chosen by Jen Moody as her favorite and parts of it, or the whole campaign, will be implemented. This is a perfect example of how, long after classes are done, the campaigns that KSU students create, help establish positive lasting relationships for non-profit organizations.
Foster4Love founder, Jen Moody, and her family. Photo courtesy of Bazemore Photography. Black box is covering a foster child who cannot be photographed due to legal reasons.