Happy birthday to us. This month, The Phil turns five years old. Cue the music. Light the candles.
We’d like to think that five years is a milestone that denotes some evidence of abiding resonance. After all, American history and culture count a great many things that did not last as long: the Confederacy, half of U.S. presidents’ terms, Breaking Bad and two of Kim Kardashian’s three marriages. The Phil has outlasted them all.
Perhaps there’s a reason for that. First and foremost, this publication focusing on the nonprofit community across Virginia has provided a forum to tell some heroic stories, stories of nonprofit organizations and the inspiring people who lead them.
We are shining a deserving spotlight on their important work and sharing the ways in which they are lifting up communities and serving a range of people in need — teaching English to newly arrived refugees, creating greater access to healthcare through telehealth, helping protect Virginia’s natural resources, opening doors to music and dance, instilling dignity to the elderly and disabled populations, and so much more.
When we devised the idea for The Phil those years ago, we recognized that telling nonprofits’ stories through the media was becoming increasingly challenging. That was certainly the case with our own nonprofit clients. A shrinking media landscape left us with fewer outlets to pitch deserving stories. Nonprofits who came to us looking to raise their visibility would invariably tell us, “We’re the best-kept secret around,” and often, they were right.
And so, at least in part, The Phil was born out of necessity, frustration even. If we couldn’t rely on traditional media to give voice to these organizations, then we’d provide the means to do it ourselves.
Over the past 60 months or so, we’ve set about spilling the beans on many of those best-kept secrets. Since our first installment, we’ve featured around 250 different nonprofit organizations, having written nearly 400 articles about them. There have been lengthy feature stories, Q&A interviews with the organizations’ leaders, thematic roundup stories on nonprofits with similar missions and profiles on heroes in the trenches. Our metrics tell us that these stories have received more than 100,000 views during The Phil’s lifetime.
Behind the creation of these stories have been some talented people… Hodges interns who research the stories, conduct interviews and bring them to life. Teams of two to three interns per semester (fall, winter, summer) serve as our editorial team, with oversight from some of our senior folks (shout out to Amanda Christian, Casey Prentice and Sean Ryan). Their level of professionalism and writing talents have helped keep The Phil informative and engaging, and we especially love to get pitches from other PR practitioners throughout the commonwealth.
Finally, if you’ll allow me this note of sentimentality on the occasion of this anniversary. This piece also marks the closing of my own career as a contributing writer/editor for The Phil, given my retirement in the coming weeks.
This publication has been a great source of joy for me both personally and professionally, and my great hope is that it will continue to live on for another five years and beyond. The work among Virginia’s nonprofits is important and impactful, and by telling their stories, we hope to engender greater awareness and support for them among our readers.
Thanks for giving us that chance.
