RealWorld Integrated Marketing Communications, an advertising agency staffed by TCU students, celebrates its first anniversary this month.

The student-run advertising agency worked on 68 projects for 28 clients in its first year of operations, said the director of RealWorld IMC.

The agency works only for nonprofit organizations.

“We’re giving back to Fort Worth by giving the nonprofits a lot for their money,” said Claudia Butts, director of RealWorld.

RealWorld IMC is one of eight similar agencies in the United States, Butts said.

According to RealWorld IMC’s Web site, the agency was born when the Schieffer School of Journalism won the Vision in Action grant in the summer of 2006.

One of the goals of the Vision in Action program is to promote interaction with the community, said Tommy Thomason, director of the Schieffer School of Journalism. Nonprofit organizations need advertising services but cannot afford to go to a downtown advertising agency, he said.

“We are the only student agency that we know of that has offices off campus and takes nonprofit clients exclusively,” Thomason said.

Butts said RealWorld IMC is the agency of record for Lighthouse for the Blind in Fort Worth, a nonprofit organization that provides services to people who are visually impaired.

Butts said the agency’s current big project is “Christmas in Cowtown”, a shopping event for the Junior League of Fort Worth, an organization of women committed to community service. The agency is in charge of promoting the event, from media planning to banners and tickets, Butts said.

According to RealWorld IMC’s Web site, the agency is staffed by students majoring in advertising/public relations, marketing, graphic design and photography.

Currently there are 12 interns at the agency, Butts said.

Thomason said the agency was created because advertising/public relations students didn’t have opportunities to gain experience on campus, unlike broadcast and news-editorial journalism students who have outlets in the TCU Daily Skiff, Image magazine and TCU News Now.

“For our graduates, the issue is not so much what courses they took or what grades they made, but it’s what kind of practical experience resulting in portfolio items that they bring to the table for a potential employer,” Thomason said.

Thomason said the difference between being an intern at a local agency and working for RealWorld IMC is that students at local agencies usually work in the periphery whereas RealWorld IMC interns are at the center of the agency, from initial meetings with clients to the development of projects and campaigns.

“They get better quality experience,” Thomason said.

Butts, a TCU graphic arts graduate with extensive local experience in advertising, said she and copy chief Margaret Ritsch advise students before sending them to clients. Some organizations continue with the agency, but the list of clients is always rotating, she said.

Alana Villegas, a senior advertising/public relations and psychology major and one of the agency’s founding members, said RealWorld IMC operates like any other agency. Each client is assigned to a small team of students, who are in charge of managing the account, she said.

“Everything we do is real,” Villegas said. “It’s not a class project – that’s why we called it RealWorld.”