YWCA Media Backgrounder

Media Contact
(Insert media contact name)
Phone number (insert media contact #)
Email address (insert media contact email)

_________________________________________________________________________________________________
Overview
The Bellingham YWCA was founded in 1907 and works to empower women and girls of all
ages and from all backgrounds, sexualities, races and religions to better their quality of life.
In 1915 the Larrabee family built and donated the current North Forest building for the
YWCA to continue empowering women through recreation, education and health
opportunities. Bellinghams YWCA is a member of the national YWCA organization.
Currently the YWCA is providing help to Whatcom county women through advocacy,
housing, education, safety, education, and racial justice to hundreds of women in Whatcom
County.
Current situation
The YWCA accomplishes helping their clients through a variety of services and programs.
These programs aim to meet the critical needs of their clients with the end goal of self-
sufficiency.
The information is a summary of their current state of outreach:
Programs that are specific to clients include:
Onsite housing for up to 36 women
Case management ensuring that all residents make full use of available community
resources
The onsite Back to Work Boutique offers free, appropriate clothing for interviews
and employment
A financial literacy program helps women achieve financial independence
Promoting and equipping clients with life skills through providing personal growth
classes, support groups, recreational events and social events
A scholarship program for college classes, job training and career alternatives
A Summary of Bellinghams YWCA Merger with Womencare of Whatcom County
Womencare is a 24-hour organization functioning to end domestic violence by
providing community education and emergency confidential shelter. With a 24-
hour hotline for crisis support their support in the community is vital to ending
domestic violence in Whatcom County. Womencare is a 503 C3 nonprofit
organization.
In 2013, the YWCA merged with Womencare of Whatcom County. Since the
acquisition of Womencare, the YWCA has increased their budget from
approximately $400,000 to $1,000,000.
Biographies:
(Insert title executive director, then the persons name, email and phone number. Ideally,
since this executive director is new to the YWCA a short 3-5 sentence paragraph about this
director should be included. Once the director has been established for a year delete the 3-5
sentence summary.)
Housing Director Ann Suloway ann@ywcabellingham.org (insert phone number)
Office & Operations Manager Karen Johnson karen@ywcabellingham.org (insert phone
number)
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The YWCA in Bellingham, Wash. advocates for every woman. Through programs and
partnering with community organizations the YWCA since 1907 has been helping empower
women improve quality of life for all women and girls regardless of all ages, backgrounds,
sexuality or religion. For more information visit www.ywcabellingham.org
Sources:
"Cheri Kilty, YWCA Executive Director | Whatcom Womens Network ~ Bellingham,
Whatcom County." Cheri Kilty, YWCA Executive Director | Whatcom Womens
Network ~ Bellingham, Whatcom County.
http://www.whatcomwomensnetwork.com/cheri-kilty-ywca-executive-director
(accessed May 26, 2014).
"Home Page.". https://www.facebook.com/ywcabellingham (accessed May 26, 2014).
"Home 2." YWCA of Bellingham. http://www.ywcabellingham.org (accessed May 26, 2014).
(NOTE: do not include this information in the released media backgrounder)
How to properly use this media backgrounder template:
We recommend the use of Helvetica Bold and Garamond because they are
complementary fonts. The fonts are more likely please the readers eyes further
drawing the reader in to continue to examine the document. Helvetic Bold is used
for titles and Garamond is used for the body of the document.
We recommend the document detailed with information useful to a third party. Do
not include statistics or details that are not to be reported to the public. When the
media personnel wants more information release this backgrounder and other media
kit documents.
If you are electronically submitting this document hyperlink all information like
contact information and reference websites. We recommend hyperlinking because it
makes sure there is no missed commination for media coverage. If they are
hyperlinked properly they will change color and when you click on the hyperlink the
webpage or email will be pulled up. For example, when hyperlinked a source should
look like this: www.ywcabellingham.org
A media backgrounder is essentially including all the information to let the journalist
become a quick expert on the YWCA. Therefore, include enough information to
allow media personnel to successfully report about the YWCA.
All journalists for any major media coverage use AP Style. Therefore in order to
appeal to a journalist we recommend the use of AP Style citation. For more
information visit: https://www.apstylebook.com
Update when major or significant changes in the organization occur. Essentially this
a vague statement because this document allows for change and an explanation for
the community of what is happening in the organization. For example a major
change that we came across during creating this document was changing the
executive director position to be blank until Cheri Kiltys replacement is found.
Description of Sections:
1. An overview is a short description of what the YWCA does and a short description
of relevant history. In the current overview we focus on the Bellingham location
specifically because this is who the target audience will have a connection with
rather than the national organization or other locations.
2. Current Situation is what the YWCA is doing as of the second this document is
released. Including limited and undetailed financial information, the YWCA merger
with Womencare and the information about what services the Bellingham YWCA
offers to the community.
3. Biographies are to inform the media who they can contact and who is in charge. It is
best to include at least three creditable sources that will quickly, accurately and
appropriately respond to the media.
4. The boilerplate included in the document that is more specific and useful for the
Bellingham YWCA. While the national organization boilerplate was well done, it
was insufficient for the Bellinghams organization. We recommend for consistency
between documents using this boilerplate on all documents.
5. In Chicago format include citation of the sources that you used to create this
document. In this case we included all three sources in proper format. If the citation
is more than one line of text indent the line a half of an inch. For example:
"Cheri Kilty, YWCA Executive Director | Whatcom Womens Network ~ Bellingham,
Whatcom County." Cheri Kilty, YWCA Executive Director | Whatcom Womens
Network ~ Bellingham, Whatcom County.
http://www.whatcomwomensnetwork.com/cheri-kilty-ywca-executive-director
(accessed May 26, 2014).