Welcome to the Communications Network

The
mission of the Communications Network is to
improve the effectiveness and accountability of
foundations by promoting and strengthening the
strategic practice of communications in
philanthropy.
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Here's
What's New and Other Items of Interest:
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See You at the Hard Rock
Chicago
Keep Watching Here for
News about Our Fall 2008 Conference
Thanks to all of you who
submitted proposals for sessions at our Fall 2008
Conference. We are in the process of reviewing
them. Once that's done, and we hope soon, we will
post the agenda for the conference.
In the meantime, we're
pleased to report that we will hold this year's event
(Sept. 24-26, 2008) at Chicago's Hard Rock Hotel.
We'll be opening registration shortly so you can book
rooms at the the hotel and reserve a place for yourself
at the conference as well.
Keep watching here for
conference updates.
CHICAGO
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Want
Your Ideas to Get Noticed? Be Audacious!

If you were to look up
“audacious”
on Dictionary.com,
you’ll find: “extremely original ... highly inventive:
an audacious vision of the city's bright
future.”
That definition
perfectly describes the Open Society Institute-Baltimore
blog:
Audacious Ideas.
Started in September 2007, the weekly blog features a
mix of voices drawn from all walks of Baltimore life.
Each week’s topic aims to stimulate a discussion about
“what can be done to promote opportunity, achievement,
health, and prosperity in our city.”
Read the full story.
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To Tell
Its Story, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation
Tells (Lots of) Stories About Its Grantees
Most foundations believe
that the best way to showcase their work and the causes
they support is
to
highlight their grantees, and often by telling stories
about who they are and what they do.
The
Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF)
believes so firmly in that idea that it has made grantee
stories a centerpiece of its website.
Each month, the foundation,
whose
work is focused on the nation's health and health care issues, prominently
displays a compelling photograph of a featured grantee on
its website.
Read the
full story.
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Here's
how you can help stop the spread of Foundation Jargon

Have you ever been presented with a draft of a publication
from one of your esteemed colleagues so littered with jargon
and other obscure words and phrases that its meaning was
completely obliterated? Did it read like an electronics
manual translated from a foreign language? And despite the
hours -- even days -- you spent explaining the virtue of
clear and plain writing, did they insist that not even a
word could be altered for fear it would undermine the
importance of what they had to say?
If you've been in that position before, you are not alone.
Jargon unfortunately is a fact of life at foundations and
nonprofits.
But it can – and should — be stopped.
During a recent Communications Network webinar, Tony Proscio,
the author of three volumes dedicated to exposing (and
eradicating) jargon, talked with host, Andy Goodman, about
why some people in foundations and nonprofits love jargon
and resist efforts to stop using it.
Click here to view a replay
of the webinar. |
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The ABC's of Successfully Disseminating
Research Findings
The
Irvine Foundation recently completed a major dissemination
effort to share results from a two-year evaluation of CORAL,
an eight-year, $58 million initiative intended to boost the
educational performance of low-achieving students in five
California cities. The evaluation was conducted by
Public/Private Ventures (P/PV).
According to Daniel Silverman, communications director, the
way Irvine disseminated the evaluation stands as a good
example of how to use research findings to advance a
foundation's mission.
Click to read.
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Report
Urges Foundations to Do More To Demonstrate Impact
Wouldn’t it be wonderful if all
of philanthropy’s great achievements, as well as the
thoughtful work that foundations do every day on
behalf of society, were understood and appreciated by
leaders of other key sectors – government and business, for
example?
Unfortun ately,
as the evidence from recent surveys show, more than half of
leaders on the front lines of social and community action
can’t name a foundation on a first try. Most feel uninformed
about foundations, and more than 80 percent can’t cite an
example of how foundations have helped their communities.
According to a new report from the
Philanthropy Awareness Initiative
(PAI), this lack of knowledge of philanthropy’s impact
“represents a serious threat to the freedom and effectiveness
of the foundation enterprise.”

The remedy, according to interviews PAI conducted with a
dozen philanthropy leaders, is for foundations “to find
better ways to calculate and communicate their value in
American society.” As the report notes, “This is no easy
feat…far more of the sector’s assets have been invested in
making an impact than in demonstrating it.”
Click here to download
a copy of the report.
Separately, PAI Director Mark Sedway is eager to
hear from others on the front lines about your efforts to
demonstrate impact. He’s also interested in hearing your
suggestions about how foundations can better highlight
philanthropy’s collective contributions to American society.
Email him your examples, thoughts and suggestions. |
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Want Your
Foundation to Get Noticed? Here's How
We’ve all heard the complaint – and even see the
data
to back it up – that the public and policymakers really don’t
know all the good that foundations do (or are trying to).
To communications consultant Susan Parker, the reason
foundations (and nonprofits) aren’t better known can be
traced
to seven mistakes.
Parker, who is the founder of
Clear Thinking Communications,
says among the mistakes foundations make are: being
afraid to “toot" their horn, failing to talk more
about what’s working as well as what didn’t, and
being reluctant to stand out in the crowd. For
each mistake that Parker identifies, she offers a
correction.
Click Here for a copy
of “Is Your Good Work Going Unnoticed?” |
The Communications Network
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