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Position Description
An individual working as a Community Relations Coordinator for a newspaper or magazine acts as a liaison between the publication for which he or she works and the community. His or her main function is to assess the needs of the community and find ways to meet them. People in this position have to organize, develop, and plan programs to satisfy local community requirements.
The Community Relations Coordinator has varied duties. He or she may look for specific problems in the community or may respond to local nonprofit organizations or individuals who need assistance. Part of the responsibility of the Community Relations Coordinator is meeting with various members of nonprofit groups and service organizations. Through these meetings the individual determines what, if anything, can be accomplished for each organization.
The Community Relations Coordinator must decide if causes are worthwhile, develop specific projects and ideas to help, locate volunteers to put the event together, and handle publicity and promotion to insure a successful program. The Community Relations Coordinator also works with local businesses, business associations, and business leaders to help increase business and commerce in the area.
The individual may learn about a family in the area who has no health insurance with a child who needs an expensive, life-saving operation. In this instance the coordinator might organize and advertise fund-raising programs through the publication in order to help raise money. The newspaper or magazine might sponsor auctions, fairs, dinners, baseball games, car washes, entertainment, etc. for the purpose of raising money for the cause. Alternatively, the coordinator might work with another organization to cosponsor events or run advertisements free of charge in the publication to help promote a program. In addition to working with local community groups, the coordinator may work with national nonprofit organizations.
Community Relations Coordinators (or community affairs coordinators, as they might be known) may design and implement annual events for the benefit of the entire community. They may, for example, sponsor, coordinate, and advertise a program such as a town block party, a health fair in conjunction with local hospitals, or cooking classes in conjunction with health associations. Whenever there is a crisis in the local area the Community Relations Coordinator is called upon to lend a hand through programs, publicity, or advertising support.
Keeping the community in mind
The person in this job is usually a community-minded individual. As the Community Relations Coordinator he or she represents the publication at many organization meetings. He or she may also belong to civic and/or service organizations such as the American Cancer Society, the American Heart Association, youth associations, hospital auxiliaries, Rotary, Kiwanis, 4-H, Girl Scouts, Boy Scouts, or educational boards.
As a Community Relations Coordinator the individual may oversee the design and ad copy for public service announcements (PSAs). He or she may also be responsible for the actual designing and/or writing of ads for the publication. The Community Relations Coordinator may have to do quite a bit of creative, promotional writing. He or she spends a good portion of time writing press releases and publicity for events that will be sponsored by the publications, as well as composing business letters. Community Relations Coordinators might be responsible for making and updating lists of nonprofit groups in the area with names, addresses, and phone numbers to contact. They may also write booklets or leaflets about how to prepare organizational publicity for the publication and will often be called upon to write reports on the success of a community relations project.
Community Relations Coordinators should be outgoing. A lot of the work is done outside of the office. There are meetings to attend and business associates to visit. One may have to speak at organization meetings or at dinners and luncheons. Depending on the size of the publication for which the individual works, he or she may act as the promotion coordinator or public relations director. While much of this job is done in a normal nine-to-five time slot, meetings and special projects and promotions may keep the individual out some evenings and weekends. The Community Relations Coordinator may be directly responsible to the director of publicity, general manager, or publisher, depending on the organization of the publication.
Salaries
Salaries for Community Relations Coordinators vary depending on the size of the publication, the location, and the experience of the individual. Someone working in this position at a daily newspaper or a small weekly magazine might start at $23,000 to $28,000. At larger publications or those in more metropolitan areas the Community Relations Coordinator might earn $45,000 or more.