Tim Chrisman is the founder of Foundation for the Future (F4F), a non-profit with the mission of educating and advocating for federally-chartered space infrastructure development and enabling space access for everyone. Through working with the Otter PR team, F4F has been able to receive repeated exposure and success in media at a national level.
The Problem
Non-profits often come to us with the goal of raising awareness of a particular cause and fundraising for that cause through increasing their exposure in media. After all, a non-profit’s media coverage can generate significantly more trust and emotional investment by potential donors.
Tim came to us with a two-pronged mission: first, the aim of using the media to spread awareness about what he and his team at F4F were doing with regard to space infrastructure; and second, to generate new partnerships and donors for F4F. The challenge, however, was that his work — and the overall work of F4F — is a bit complex for everyday media. As such, we had the challenge of communicating F4F to the mainstream media in a manner that would generate widespread interest.
The Strategy
With more and more conversations happening in the media about companies like SpaceX, Blue Origin, and Virgin Galactic, Tim was a subject matter expert that the media needed. We quickly positioned him as a thought leader in the space sector and pitched him as a source for journalists and reporters to comment on space-related stories, with emphasis on the angle of private-public partnerships to advance sustainable technologies and exploration in space.
Otter PR also pitched F4F’s mission as a standalone story. With all of the other conversations happening around space, Tim and F4F made for an excellent angle in media. Within weeks, our strategy had gained national traction. Tim and his foundation were a huge hit.
The Results
In Tim’s first three months with Otter PR, our team was able to secure several interviews for Tim with key members of the media, and get his story and F4F’s mission published in multiple top-tier publications including Yahoo!, Politico, and The Hill. Over his following months with Otter PR, our team was also able to help Tim co-publish a white paper on the importance of investing in sustainable space infrastructure which was picked up and distributed by the Institute of Space Commerce, which has since been archived within the Institute’s online catalog.
