News Room

• Volunteering Through Public Speaking – Biz Connection Radio Show

  June 30, 2016

  Andy Richardson, director of Free Speakers Milwaukee joined Jim Rosetti and Ron Nielsen, hosts of the Biz Connection, a weekly radio show. Richardson illustrates how volunteering one’s gift of public speaking pro bono through a site like FreeSpeakers.org can open the door for new business relationships. The speakers are not doing a “sales pitch” for their products or services but actually sharing valuable and informative content to groups or organizations. This positions the speaker as having expertise they are willing to share free of charge, thus making people more prone to know, like, and trust them. (more…)

• ‘Cheap talk’ for Milwaukee clubs and groups

  January 22, 2016

  FreeSpeakers.org, a pro bono speaker’s bureau, is a new resource in Milwaukee for groups and organizations that need speakers. The new bureau has 20 local speakers with more than 35 different topics available.

  “All speakers present programs at no cost,” said Andy Richardson, director of FreeSpeakers.org. “This is a community service project that is 100 percent free to groups that have limited (or no) budgets. Groups include Chambers of Commerce, libraries, Rotary and Kiwanis groups, special interest clubs, church groups, retirement communities, women’s clubs, men’s clubs, etc. (more…)

• Free Speakers Bureau Matches Speakers to Groups

  October 14, 2015

  What started with a single telephone call 15 years ago has grown into something that Free Speech Speakers Bureau founder Ginny Richardson of Burr Ridge could never have imagined.

  Richardson, founder and president of Ginny Richardson Public Relations in Hinsdale, received a phone call one day from a local Rotary Club. The club wanted a speaker for an upcoming meeting, and turned to Richardson and her connections in the community for help.

  “I made a few phone calls,” she said, and found a local banker willing to take on the job, free of charge. (more…)

• Ginny Richardson a matchmaker of speech, need

  As Ginny Richardson puts it, her entire world is matchmaking.

  “It’s blank newspaper pages and client news and stories,” said Richardson, president of Hinsdale-based Ginny Richardson Public Relations.

  And with her side project based on community service, Free Speech Speakers Bureau, it’s the same concept.

  “I just feel it is an extension of that matchmaking  – a speaker and empty podium,” Richardson explained.

  Free Speech, which celebrates its 15th anniversary this year, helps community organizations acquire speakers to free. More than 500 Chicagoland groups have participated thus far, with more than 150 speakers on the bureau.

  Although both the service and speakers are free – Richardson charges a minimal lifetime joining fee for speakers – the incentives for both are endless, she said. Many of the speakers are entrepreneurs and business owners who can then market themselves or the business in a different way.

  (more…)

• Bureau celebrates 10 years of matching groups with speakers

  For 10 years. Burr Ridge resident  Ginny Richardson had been dispelling the myth that nothing in life comes for free.

  The president of GR-PR public relations firm in Hinsdale founded the Free Speech speakers bureau after a colleague asked if she had any contacts who would speak for free at a club meeting.

  Enjoying this new role as  a matchmaker between organizations looking for an interesting speaker and people who love to talk, Richardson decided to take the next step. In summer 1996, she formalized Free Speech after typing up a list of names – come clients, some friends – and a short description of each person’s topic. she mailed out this listing, at her own expense, to various clubs and organizations in the suburbs – mainly DuPage County. (more…)