PUBLIC RELATIONS
STRATEGIC THINKING IS THE CORE OF POWERFUL PR
At Orion there are no cookie-cutter, prefab solutions. There are only unique clients, well-defined goals, and customized public relations programs.
Powerful public relations demands superlative communication skills, strategic thinking, and a passion for shaping information to support our clients' business plans and objectives. Clients can always rely on an inclusive creative process, a bold point-of-view, and an unyielding commitment to results.
We believe our uniquely tailored method succeeds because the press and public alike are attracted to what is different, not what is similar and mundane. This is the very essence of human nature. By following this philosophy, by creating programs and strategies for a client to stand out from the crowd, our campaigns consistently achieve success.
Orion seeks clients with a sense individuality, willing to command a category or establish a new one. Our goal is true partnership. We expect from our clients what they expect from us: dedication, imagination, teamwork, sound business practices and a passion for success.
CORPORATE POSITIONING
Our #1 directive to clients is: "Know thyself." Our President and chief PR executive Karyne Henry, has the unique talent and expertise that not only helps clients determine who they are and what they stand for, but infuses them with the ability to truly own their business vision. We believe communication must always support creative, assertive and positive positioning.
SPECIAL EVENTS AND PROMOS
Brand identity, image and awareness are extended and leveraged through strategically implemented, precisely targeted promotions and events. No matter what type of promotion or event we execute, we ensure relevance, integrity, and an abiding knowledge of the audience.
WRITING
Sharp, polished written communication is the essence of effective public relations. Orion's in-house Writing Services department help craft messages that cut through the noise of the marketplace and deliver key messages accurately. Specific deliverables might include:
Press releases
Ghost-written articles and position papers
Media kits and fact sheets
Important letters, e-mails, and memorandums
THOUGHT LEADERSHIP
Orion ensures that your company and executives consistently deliver a compelling and visionary story. Services designed to increase your eloquence, relevance, and visibility, result in your marketplace perception of leadership. Specific deliverables include:
Crisis communication language
Media communication training
Mission, vision and purpose packaging
Coaching for Speaking engagements and presentations
Campaigns can be designed to drive traffic, move product, collect information, generate publicity, and more. Regardless of the goal, the bridge from the consumer to the brand must be clear, credible and well defined.
Our public relations process mirrors a common practice based on four key elements that comprise the RACE acronym:
Research (determining the problem or situation)
Action (implementing a program in response to the situation)
Communication (executing the message to pre-determined key publics)
Evaluation (determining the reach and effect of the message)
The basic components of ORION public relations include counseling, consulting, research, media relations, publicity, employee/member relations, community relations, public affairs, government affairs, issues management, special events, and marketing communications.
ORION COMMUNITY OUTREACH ALLIANCE
Orion Community Outreach was created due to experiencing and understanding the cultural and societal barriers imposed by the lack of education and high unemployment contributing to the poor health and economic status of many Americans. We believe that these barriers greatly contribute to the disparities that exist within our communities.
Orion's program and project development and facilitation strategies are based on our time proven philosophy of producing practical solutions while providing viable alternatives. Our ultimate goal is to provide comprehensive, culturally sensitive and socially relevant health education, intervention, and all inclusive outreach models using diverse approaches with pre-defined positive outcomes.
MISSION:
Orion believes that through its support underserved communities can begin derive benefit from the same basic freedom and economic stability that comes with being competently educated. We believe, that with our intensive outreach & education strategies, we can and will make a difference.
OBJECTIVES:
Orion Community Outreach has the primary focus of providing:
Community-based education, mentoring and outreach, emphasizing behavioral changes.
