The 2015 Martin Waymire annual Gives Project is off to a great start, with Martin Waymire helping three nonprofit organizations improve their communications and providing financial donations to help carry out their missions. The Gives Project began in 2010 as a way to demonstrate the true meaning of the season by letting our clients join us in supporting worthwhile Michigan organizations. Each year as part of the Gives Project, we choose extraordinary organizations to support during the year-end holidays. It’s our way of saying “thank you” for helping to make our community and state a better place.

Media Markets, and Farmers Markets
Among the nonprofit organizations we’re helping this year is the Michigan Farmers Market Association (MIFMA). MIFMA is an association for farmer’s markets, managers, farmers, vendors and friends to create a thriving marketplace for local food and farm products. The team at Martin Waymire believes in MIFMA’s mission, and each of us enjoy shopping at the farmers markets at the Capitol, buying local food and supporting local growers throughout the year. This year, in addition to giving MIFMA $500, Martin Waymire also provided media training to MIFMA’s entire team.
The training was especially helpful as MIFMA works to get out the word about the many farmers markets in Michigan, which have grown from 90 in 2001 to more than 300 today. The MIFMA team felt more prepared to tell the story of farmers markets’ success to journalists following the training by Martin Waymire Account Executive Jessica Tramontana, who shared media relations insights from both a journalist perspective and public relations perspective. The team was able to gain new insight into how to prepare for a crisis and how to build relationships with reporters, which is key to successful media relations.
Don’t Take Martin Waymire’s Word for It
“Our team at the Michigan Farmers Market Association is so grateful to be a beneficiary of the Martin Waymire 2015 Gives Project. Our organization is growing quickly, so we chose the media relations training to help us strengthen our relationships with the media in 2016 and beyond,” said Dru Montri, MIFMA executive director.
“We’re excited we now have the tools to better promote farmers markets all across Michigan and create better awareness – even during the winter months – of the need to create thriving marketplaces for local food and farm products,” Montri added. Today, we left the training with a lot of new ideas and the media relations tactics to implement them.”
Here at Martin Waymire, we’re thrilled to help MIFMA improve its media relations knowledge so it can better communicate its message. We hope by using our skills and partnering with great organizations such as MIFMA, we can help make our community and state a better place. That’s what the Martin Waymire Gives Project is all about.

Get Up, Get Out and Give
Interested in the work they do? There are a number of ways to get involved with MIFMA such as donating, becoming a member, volunteering or even by shopping at farmer’s markets throughout the state. Learn more here.
Stay tuned for more from the 2015 Martin Waymire Gives Project!