Meeting Half Way

08 Sep 2008

8 Sep, 2008 Ethics, Public Relations

One of the nicest things about owning your own business is the ability to be flexible. One of our non-profit clients, who we enjoy working with, and who’s mission we support, recently came to us with a dilemma. Our PR budget is funded by a number of state and local grants. Unfortunately, both the NY State and City budgets have been cut, and our client lost their grant funding.

They called us to say they could not continue the program “as is” and would have to cut our budget in half. The executive director feared that they would lose important momentum, but didn’t want to cut our efforts entirely.

Now, many agencies might walk away from the business. I gathered our team and asked them what they thought. The account would now bring in a nominal fee…should we keep it? The response was overwhelming and gratifying. The team wanted to keep the account and continue working at an effective level, even if we weren’t fully compensated. Our feeling was that this organization would ultimately rebound and when they did, our budgets would be restored. Moreover, we believe in what we’re doing.

Our client was delighted by our willingness to work with them through this difficult time.

Did we make the right decision? Only time will tell.