Culturally sensitive and socially appropriate educational prevention /intervention models
Faith-based, results oriented educational programs
Intensive grassroot outreach using diverse and strategic approaches to reach at-risk groups
High quality job training and employment development services
Mentoring programs for the at-risk inner city youths
Orion has strategically structured its community/faith-based organization to encompass the following initiatives:
Community outreach, education & training
Health education, promotion and prevention
Medicaid enrollment & education
Health services event planning
Mentoring programs
Coordination of health services
Cultural competency education
Welfare to Work/ job skills training
Community based outreach programs
Clothing & Food Drives
Toy Drives (for Christmas) all in partnership with community partners like:
Orion will utilize its unique strategies and ability to tap into the underserved communities through its:
Community focus
Contemporary intensive grassroot approach to outreach
Innovative & creative new ways of delivering target messages
Community outreach advocate base
Orion has partnered with various government, non-profit and community-based agencies throughout our communities such as Goodwill Industries, Suited to Succeed and the Office of Employment Development to provide services and referrals throughout Maryland.
The State of Maryland's HealthChoice and Children's Health Insurance Programs.
For eight years Orion Community Outreach facilitates service for the State of Maryland's HealthChoice and (MCHIP) Children's Health Insurance Programs.
The members of Orion Community Outreach are also members of the Department of Mental Health and Hygiene's "Closing the Gaps" Committee and the Baltimore City Tobacco Community Health Coalition.
COMMUNITY BASED INITIATIVES:
Most community-based organizations are wonderful resources, offering an abundance of services which include healthcare, case management, substance abuse prevention and treatment, social and support services, family support services, child care and nurturing, religious support and community advocacy. These organizations have tremendous amounts of untapped assets that are potentially valuable to the communities they serve. Yet many lack appropriate organizational capacity, operate at below potential capacity, and are thus hindered from sustaining their mission and optimally serving their communities.
ORION is uniquely suited to assist community-based organizations develop, monitor, and evaluate their services. We can further assess their administrative, management, financial accountability and their programming capacities. Our special program of services will provide community-based organizations with the ability to ultimately meet the needs of the community, sustain themselves, and perform to the satisfaction of their sponsors.
FOCUS GROUP AQUISITION & FACILITATION
There are a multitude of occurrences that have a profound effect on the general conditions, mood, and climate of groups. Orion's attention to them will reap great rewards in the quality of responses elicited and quality data presented.
Orion Enterprises offers solutions for all your market research needs. Our team brings to your project the benefit of more than 20 years of market research experience in a wide variety of industries, including consumer products, healthcare, politics, advertising, pharmaceuticals, e-commerce, telecommunications, and more.
MARKET RESEARCH & ANALYSIS
Orion is known for its technical skill and state-of-the-art methodologies when it comes to research, polling and surveying. The Director of this division has advanced academic training in quantitative and qualitative research. The team often employs multivariate statistical techniques and statistical modeling and our approach integrates a thorough grounding in social science research. We bring the same research-based, strategic planning focus to each project.
We don't simply conduct a survey or focus group, write a report and walk away. We consult closely with our clients to insure that our research and results provide concise and informative data for the targeted project or initiative. Reliable research always has and always will triumph over assumption!
Through surveys and focus groups, we measure:
•Public opinion
•Customer satisfaction
•Messaging
•Patient satisfaction
•Company Image
•Market potential
•Employee satisfaction
•Donor motivations
•Organizational effectiveness
The following time tested techniques are used:
Telephone Surveys
Our partnering state-of-the-art phone centers offer the following:
•Computer-assisted-telephone-interviewing capability (CATI), allowing instant, accurate data collection.
•Interviewers with the most courteous manner and clearest dialect in North America.
•Excellent quality control, including a low supervisor-to-interviewer ratio and callback verification
to validate the interviews.
•Remote monitoring capability, so clients can listen in live.
Focus Groups
Seasoned focus group moderators and relationships with professional focus group facilities coast-to-coast are a key to our success. In more rural areas, we host groups in hotel meeting rooms, restaurants, or conference rooms. Our moderators conduct comprehensive focus groups on a wide range of subjects.
