Celebrity relationships are tricky things. They require tact, finesse, and a level of understanding of their world. You need to be able to research those who might be relevant for your cause and keep track of their careers as well as keeping in contact in a relevant and planned way.
This is not a job for the faint hearted. As any agent will tell you they receive hundreds of requests every week for some of their clients so making sure your request is relevant is vital. Hiring someone who gets all this and is capable of acting as a productive interface between the celebrity and the charity is essential.
Too often charities don’t get it as I’ve written in various blogposts such as:
- The Myth of the Little Black Book - why thinking that someone needs to have a contacts book if they’re to be of use to a charity
- Celebs, Runs & Treks
- We Love You…. We Love You Not - about building & sustaining relationships
- Tweet Off about using Twitter to gain celebrity support
- The Case of the Missing Credit – understanding just one of the perils of being a celebrity manager
and in a post on the Guardian Voluntary Sector Network Why TV quiz shows don't really care about charities.
So with all these things to think about and the problems of dealing with celebs and their people you’d imagine that’d it would be difficult to find the right person for the post, and to be honest it is. I’m shocked at how little some charities want to pay for this skillset. One charity is currently advertising a role for only £28k.
However today I was blown away to find that Livability thinks this is the job for a Volunteer! Ignoring the fact that you’ll be entrusting personal and sensitive information to this person (in my organisation access to celebrity records is very tightly controlled) this is about building long term relationships. The probability of getting someone who’s willing to do this for several years unpaid has to be incredibly low.
Whilst I understand that for small charities it is incredibly hard to justify a full time salary this is not the way to go. What many do is give one of the media team the extra responsibility for handling celebrities or hire in a consultant either for a day or more a week, or even on a project by project basis. If you need advice on how to get started with celebrities the Media Trust holds regular workshops on working with celebrities.
Whatever you do, in my opinion. putting important high level relationships in the hands of a volunteer is complete madness. But if you think I’m wrong feel free to comment.
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