As Joe says below, reputation is key, and that applies to both the press and public's view of us.

Clearly the web is an important part of building and maintaining that reputation these days and I hope I am preaching to the converted when I say that having a website is crucial. Not having one is like not having a phone number or not being listed in the charity commission as a registered charity.

But of course people need to be able to find it. It is critical that your web address (URL) is recognisably yours, whether you are known as your long name, initials or an acronym people must be able to find you by what they think you are called.

Finding you in a search engine is also key, and it is not difficult to make sure your site has the right description, title and keywords to get your site listed by how the public might search for you. Meta Tags may sound techie but they aren't, and if you haven't got them the best site in the world will not get listed.

But once people have found your site it is critical that they aren't immediately put off by out of date copy and old news. If you don't have the resources to update your site on a regular basis don't put time sensitive information on the homepage.

If nothing else gets done make sure you remove out of date events; there is nothing worse than visiting a site and seeing an event listed that ended months ago... it looks like a vacant shop, unused and unloved, and will cause huge damage to your reputation.

If you don't have lots of press releases and don't generate much news, don't put it on the homepage. We think it's a great idea to have, but if it isn't regularly refreshed it doesn't help make you look like the vibrant organisation you want to be seen as.

"Cut your cloth to fit your budget" was a phrase I grew up with, and in the case of the web it is better to build a site you have the time and resources to maintain than to spend budget on a flashy site which quickly looks out of date.

Sue Fidler, Director of Sue Fidler Ltd, providing e-consultancy for Charities.

I have spent a lot of my working life telling people how important an organisation's brand is. However in recent years I have become a reformed character. Farewell to branding and all hail to the importance of reputation. I have left branding behind for no other reason than that it is a term that sticks in the gullet of too many charity folk.

Tell somebody that they have a great brand and they think that they are being compared to a commercial brand - like a can of Coke or a type of mobile phone. Tell somebody that they have a great reputation and they cannot dispute that this is a good thing. The importance of a good reputation is something that everybody can see matters.

Reputation is like a kind of organisational physical fitness. A good reputation makes people read your press releases, take your phone calls, read your mailings, use your services or approve your funding bids. In other words, reputation lets you do the same things you have already done but faster, quicker, better and more effectively.

In communications, reputation matters more than in most areas of a charity's life. When people are surfing the net the right reputation will make them visit your site. When people are looking at a policy report the right reputation will make people take your work seriously. In the media the right reputation will make a journalist read your press release or ring you with a query.

So every organisation should know who is responsible for building its reputation and external profile, who else has contributory roles in building (or potentially ruining) its reputation. While some organisations appear to be effortless in maintaining their reputation, most of us have to work an awful lot harder.

Joe Saxton

Working in partnership with Government can present its challenges. While the Burmese regime may be an extreme case, the recent crisis was an example of the difficult path charities and NGO's have to tread in the course of their work. Do you criticise wrongdoing or keep quiet in the hope of achieving your aims and objectives by stealth?

Closer to home depending on the Government, local authorities or other public bodies for funding presents its own dilemmas.

So let's imagine your charity works in an area that is a high priority on the Government's agenda. In terms of service delivery your organisation is the bees knees and you've therefore been receiving substantial public funding in recognition of your great work.

Out of the blue, new policies are announced and your organisation thinks the Government has got it seriously wrong. The media are on to it and something of a furore is building. You are being asked to comment.

This presents something of a dilemma - do you keep shtumm and exclude yourself from an important debate on issues at the heart of your work or risk biting the hand that feeds you with stinging criticism of policy?

So how prepared is your charity to handle such sensitive requests from the media? How will you negotiate a line between your right to be critical of policy without endangering your funding? As a current affairs TV producer, I've often encountered reluctance on the part of charities and other organisations to criticise or even comment on the Government, local authority or other public body on which they are dependant for funding.

It doesn't have to be this way.

This is the one instance when more measured tones are appropriate. If you are a big enough key player, the media will be interested in your comments anyway, without you having to resort to the heightened language normally required to get that juicy quote in the papers or on the TV.

With the careful use of language, there should be no reason why you cannot enter public debate and challenge your Government or local authority. Focussing on your clients needs and relating them to case histories rather than a full frontal attack on the relevant Secretary of State and his/her Department's proposals is one way of showing how the policy direction may be wrong.

And the language you use may be the key. A clear truthful message about the effect on service delivery to your clients should not endanger your relationship with your funder.

Just sometimes, the situation merits you putting your head above the parapet in this way rather than ducking the issue.

