Department - Author 1
Journalism Department
Degree Name - Author 1
BS in Journalism
Date
12-2011
Primary Advisor
Dan Eller
Abstract/Summary
Nonprofit organizations and movements geared toward suicide prevention, a somewhat taboo subject in American culture, are oftentimes confronted with the dilemma of lacking adequate funding to meet their goals. This essay focuses on the expansion of one such movement, the Love Out Loud Campaign, which took shape at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo in 2011, in hopes of encouraging open communication and positivity to dissuade those at risk for suicide from taking their own lives. The campaign began as the senior project of a group of students who graduated in June of 2011. Unfortunately, the movement lost steam after the awareness event took place in February. This paper discusses the opportunity for Love Out Loud—and any nonprofit in a similar situation—to turn to the Internet to achieve its goals. It also evaluates the ways in which common public relations practices can be utilized by nonprofits to reach their target audiences on the web, thereby having a farther-reaching impact than a localized event is capable of.
URL: https://digitalcommons.calpoly.edu/joursp/34