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Priming the “Engagement” Pump
Guest Post: Susan Herr, PhilanthroMedia
Engagement via social media is the holy grail of just about all of us who work in communications today. But as anyone who has tried to advance ideas via their websites, blogs, Tweeting and the like knows that it is much easier to talk about than to achieve. And when it’s missing? The silence can be deafening.
How My Program Experience Prepared Me for My Communications Job
Guest Post, Elizabeth Miller, John S. and James L. Knight Foundation
Several months ago, I joined the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation as a Communications Associate. Although the job accompanied a move from New York to Miami, frankly I was more curious how I’d find the move from having a grantmaking responsibility at my previous job to taking on an exclusively communications-focused role.
Help Us Create A Communications Glossary
Guest Post: Minna Jung, The David and Lucile Packard Foundation and Vice Chair, Communications Network
I’ve been kind of fascinated by the ensuing dialogue out of the blog post I wrote on the program-communications divide. And it struck me, as I pondered the good advice from others to beware about inadvertently perpetuating the divide between communications staff and our foundation colleagues, that maybe better language and translation can help overcome the divide. I spend so much time referencing communications concepts in my interactions with foundation colleagues of all sorts, but I realized the other day that I may be underestimating exactly how much I need to define and re-define these concepts in order to successfully engage with my colleagues. And it’s ironic that I would underestimate that, since one of the most frequent things I say when editing or listening to a dry run of a rehearsal, is: define your terms! Know thy audience! And yet here I am, not doing that.
How To Turn A Traditional Executive Summary Into A Video In Just A Few Hours
Guest Post, Susan Parker, Clear Thinking Communications
Executive summaries are meant to make it easy for audiences to learn about a new report or study, especially if they don’t have time to read the full document. But for people faced with ever-growing reading lists, it’s often hard to make time even for digests of larger reports. In that spirit, the Atlantic Philanthropies has begun experimenting with producing executive summaries as short videos. And the good news for time-pressed communicators: these videos–which can help bring more attention to an important report–can be completed in a matter of hours.
Getting Beyond the Mars-Venus (Program/Communications) Divide
Guest Post: Ben Rodriguez, program officer, Connecticut Health Foundation
I didn’t have to read Minna Jung’s recent guest post “Communicating in Philanthropy: the Hard Part” to know that there can be tension between program and communications staff. As a program officer at the Connecticut Health Foundation, I’m well aware that sometimes communications staff thinks “you don’t get it.”
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