Brochures and Fact Sheets

Brochures and fact sheets are typically a lay advocacy group's first pieces to reach beyond group membership. They also may be critical to disseminating accurate information about your condition - particularly if your condition is one that has been described on the basis of case studies of affected individuals with extreme symptom levels rather than an understanding about the full range of the condition's expression.

A physician may be able to pass on your brochure to a family with a new diagnosis, or you may send them out on being contacted by a new family. Your organization may use a brochure as part of getting to know someone in the community, such as a print-shop owner or caterer, who can help with in-kind donations to support group activities. Members may use brochures and fact sheets with coworkers and neighbors - especially if you have a fundraising event on the calendar - to help them understand the condition and organization. Brochures and fact sheets form an important basis for any packet of information, whether targeted to families, providers, or media.

These materials should be planned carefully. Their length, the accessibility of their language, and the quantities you order are crucial issues that set apart useful materials from recycling material. An informational brochure introducing a family with a newly diagnosed child to the services available from your group doesn't need to be twenty-five pages long. And for some disorders that affect extremely small numbers of people or have a very broad range of outcomes, the majority of printed materials may end up carrying very little clinical detail.

Informative pieces that create a way to relate to your organization's members and that show how you assist them are an important part of effective interaction with potential donors and with media contacts. Consider several issues when planning your materials:

Audiences: How many audiences do you need to reach? Spend some time creating a typical profile for each type of user. For example, parents, siblings, extended family, health professionals, ancillary providers, donors, journalists, even volunteers and the general public.

Messages: What is the "take-home message" you need to present in each piece? Samples could be "Parents have extra things to keep in mind, but with a little bit of planning and good communication with your children, their schools, and other parents, management will become just another regular part of the day." Or "This condition is getting news coverage, and here are the reasons why it has implications for basic science, for privacy rights, or for accessibility to health insurance."

Scope: Promotional materials about an organization seeking donation should be short, designed for easy reading and a pleasing appearance, and should make the reader want to be involved. Background pieces for the media should suggest story ideas, give contact information, and point to reference resources. Materials for parents should give practical basic information, tips and other directions, and should give pointers for clinical and support contacts. Pieces for these three audiences may have no more than a few dozen words in common and may all range from a single page to a few pages of information. Be sure your focus is tight enough that you are getting the right information to the right audience.

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