Web Surveys
Our programmers set up your survey questionnaire, and we host it for you on our secure server. The survey can be branded with your own identity mark and linked directly to your site. And we can blast an emailed invitation to your list, with an embedded link to the survey. With our web-based technology, you will receive instant data collection, and respondents can react to visual images or audio clips.
Printed Questionnaires
We provide complete services for printed surveys, from writing the questions to laying out and printing the questionnaire, mailing the survey package, and collecting and tabulating the results.
IVR Response
We can provide a dedicated 800-number and professionally narrate the survey, allowing respondents to complete the survey by telephone following voice prompts.
Our custom reporting tool integrates seamlessly with the Microsoft Office suite, so you can copy our charts into Word, PowerPoint, or Excel and use them for your own internal presentations.
We will always provide a summary highlighting the most important findings and the key action steps that arise from the research. You won’t be left guessing what the numbers mean.
We believe that sound research is a critical investment for organizations at all levels, and we are dedicated to making the process cost effective. Let us bring the power of effective communication and opinion research to you.
MEDIATION SERVICES
ORGANIZATIONAL CONFLICT RESOLUTION
Skills for the Prevention and Resolution of Workplace Conflicts
SEMINARS IN THE CORE COMPETENCY OF MANAGERIAL MEDIATION
Current corporate trends dictate a more cohesive work environment where employees and managers must work as a team or fail to accomplish targeted goals. Smaller company structures, multitasking, downsizing, and interagency teaming are intensifying interdependency among all employees. These changes now mandate that managers not only negotiate with their staff, but help them negotiate with each other. Unfortunately, many management programs fail to demonstrate how to mediate between employees.
A core element in Orion's Mediation Programs puts the tools of a professional mediator into the hands of managers to assist them in building better workplace relationships, improving productivity, enhancing performance, and cutting the unnecessary financial costs of workplace conflict.
HOW MUCH IS CONFLICT COSTING YOUR COMPANY RIGHT NOW?
The cost of Conflict takes a toll on small and large compa-nies alike. These costs may seem insignificant, however they are hidden in the form of wasted time that affects your salary budget. It also shows up as a cost of employee turnover; for example, employment ads, temp agencies, training for new employees and even in unemployment in-surance costs. It is even hidden in the consequences of poor decision-making processes affected by conflict ridden power contests. It is hidden in many other factors that can drastically affect the effectiveness of your company.
The Mediation Seminars aren't just for managers. They are designed for supervisors, team leaders, members of self-managing teams, and human resource staff -- in short, for any employee who is responsible for the cooperative work of others. It is also excellent preparation for future leaders.
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Seminar topics include:
Managing Workplace Conflict
·Managing Conflict on Teams
·Helping Employees Work Together
·Helping Managers Manage Their Staff
·Leadership Tools for Managers and Supervisors
·Managing the Human Consequences of Downsizing
·New Employee Orientation: The Way We Manage Ourselves
BENEFITS
·Take control of conflicts, rather than be controlled by them
·Negotiate solutions to conflicts, rather than fighting
·Mediate conflicts between staff who are locked in personality clashes and petty bickering
·Reduce job stress and tension that may be affecting health
·Handle "difficult people" (and avoid being seen as a "difficult person" by others)
·Save thousands of "invisible dollars" being lost by impaired production and missed opportunities
·Change organizational culture to make healthy communication the norm, rather than common-place
dysfunctional behavior
Orion's Mediation Specialists have developed one and two-day conflict management and mediation training programs that can realistically save supervisors and managers 25 percent of their wasted workday (the time spent dealing with unnecessary conflict). Sixty percent of employees' unsatisfactory performance can be attributed to workplace conflicts. Most of these differences can be easily resolved using our simple mediation techniques.
