Non-Profit PR and Social Media: The Love Your Melon Mission
- Feb 9, 2016
- 3 min read
With a craving for volunteer work and a love for social media, I learned to intertwine two of my passions. With a craving for volunteer work and a love for social media, I have learned how to intertwine two of my passions.
After I saw that a local nonprofit was kicking off and needed some followers, I decided to look into how I could participate. I discovered that Love Your Melon is an organization that creates products, focusing mainly on hats. For every hat that is purchased, one will be donated to a child battling cancer. I was immediately interested and decided to become part of the Love Your Melon ambassador program for college kids.
Now as a college ambassador for Love Your Melon, I get to promote the products in hopes of being able to personally donate to children battling cancer at a hospital near us. Social media has helped us reach the students of our campus as well as the community members. When someone purchases a hat, they have the opportunity to select a campus crew. If they choose the "North Dakota State University" tab, it credits our team. This part of our mission is the most important to us. We get to go into the hospitals and see the children who are struggling and try to make their day a little better.
The first hat that I gave away was a little boy, and for someone battling cancer, he had the biggest smile on his face. It made me realize all my small problems are nothing compared to what this little superher was facing. He told us that he loved these hats and wanted to take more to give to his brothers and sisters. Our crew wouldn't be able to do it without the support of friends and community members.
With social media being at an all-time high, I decided to take advantages of it. On my Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter profiles, I post about the great things Love Your Melon does and how people can contribute. Since doing so, many people have reached out to me through my social media profiles. They've explained how they love the cause and that they wouldn't have known about it if it weren't for my posts.
Instagram was the most exciting for me because I could post fun and creative pictures that incorporated Love Your Melon. It made me feel good becasue I knew for sure that some people saw what Love Your Melon was doing and they were hopefully becoming followers themselves.
Social media had a big impact on why I wanted to become a volunteer with Love Your Melon. Their social media websites were always interacting with other users and they really emphasized their mission, which made an impact on me even more.
Since non-profits do not have a lot of funding, social media plays a big role. It is so important to build a solid following because once you show people what you are doing and how they can help, many will want to get involved. That's what happened with me. Working with Love Your Melon has shown me a new side of the world that I hadn't seen before, the non-profit side. I can't wait to further my career and work for a non-profit someday.
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