T.H.E. Project: Tools, Hints & Experiences for using marketing for social causes

In 21st century there are countless ways to promote what we do. However, the fact that people are over-informed makes it more difficult to ensure visibility of our meaningful projects. Great achievements are many times lost in the endless amounts of useless information that often takes attention from what is truly important. Besides, people who develop meaningful projects often don't have skills needed to promote them as they deserve.
"T.H.E. Project: Tools, Hints & Experiences for using marketing for social causes" is 8 days training course in the framework of Erasmus + program, K1 action that has as main topics and objective to help raising visibility of activities and projects that promote inclusion. It will happen in Aveiro, Portugal, in February 2017, gathering 24 youth workers, youth leaders and project managers from 8 EU countries.
The main goal of this TC is to question and answer two issues. The first is - how NGOs can use innovative marketing methodologies (storytelling, guerrilla marketing) to draw attention to some problems in their local community (mostly inclusion/social related, but also environmental, economic or other). The second one is how NGOs can generally empower regarding PR and media related issues.
This TC will focus mostly on projects with inclusion related topics, it being one of the biggest challenges that our societies face today. We find it necessary to 1) do more projects that promote inclusion and 2) to promote the results of these projects and good work already being done. Giving and sharing good examples is the easiest way to make the society more inclusive and considering all the challenges that Europe has been facing recently, this is more than needed nowadays.
By doing this, our wider intention is to improve the quality of youth work, using innovation and creativity, improving communication skills (developing creativity in communication, marketing for NGOs, storytelling, how to use guerrilla marketing in non profits). All these together as a result should multiply the impact of NGOs' activities and work.
Program of this TC has been created by professionals from Agoraveiro and Forum for Freedom in Education from Croatia in order to guarantee a high quality of learning process and stimulate creativity and participation. Methodology used in TC will be diverse but mostly in the framework of non formal learning. Interactive sessions will be organized as workshops, role plays, round tables and some open air activities to complement. We will host and visit experts from areas above to give us new points of view. Besides, participants will be stimulated daily to share their ideas and go one step ahead and take initiatives during the process of learning.
Key words: guerrilla marketing, innovation, communication, PR, media, marketing, community, dissemination, impact, creativity