I’ve had a lovely couple of months travelling around Australia working at conferences, running workshops and hunting around for great stories.

At one of these conferences (The Community Broadcasting Association of Australia conference in Hobart) I was asked to speak on a panel about how non-profits can stand out when they don’t necessarily have big $ behind them.

It’s fitting that the CHOICE Shonkys (a yearly awards ceremony for Australia’s shonkiest products and services) are out this week – as they were one of my biggest professional challenges for making more with less.

Prior to me joining the team at CHOICE, the Shonkys were a major public event with a full stage production and a decade of history behind them, but as I joined I was tasked with bringing the event back to basics on a smaller budget, while still keeping its impact.

To do this – we focused on our major event stakeholder – Australian media. They were our key partners in ensuring The Shonkys achieved change for Australians in consumer markets.

The questions my team and I had to ask ourselves were:

• What do media need from us to make compelling stories?
• How can we do this efficiently and effectively for us and them?
• What should we spend on that gets us the most value for our money?

Here’s a few of the key things that helped us run The Shonkys on a smaller budget, while still making an impact:

Prioritising visuals

Media stories are inherently visual.

Previously by running the Shonkys as a live event, we limited media to the visuals that were available at that event.

Instead, we focused on giving media extra time in our labs, with case studies and with the “shonky” products so they could produce visuals unique to their audiences.

Our limited budget went towards locations, props and materials that offered journalists a range of options to explore.

The key was in providing a diversity of visuals.

We pre-recorded stock footage for each Shonky award (all filmed on iPhones!), but also gave our media colleagues a diversity of options on-site and extra time to hunt for their own unique visuals or angle on each story.

Set realistic timeframes

When your budget is limited, you need to give you and your colleagues time.

Across the CHOICE team, we collected stories all year around that might make for a good Shonky and were always thinking ahead.

Preparations for the Shonkys start 6 months (or more) before the intended launch day.

As the saying goes – you can have 2 of the 3:

• Cheap
• Fast
• Quality

When you don’t have the $, extend the lead times.

Have fun and get everyone to pitch in

It’s too easy for comms and media teams to want to control everything. We’re inherently risk-managers at heart – but in a low resource environment you need to let go of some things!

For the Shonkys – we got everyone to pitch in. It was a whole of organisation effort.

When the pet insurance industry received a Shonky, staff brought their dogs in for the day:

Staff across the organisation helped us dress sets and make spaces “media ready”, friends and family came to share their experiences of the dodgy products and services – the CHOICE Shonkys were a true “all in” moment.

Your colleagues all have skills to offer – bring them in on the fun!

The payoff

In the end, re-focusing on our key stakeholder (media partners) and doing whatever we could to help them produce great stories (while making our major event more affordable) led to one of our most successful events in years.

We secured broad nationwide media coverage, won a number of our important advocacy campaigns and received strong community support from new and returning CHOICE members – smashing our targets on all metrics.

Congratulations to the CHOICE team this year for celebrating 20 years of the Shonkys in style – and particularly Katelyn Cameron for her great work behind the scenes. I’m proud to have played a part in that history.

-JB

Hi, I’m JB – I’ve been working as a broadcaster, content maker and comms advisor for nearly 20 years. Aus Comms Guide is my newsletter to share comms tips for good people and good causes. Sign up on email at auscommsguide.com

Interesting stuff!

A huge congratulations to Tany Brahmanand for her work on the exhibition ‘Do No Harm’ that was presented at the No Vacancy Gallery in Melbourne this month.

I was lucky to meet Tany through the Wattle Fellowship and work with Ascent Media to share her story. Wonderful to see someone find ways to merge their many loves together – medicine, sustainability, art, family and culture – all while progressing social change.

And while I’m talking about art – I’m in Adelaide this week and got to see my niece Alice’s art show at Flinders University:

Similar to Tany, Alice weaves together her many passions and is on her way to becoming an amazing educator who uses the arts to inspire her students. Her art shares her experiences with neurodivergence, the joy of experimenting with form and enjoying the process. Something we can all learn from.

Incredibly proud of you Al!