July 2011 - Parks & Recreation - 54

W hen the Star s a l i g n

Bransten says that the relationship with Meulens came
about because the director of San Francisco's parks and recreation department, Phil Ginsburg, met him at another event
at Golden Gate Park. Ginsburg is a huge baseball fan and approached Meulens on the spot about working with the department. Bransten worked with the Giants to iron out logistics and
made it happen.
" I think the best thing you can do is to play to [a celebrity's]
strengths, " says Bransten. " Try and make an event work with
what they are good at and how they like to engage. They are celebrities because they are really good at something-capture
that and bring it to your kids or citizens to provide new opportunities and highlight what you offer. "

Aligning the stars
Sometimes a celebrity who wants to help promote parks and
recreation can't find time to make an appearance at your park
or programs. You may have to get creative to engage them with
your community.

San Froncisco Giants
hitting instructor
Hensley Meulens lets
a camper try on his
World Series ring.

When Bransten's San Francisco Department of Recreation
and Parks wanted to somehow use celebrity chef Tyler Florence to help promote their programs, they had to find the best
way to use his talents in the kitchen. Even though he was local
and wanted to help, they decided the best use of his culinary
talents would be to auction off a private dinner cooked by Florence at their annual Party for the Parks Gala.
Bransten explains that not only did his dinner raise a lot of
money, but " all the people who attended Tyler's dinner were
won over by what we do because of his passion. Although they
weren't in a park or directly involved in recreation programming, Florence's love of the community was evident to those
who attended.
In Chandler, Arizona, O'Mahony decided not to use trainers
of the professional Arizona teams in a programmatic setting,
but instead asked them to contribute personal guest blogs to
a website about fitness created by the mayor's office. " We still
leveraged their expertise and used their pro affiliation and highprofile fitness knowledge to enhance the mayor's website, " explains O'Mahony.
He thinks that it only took the trainers a couple hours to write
up the blogs, which was attractive because they could do in their
spare time. " They have families too, so they can do this on a day
off and still feel good about sharing and giving back to the community, " O'Mahony says.

Make your plan shine
Once you find your star, sometimes the trickiest part is
getting that celebrity on board. According to Bransten
in San Francisco, the majority of the celebrity relationships she's formed have been through personal connections. But maintaining those relationships takes time
and each one will be different.
Calarco suggests working with your own park and
recreation supporters and asking them if they know of
anyone with name recognition who could help promote
programs or park sites.
" It isn't always easy to reach out, and you don't always get success, " he says. " But just look for connections and go for it. "
O'Mahony from Arizona agrees. Prior to joining the
parks and recreation department, he worked in public
relations for professional sports teams like the Seattle
Supersonics and Chicago Bulls-having seen the other side, O'Mahony says reaching out also means doing your homework (see sidebar on Making the Pitch).
" Do some research and find a tie-in, " he suggests.
" Look for organizations that a particular celebrity might
be involved in and find the connection to parks and recreation. " O'Mahony says he regularly consults media
guides for player and team bios to look for an angle
where he can appeal to them on a personal level.
At the end of the day, it is no easy task. Mukri manages a staff of 40 devoted to looking for partnerships

52 Parks & Recreation

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