Examples 

Priority Communication’s Pro Bono Programme has supported several organisations doing important work across the motu.

Below is an overview of the pro bono work we have done for Birthright Canterbury, Allergy New Zealand and the Christchurch Holi Festival.

Birthright Canterbury 

Birthright Canterbury works with single parents and other caregivers in Christchurch, Ashburton, and surrounding districts. It aims to assist the parent and their child/children to gain confidence, develop life skills and achieve financial and personal independence.

Priority Communications has been working with Birthright Canterbury since 2017 and has developed a close relationship with the organisation. Priority Communications has assisted this important charity with our full range of services, including strategic communications, marketing collateral, graphic design, media releases/media liaison and social media.

Allergy New Zealand 

Priority Communications is proud to provide pro bono support to the country’s leading allergy information, education and support charity – Allergy New Zealand.

One of our most significant pieces of work for Allergy NZ has been launching FundaPen - a highly strategic campaign to encourage the government and Pharmac to fund EpiPens® for all New Zealanders at risk of anaphylaxis, the most severe form of allergic reaction.

Adrenaline (epinephrine), which is best delivered through an EpiPen®, is the only medicine known to reverse the effects of a reaction and potentially save a person’s life. 

For more than 20 years, Allergy NZ had been trying to get EpiPens® funded for the thousands of New Zealanders who suffer from anaphylaxis. This included eight submissions to Pharmac. With no progress being made, it was time for a new approach.

Thanks to a donation from Pub Charity in 2019, Allergy NZ and Priority Communications set to work developing and launching the campaign FundaPen, which resulted in nearly 3,000 children from Māori, Pasifika and low-income families receiving a free EpiPen®. It was followed up in February 2022 with FundaPen2, which delivered more than 3,300 EpiPens®. At the same time as providing much needed free adrenaline auto-injectors to people with severe allergies, the campaigns highlighted the fact that EpiPens® were not normally free to people who required them and this had to change.

Priority Communications provided strategic communications support, stakeholder engagement, government relations, media relations, and social media services. Both campaigns received an overwhelming response from the allergy community and were well supported by media. 

As a direct result of the campaign, Pharmac announced in September 2022 that it would consult on funding adrenaline auto-injectors for those who needed them. By December, Pharmac announced that from 1 February 2023 it would be fully funding two EpiPens® for every person at risk of anaphylaxis. Submissions during the consultation were 100 per cent positive.

Living with severe allergies is a topic close to our hearts in the Priority Comms’ team and we were delighted to deliver such an excellent result for the allergy community. 

Allergy NZ CEO Mark Dixon said: “We had a single goal - to achieve government funding of two EpiPens® per year per doctor-diagnosed New Zealander at risk of anaphylaxis. We needed to engage multiple audiences with a complex concept and compel them to act in a way that would positively impact the people we represented - the allergy community. Allergy NZ believes that the combination and ultimate impact of the many moving parts over a sustained campaign period were bought to life for their audiences by an especially skilled and caring group of PR specialists in Christchurch – Priority Communications. Every member of the team was knowledgeable and genuinely invested in the decision to support us.”

Christchurch’s Holi Festival of Colours

Priority Communications sponsored the city’s very first annual Holi celebration at the Pallett Pavilion to help get the festival on its feet. Working with Hitesh Sharma and Sandeep Khanna from Revel Events, we spread the word about Holi and piqued media interest. On the day, we had a blast welcoming 1500 people to the event.

We continued to sponsor Holi for four years, with more than 10,000 people attending by 2017.