The purpose of this publicity guide is to help U3As promote themselves and in turn raise the organisation’s profile in the local area and attract new members.
A range of ideas and strategies that are low cost and effective are presented but are by no means exhaustive. Whether your U3A is large or small, brand new or has been established for a long time, there should be a promotional strategy in this guide that will assist your organisation in reaching its goals.
Please download the Publicity Guide here
No U3A can exist without members so, the first step is to engage your community. Surprisingly, there will be people out there who’ve never heard of U3A so you need to inform them of what you have to offer, the social benefits of being a member and most importantly, a schedule of classes including all the detail of the tutor, their experience in the subject, the day and time the class will operate and of course, the cost of membership and the class fee if applicable.
To make this happen, it is advisable to have a dedicated person to run your publicity, public relations and advertising and this person should ideally be a member of the Management Committee.
Publicity can take many forms and can vary from area to area, so a little experimentation may be in order to see what actually works. Be flexible and try as many of the ideas covered in this booklet as possible to see what works best for your U3A. Of course, your U3A may have promotional ideas not mentioned in this booklet so, please advise of your successes and so we can share these with others.
Members are the lifeblood of any U3A which means publicity in some form will be necessary to inform prospective members of your organisation so please give this area of your operation the importance it deserves.