Press and local media for an NGO: how to get a story covered

An editor is more likely to cover your NGO when your note carries one named person, one place they can reach and one change that anyone can see. A note that opens with the trust's founding, its trustees and its vision gives a busy reader little to act on. Send the story first: who, where, what is different now, and who can be photographed on a given day. The organisation comes in the last two lines.

What does a city desk want from a small trust?

Local pages fill every day with things that happened on a street. A reporter skimming your note asks three silent questions. Is there a person I can quote? Can I send a photographer on a particular day? Does it matter to someone who has never heard of this trust?

Your annual report answers none of these. A flooded school ground that now has a drain does. So does a night class where a mason's daughter learned to read her own name, or a camp running this Sunday.

A reporter cannot print "the foundation has impacted lives". A line such as "Savitri, 42, now collects her pension from the post office herself" (an invented example) is something they can print.

How do you find the story inside your own work?

Look in your field notes, not your launch calendar. A story usually sits in one of five places:

• a person whose situation changed, with their agreement to be named
• a date coming up that a reporter could attend
• a number that surprised you, with the count behind it
• a problem the community has put up with for years and now someone has fixed
• a link to something already in the news, such as a heatwave, an exam result day or a festival

A story needs only one of these. Pick the strongest and keep the rest for next time.

What should the pitch email look like?

Keep it to about 150 words, put the story in the body rather than an attachment, and name the reporter. Here is a working layout you can paste into a draft and fill in.

Subject: Night class for builders' children in [area], visit on [day]

Dear [Name],

Forty children whose parents work on construction sites near [landmark]
now attend a class held on the site itself, from 6 to 8 pm. [Child's
first name, age] read a full page aloud last week. The child's parent,
[name, with consent], says [one sentence in their words].

You are welcome to visit on [day, time]. The teacher, [name], and two
parents can speak to you. Photographs are possible with parents'
consent, and we will confirm which children can appear.

I can send a short Hindi/Kannada/Marathi version if that helps.
[Name, role, mobile number]

[One line: who the trust is, how long it has worked in this ward.]

Notice what is missing: the history, the trustees, the awards. If the reporter wants them, they will ask.

For example: a trust running a site school in Pune

Picture an invented trust with an evening class beside a building site in Pune, for the children of construction workers. Its first press note began with the founder's journey and the trust's registration year. It went to eleven newspapers and TV desks in one email. Every address sat in the "To" line. Nobody answered. The trust could not tell whether anyone had even opened it.

The second attempt looked different. The trust chose one story, a girl reading aloud for the first time, and checked consent with her parents and with the site contractor. It found the reporter on the city page of one Marathi daily who had written about school dropouts, and wrote to that person alone with a visit date. The Marathi version went in the same email. The reporter answered after four days and sent a photographer, and the piece ran as three lines under a photograph on an inside page, with the trust named and no phone number. It brought two calls, neither from a donor. It was a start, not a result.

Who should you send it to, and in what order?

Do not start with the big national papers. Start where the story is local.

Find the reporter's name from bylines on stories like yours, not from a generic "news@" address. Five of their recent pieces show what they cover.

What should you leave out, and when should you not pitch at all?

Leave out jargon such as "capacity building" and "stakeholder engagement", any statistic you cannot trace to your own register, and photographs of children or patients without written consent. Keep donors and company sponsors out of the first line, where they read as an advertisement.

Skip the pitch when the story is really a fundraising appeal. Skip it when the person at its centre has not agreed, or when nobody will answer the number printed in the paper.

When the reporter rings back

Be ready with three answers before you hit send. Who can speak, and in which language? Which day and hour can a photographer come? Who has agreed to be named, and who has not? Put them on a card by the phone of whoever is listed on the note. A vague answer sends the reporter to the next story.

Keeping a media list that grows

After each pitch, write down the reporter, the date and what they said. When a reporter covers you once, send the next story to them directly, and thank them without asking for anything. Put the cuttings on your website and in donor updates.

If a story needs to reach many outlets at once, press release distribution can reach desks you have no contact with, though it does not replace the personal note to the reporter who matters. Other work for NGOs is under non-profit.

Pick one story and one reporter

List three possible stories from the last month. Choose the one with a person who has agreed to be named and a date a reporter could attend. Draft the 150 words above and send them to one reporter, not eleven. If you would like help choosing the story, drafting it or finding the right desks, tell us what you need.