All,
I'm looking for ideas to assist our Local (4143) with community outreach projects. We seem to give a metric sh*# ton of money out to anyone who asks nicely, but we don't get much in the way of our name out to the community. Is there anything that you have found that promotes your local and its members in a positive light and is something that you're willing to share?
In my local, Appleton, WI Local 257, we do two things that get our name out, while doing something to help. We work with a local group called Rebuild Together to refurbish a home. It is an organization that helps the elderly and low income folks do home repairs. Like most locals in the country, we are in full supply of talented carpenters. The local media is all over it.
The other thing we do as a local is a charity hockey game with the police local. We don't have that many hockey players, but that makes it fun for the fans. This past summer we had over 1,000 people attend and raised thousands of dollars for our respective charities. We had all of the media outlets there covering it.
The biggest thing you can do though, is send out press releases anytime you are going to do anything charitable. They love to cover this stuff.