Pro Bono Communication 25 June and 2 July 2021

During Pro Bono Communication of Samen voor Eindhoven, professionals put their skills to use for a (communication) issue of a foundation or social organisation. This year, these are:
👉🏽 Combination Youth Care
👉🏽 Humanitas
👉🏽 IVN, Institute for Nature Education #Geldrop
👉🏽 KansPlus #Carrousel

🧡 These local partnerships contribute to a better world and the sdgs2030 (the 17 Sustainable Development Goals).

Pro Bono (or pro bono publico in full) is an expression from Latin that means for the public good in Dutch. Work by professionals that is done voluntarily and unpaid for the benefit of society.

For marcom professionals:

Ever thought that with your marketing & communication knowledge and skills you could make a lasting impact on a non-profit organisation in the Brainport region? And that you can boost not only the social foundation but also your own job satisfaction and perhaps that of your company/department?

During Pro Bono, you combine inspired work with giving something back to society. Together with a couple of teams of marcom professionals, you will spend two half-days working out social communication issues for foundations in Eindhoven. After these two days, the social organisation can actually get to work with the plans, ideas, and so on.

Pro bono is an important tool for social innovation because it provides social organisations and foundations with essential skills they often lack. In short: the best communication event of the year, full of learning moments, sense-making and collaborations.

For civil society organisations:

What an opportunity for your non-profit organisation: you work together with a team of driven marketing and communication professionals. They are happy to put their knowledge (and heart) into action for the benefit of society and your foundation or social organisation. The experience after a number of editions of Pro Bono shows that you really get something out of it in practice. Previous editions, for example, have treated the Voedselbank to a creative recruitment campaign, the Huiskamer voor vluchtelingen to a completely new look and feel for their website and Speelpark de Splinter to an elaborate anti-smoking campaign. Do you want knowledge, ideas and help with your branding, strategy, positioning or website? Join this unique event. This year online in two parts: Friday 25 June (9.00-13.00) and Friday 2 July (9.00-13.00).

Sign up:

Apply to Sandra for Pro Bono Communication 2022 .

Sandra van der Heiden

THIS IS LIGHT
Pro Bono Communicatie Lab is organised annually together with LICHT (= the link between independent marketing and communication professionals), the municipality of Eindhoven and High Tech Campus Eindhoven.

Experiences participants

As far as I am concerned, Pro Bono is a great example of skill-based volunteering. In other words; you volunteer your hours to help a social organization advance in your area of expertise, i.e. where you can make the most impact. And how big that impact is, you only find out once you have experienced it. I was already a volunteer leader involved in a pro bono project for Meedoen in de Wijken, a language coaching initiative of Vereniging Humanitas. Meedoen in de Wijken has a long waiting list of participants who would like to learn the Dutch language. However, this requires funding. The initiative has always been financially supported by the municipality of Eindhoven, but in the future it will become increasingly important to also attract companies as partners. That's where but marketing and communication come into play. Because how do you tell the story of Meedoen in de Wijken, and why it is so important for participants? In a team of 10 marketing and communications professionals, we cut our teeth on this assignment over two half-days. One group worked on a presentation that Humanitas can use to win over potential investors, another group worked on the website and yet another team developed a storytelling format to beautifully visualize the stories of participants. Only when you are involved in such a project do you actually see how much impact you can make for a social organization, by using your expertise in your own field. Many recommendations that may be almost obvious to you as a professional are very valuable to a social organization. Plus; working in a team with professional sisters and brothers in a pressure cooker to deliver something beautiful within two mornings is also incredibly cool to do!

Freek JanssenContent Strategist Philips Benelux

I participated in Pro Bono Communication as a Volunteer Leader for several reasons. First of all, it is fantastic to be able to tackle an issue together with other marcom professionals and to work it out in a short space of time. Secondly, I think it's great to be able to put your expertise to work for someone else. And last but not least, the most important reason is to help a foundation with something they do not know how to do or have a budget for and to know that the ultimate goal is to help someone in Eindhoven. Especially in these times it is important that we help each other. We should all do that a bit more.

Michal Reutelingspergerindependent marketing and communication specialist

IVN Geldrop had the opportunity to participate in the Pro Bono project. The organization of this project was, in a word, fantastic. Even though it was all online, it ran almost perfectly. Chapeau! It was impressive to see how many communication specialists were available to provide the participating associations/foundations with concrete communication advice in such a short time. Just a pity that there was no possibility to meet afterwards and chat a bit, but on the other hand this was the most feasible thing in this corona time. The recommendations we received from the team are not only comprehensive and concrete, but they also hold up a mirror to us: who are our target groups, how do we communicate now and how can we communicate more effectively? We are about to organize the IVN Geldrop communications team differently. The recommendations give us new energy and inspiration to make significant improvements. Some of the recommendations will also be used in the IVN South-East Brabant regional consultative body. This consultative body has recently taken up the plan to breathe new life into the regional PR activities. On behalf of the board of IVN Geldrop thanks for the organization, the provision of all those communication specialists and all the recommendations.

José RögelsIVN Geldrop

"Pro Bono Communication is highly recommended, because you fall in love with the communication profession again! Because you work for a different organisation than in your daily life, you look more from a helicopter view. You become aware again of the impact communication has, and what driven and skilled people work in our profession."

Jenny DriessenASML

After weeks of preparation with Samen voor Eindhoven, the time has come: a team of more than 10 communication professionals are jointly working on the communication issue of PsySalon Oirschot. We, the organisers of the Psysalon, have high expectations. The volunteerleaders (teamleaders) and Samen voor Eindhoven were involved in the concretisation of the communication issue. So many different communication professionals from different disciplines who immediately set to work as a team under the leadership of the team leaders is a special experience. The result had to be a good answer to our communication question... And it was. I was impressed, I am quiet about what the professionals produced for PsySalon in one day.

Daan van der Vleuten PsySalon (participant Pro Bono Communication Day 2020)

GLOBAL INTERVIEW ON PRO BONO WITH ESTHER HOFSTEDE

Together for Eindhoven is connected to Pro Bono Lab. In 2020, Pro Bono Lab launched the study "international panorama of pro bono" with the aim of analysing the diversity of pro bono cases around the world. You can read the interview with Esther Hofstede from Samen voor Eindhoven here.