Independent study

As part of general research for our presentation, I looked at the disaster-relief charity Shelterbox for some idea of marketing/funding.

A possible method of income would be through online donations such as Gift Aid, which is one resource of income of Shelterbox (http://www.shelterbox.org/donate.php).

In terms of promotion, because one of the countries we will market our product for will be Western, and have a high level of internet connectivity. A simple way is to make sure that our product is Search-Engine Optimised, meaning that when people type 'student protests' (for example) into Google, then our company is one of the top websites that come up as a result.

On the theory side of things (which was one of our tasks before the next meet-up), I am finding it difficult to find a framework that we could apply our idea to. I have however found a possible definition for our type of PR activity, as we are aiming at protests:

"Situational: when often a single issue or situation drives communication - like international pressure group activities" (Tench, 2006: 115)

I will continue to look through Exploring Public Relations to try and find applicable theory.

Sources - www.shelterbox.org, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ShelterBox, Tench, R. Yeomans, L, 2006. Exploring Public Relations. Pearson Education Limited, Edinburgh.