Take the PR Op

I was listening to NPR today on my weekly trip to Lowe’s, and the anchor did a phone interview with an aid worker named Joy who was in China for Mercy Corps. I produced a series of radio programs for them a million years ago and I highly respect their founder Dan O’Neill, so I really excited to hear they were getting some good PR on NPR.

This girl sounded cute, but come on, take advantage of the PR opportunity. She never talked about the great overwhelming need and that only because of people’s generosity can they immeadiately jump into action. She didn’t have to give a web site (but she could have done that) but she should have at least given people the idea to donate to any charity that is working over there.

What really got to me is that there was no mention of Christ. The reporter really set the aid worker up nicely asking “why do you do this?” The reply was nice but she talked about her career choice and why it’s important to her. Maybe Mercy Corps has left its Christian roots. I hope not.

Finally, we can all learn from this. Joy, the aid worker, seemed to think this was more of a personal profile than a corporate PR opportunity. Please remember this, when someone puts a microphone in front of you first think about God and what He would have you say to give Him glory and second, think about the people who give you a paycheck… somewhere down the list you can think about yourself.