CAPACITY-BUILDING
ORGANIZATIONAL DEVELOPMENT SERIES
Contextual assessments of organizations are provided to determine their internal capacities, assets and external resources by;
z Developing an organizations strategic and operational plans;
Vision; Mission; Goals; Objectives; Activities and Action Steps
z Assessing the organization's programs for effectiveness;
z Assisting each organization in program implementation and self-evaluation;
z Evaluating the impact of the capacity-building effort.
z Determining the internal capacities of each organization
z Assessing human resourses / staffing capacity (stake holders and volunteers)
z Organizing Infrastructure and technical capacity
z Evaluating funding and other resources
z Determining the physical & external resources and facilities of each organization
z Determining current service demands and gaps
z Identifying services / programs needed to meet demand and fill gaps
z Identifying best practices for adoption by the organization
z Mobilizing resources involved in the programmatic scheduling, marketing/recruiting, staff and space requirements.
z Developing detailed action steps for each program to assure appropriate staffing, consistent procedures, and o organizational / community support for the programs.
WORKSHOPS provided by Orion:
Workshop on grant writing
Workshop on organizational leadership
Workshop on cultural issues in service delivery
Workshop on group / team maintenance skills
Workshop on fiscal management
Workshop on building and sustaining programs
Workshop on program evaluation
ORION is a unique organization established to provide innovative solutions to the capacity and technical assistance problems facing many corporations, institutions, small businesses and minority-owned community-based organizations. ORION is composed of a group of individuals with diverse public and private-sector organizational management experience, including the public health sector. In addition, its members are dedicated to actively serving and supporting the more historically overlooked segments of the population, namely minority women and youth.
ORION is uniquely suited to assist organizations develop, monitor, and evaluate their services. We can further assess their administrative, management, financial accountability and their programming capacities. Our special program of services will provide organizations with the ability to ultimately meet the needs of the community, sustain themselves, and perform to the satisfaction of their sponsors, customers and clients.
MEDIA RELATIONS & TRAINING
If you want realistic, no-nonsense training to prepare you for dealing with the news media, radio and television interviews, then we have a workshop designed especially for you.
You won't find a lot of lecturing in our workshops, just a lot of simple, solid advice, combined with on-camera interviews, critiques and personalized coaching. Our goal is to prepare students to deal with real reporters in a real world. Simply put: we build self confidence.
Each workshop is interactive. People learn best by doing and in our workshops, people learn the real meaning of participation. They go through interviews, scenarios and mock disasters so authentic, they often momentarily forget it's only a workshop. It's an experience!
At Orion Enterprises & Consulting Services we'll show you how to develop your message, package it so the media can use it and deliver it with conviction. And whether you're preparing for your first interview ever, or just refreshing your skills, we have training programs geared for your particular needs.
Dealing with the News Media: This is our most popular course. It is continually updated and always customized for each client. It includes up to three, on-camera interviews and critiques. The all-day session is generally designed for ten to twelve students to provide hands-on effective sessions.
Refresher Media Training: This is an aggressive half-day course designed for individuals who need to refresh their news media interview skills. Emphasis is on performance. It includes on-camera interviews and critiques. This is a great confidence builder.
Advanced Media Training/Crisis Management: We suggest you reserve one day for this workshop which is normally driven by a single crisis scenario that unfolds in real time. It includes a review of basic media training before moving forward with the tabletop mock disaster. It includes on-camera interviews, news conferences, public meetings, and simulated interaction with various officials. Each workshop is customized and size will vary, depending on the client's needs. This is a great way to build up your crisis response capabilities.
No two clients' needs are exactly alike, so each workshop can be designed to meet the goals of the organization and individual students. This includes emphasis on crisis - or non-crisis - interviews and the type of news media involved. Workshops can be conducted on-site, at a nearby hotel or conference facility, or at the offices of Orion Enterprises & Consulting Services.
Our fees include the instructors/reporters, photographer, television camera, lighting equipment, student workbooks, audio-visual materials, research, preparation and travel time. Travel expenses are billed to clients at our cost.
