If you’ve ever watched an iron man surf competition you know what the term “catching a wave” means. Competitors struggle out to a buoy trying to gain an edge of just one or two meters on their competitors but, if they are lucky, on the return journey that one or two meter advantage can make the difference between catching a wave back to shore or not. A body length’s difference can mean they are suddenly propelled to a twenty meter advantage while their opponents are left languishing in the surf.

Last week I was brainstorming on some development ideas for the Rural Fire Brigade Association of Queensland after they attended our Hi-Tech, High Tea presentation on utilising the internet in fundraising. It struck me that the promotion of many organisations is very much like an iron man competition.

Few organisations are blessed with limitless funds for self-promotion and the acquisition of new donors. But every now and then, a wave of related PR washes through our society. The question you have to ask yourself is; ‘Is my organisation ready to catch that wave when it comes, or will it fall off the back and be left almost where it began?’

In May 2005, Kylie Minogue was diagnosed with breast cancer. During the weeks after the diagnosis, there was a twenty fold increase in news coverage of breast cancer. This translated directly into an increase of women getting breast screenings by over 40%, with a more than doubling in the number of non-previously screened women in the critical 40-69 year age group.

A similar increase in awareness of prostate cancer occurred when footballing celebrity Sam Newman publicised his battle in a 60 Minutes programme earlier this year, and support for associated charities surged on both occasions.

So how does this relate to the Rural Fire Brigade? Well the RFB are more fortunate than most in that their wave of PR comes almost every summer. But I have three questions for them;

1. How are they going to catch the wave i.e. how are they going to generate the traffic to their website for example? If somebody Google’s ‘Queensland Bushfires’, are they going to end up at RFB’s website?
2. How are they going to stay on the wave? That is, how are they going to convert those initial visits into returning traffic and most importantly financial support? Do you have a process ready to involve and engage these hot prospects? For example blogs and news pages where articles, photos and even videos from the RFB volunteers can be posted, and a conversion strategy in place. Done right, they could become the media source for TV news items and more.
3. Will they survive the wave if the wave is ten-feet tall or will they get “dumped”? In other words, what happens if their website traffic goes from hundreds of visitors a day to hundreds of thousands of visitors a day, will their infrastructure be up to the task?

While not every organisation is in a position like the Red Cross to literally take advantage of actual tsunami size waves when they occur, having a well thought out and established strategy for catching social waves when they occur is absolutely vital. If you’re left scampering about when it hits you, it will simply pass you by leaving you to fall back on that much more difficult process of winning new donors one by one.