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Humanity United Invites People to View and Comment On Its Performance (and Report Too)
It’s very fitting that after producing its first Performance Report, Humanity United wants to know “how’d we do?” Not just as a foundation, but on the report itself.
The 2011 report, which is published on Humanity United’s website, is meant to go beyond what the foundation feels are the limitations of a traditional annual report. Rather than just describing its work, “we wanted to use the report to as a way to ask ourselves hard questions,” says Mike Boyer,Vice President, Strategic Communications. Those questions, adds Boyer, include “are we having impact, and if so, at what level? By individual grants? Clusters of grants? Or at the field level?”
The Art of In-House Persuasion (VIDEO)
Guest Post: Susan Herr, PhilanthroMedia
If your boss and colleagues don’t understand the very strategic work you are doing, is it your fault or theirs? That is the question that Network for Good’s Chief Strategy Officer Katya Andresen forces us to consider in this interview I recently conducted with her on “The Art of In-House Persuasion.”
Making Change By Working Together
Guest Post: Chris Palmedo, Northwest Health Foundation
One of the common refrains among members of the Communications Network is the need to seamlessly integrate communications with program work. We’ve talked about Kumbaya. We’ve encouraged ourselves to develop “closer working relationships” with program staff, to “shift the culture toward one of mutual respect” and to “get people to care enough” about communications. And we’ve been warned not to be to paternalistic in converting program staff who don’t “get it.”
Fortunately, my organization does “get it,” and I’ve been thinking that, perhaps, some views from Northwest Health Foundation’s perspective can provide some insight for my colleagues at other foundations. My experience working with program staff at our foundation goes beyond “mutual respect.” It’s more like “mutual challenge,” where program and communications push each other – and the organization – toward a common vision of social change.
How to Make the Most of Google’s New Analytics Tools
Guest Post: Jai Sen, Sen Associates
Analytics. The very word excites some and sends others running for the hills.
But there is good news. Google Analytics has emerged as the tool of choice for communications professionals, and Google has put some real muscle behind improving it. As of this writing, most everyone should have access to the new version of the application.
Count On Us When Countdown Begins (VIDEO)
His title might say president, Pittsburgh Foundation, but in his heart Grant Oliphant, a former chair of the Communications Network, is still every bit of a communicator (and a damn fine storyteller.)
A case in point: late last year, Oliphant was a featured presenter at Tedx Pittsburgh. His talk was a meditation on “countdown,” a word which didn’t appear in the English language until 1952. Back then, it referred to the process popularized by NASA of counting backwards from 10 to a rocket launch. Today, though, the world usually means marking progress toward “a particular moment in time…a countdown to war…a countdown to summer.”
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