David O'Keeffe is Director of the media training company Dreamcatcher Media. Tel: 0208 241 3746

I've been using the askCharity service for over two years, and the generous help from charity PRs never ceases to amaze me. However, as the service has grown more popular, it does get harder to generate the same volume of responses and find case studies.

It must be hard, when you're bombarded with requests, to read through everything. That's why I aim to make the title of my request informative, and the request itself as concise as possible, so PRs can see at a glance if it's relevant.

If you see a request that grabs your attention, but you don't feel there's enough information to act upon, get in touch with the journalist or researcher. They're not withholding detailed information to make your life more difficult - they're just trying to generate as much interest as possible. Contact them and ask for all the details. If it is a genuine request, the journalist will be more than happy to help, even if it doesn't turn out to be a project you can work together on. I'm always happy to exchange information with new PR contacts. Even if we can't work together on one particular story, another will soon come along where we can.

Another dilemma for many of my charity contacts is whether to put case studies forward for interview. Most journalists understand that charities build up strong relationships with their case studies; any journalist worth his or her salt will respect that. Although journalists have no control over whether an editor will publish a commissioned piece, we can keep you informed, explaining everything that can (and probably will) happen to your case study, from photo shoots to agency interest, to make the experience a positive one for them.

Most journalists, particularly in the health and real life market, understand that not everyone feels completely comfortable sharing their story - no matter how much they want to help their charity. It helps to know what the journalist has worked on before, to give you and the case study peace of mind.

I direct interviewees to my website initially, so they can see who I am, who I've worked with and the kinds of stories I've written. I'm also keen to point out my counselling training, which helps immensely when I'm dealing with sensitive issues. If you're worried about putting a case study in touch with a journalist, find out as much as you can about them. They shouldn't mind sharing previous articles, experience and interviews, or even putting you in touch with case studies they've worked with previously. Journalists do understand why charities are suspicious of them, but they also want to build solid, trusting relationships. A good journalist will go out of their way to affirm your faith in them.

Johanna Payton is a freelance journalist specialising in health, parenting and real life - www.johannapayton.co.uk

At yesterday's CharityComms seminar we were lucky enough to have Martin Moore, Director of the Media Standards Trust, speaking on why charities need to become more like news organisations. Here is what Martin wrote about the event:

Just back from giving a talk to lots of charity folk (mostly from communications/press/pr) about why they need to become more like news organisations.

By that I certainly don't mean ActionAid should try to become like News International. What I mean is that charities should do more reporting. Not PR. Not marketing and communications. On-the-ground, face-to-face, regular, consistent, fair, factual reporting.

I haven't space in this blog to go through my whole spiel but, in bite size chunks my argument is this:

- 'News', in its many and various forms, is immensely important for shaping our political outlook and directing social action. If you don't believe me then look at the effect blanket coverage of the China earthquake had on fundraising compared to the virtually non-existent coverage of Burma. Over $900m raised for Chinese earthquake victims (approximately 74,000 deaths to date). About $55m raised for Burmese cyclone victims (approximately 134,000 deaths to date) - source, The Times (22-5-08).

- News organisations are doing less on-the-ground reporting. The evidence for this will be familiar to those who have been reading this blog and from Nick Davies, Press Gazette, and the missives sent out by the NUJ

- News organisations (and the public) are relying more and more on other sources for their news . I'm sure you've already noticed that most of us are now getting 'news' from lots of places we didn't used to (this blog for instance). From the government, from commercial organisations (Property News anyone?), and of course 'citizen journalists', aka the public. According to OFCOM, for example, the government now spends over £100m a year producing newspapers and funding government 'news' outlets.

Problem is... most of these sources are erratic, they lack context, you don't know what their motive is for writing/photographing/recording their content, and there's little chance their news is informed by a sense of obligation to the public interest.

That's where charities come in.

Now charities have an agenda too of course. But they are also motivated by a sense of obligation to the public, have a keen interest in seeing injustice reported, are structured in such a way that they can report as part of their day job, and of course they're already 'on-the-ground'. Plus, since they tend to wear their agenda on their sleeve (often in brightly coloured neon), at least you know where their bias is coming from.

But, and it's a big but, charities have to understand that reporting is different from PR. They have to realise their audience is not just big media organisations anymore, it's also the public. And as such their communication to the public should be informed by the values that inform journalism, not the values that inform PR.

If they collect factual information, report it fairly, and contextualise it properly, they won't just start to fill the public information gap left by fast-departing news organisations, but will promote their own cause in a sustainable and ethical way.