Survey of Communications Practitioners Finds Strong Satisfaction With Roles, Opportunities Seen to Make Even Greater Contributions

A survey conducted for the Communications Network finds that a majority of communications professionals at private and community foundations feel that their work adds value to their organizations and they believe that senior management similarly recognizes their contributions.

The survey, conducted in August 2008, by DeSantis Breindel, a leading brand strategy and interactive firm in New York City, also found a strong desire among philanthropy communicators to add even greater value to their foundations, and they hope to do that over the coming years by increasing staff, making more use of web technologies, investing in branding efforts, and stepping up efforts to measure the impact of their work.

Sponsored by the California HealthCare Foundation, the survey provides a snapshot of the current state of foundation communications—who is doing the work, how they spend their time, challenges they face, what the future holds. Some 185 people, or 41 percent of the 450 invited to take the survey, responded.

Overall, the survey results show "a great deal of job satisfaction, acknowledgment that foundation communicators play important roles, and both a strong desire to do more and considerable optimism about the future," said Bruce Trachtenberg, executive director, Communications Network. "The takeaway is that this is a great time to be in communications."

Commenting on the response rate and the willingness of survey participants to share information -- in both the online survey and in telephone interviews, Howard Breindel, Partner, DeSantis Breindel, said: "We were struck by the thoughtfulness and thoroughness of their’ responses."

Here are key survey findings:

  • The average tenure of survey respondents is 5.6 years, and before coming to their current foundation jobs most worked for a nonprofit (44 percent) or a for-profit company (33 percent), while the rest previously worked in a local, state, or government position (12 percent) and the rest for another foundation (10 percent).
  • When asked to rank their priorities, no one are dominated the work of communications professionals in private foundations. Instead, promoting issues, creating awareness, and publicizing awareness were judged almost equally as important as influencing public policy.
  • For community foundation communicators, their top priorities – and almost all were rated equally important – are creating awareness, bolstering donor relations, publicizing results and foundation impact and raising funds.
  • While there has been a lot of talk in the field about applying the new technologies to their work, especially replacing traditional print publications with online and interactive versions of those materials, foundations still have a distance to go. For example, most foundations (67 percent) still publish print versions of their annual reports, of which a pdf version is also available for download. But only 9 percent said they produced "interactive" versions of their annual reports.
  • At the same time, nearly 90 percent of respondents say the web is their foundation's most effective communications tool, and 95 percent of respondents see that becoming an increasingly dominant way of communicating over the next two years. Along with plans to upgrade content, redesign their websites or migrate to new platforms, most anticipate making more use of Web 2.0 technologies and tools in coming years. These include creation of blogs, promoting more social networking, posting video and other multimedia content.
  • Survey respondents say they are conscious of the need to measure the effectiveness of their work, although most of this effort appears to be limited to tracking "outputs" and not "outcomes." For instance, 95 percent of respondents from private foundations and 92 percent from community foundations reported measuring website traffic, while the numbers tracking press coverage are 89 percent for community foundations and 82 percent for private foundations.
  • Similarly, 66 percent of private foundations keep tabs on requests for publications, something that 53 percent of community foundations also say they do. Yet, as an example of the need to see if their messages are getting through, some 64 percent of private foundation respondents say they are measuring changes in awareness. And, in keeping with that desire, three-quarters of both private and community foundations say they expect their efforts to measure the effectiveness of their work to increase over the next two years.
  • Another area in which most respondents also agreed there is room for improvement is in their relations with program staff. At private foundations, 50 percent of respondents said their relationships are either "mixed" or being "worked out," compared to 25 percent of their colleagues at community foundations who said they were either "mixed" (25 percent) or getting better (19 percent).
  • Survey respondents were also asked to identify individual foundations whose work they felt set a standard for the field. Those singled out for "overall excellence" were Ford, Hewlett, Knight, Robert Wood, and Silicon Valley Community foundations. Foundations that received accolades for the quality of their content and materials were The Heinz Endowments, Bill & Melinda Gates, Benton, California Wellness, Cleveland, Grand Rapids, Kaiser Family, and Mott Foundations.
  • Organizations perceived as having the biggest policy impact were the Bradley, Packard, Pew, and Skoll foundations and Open Society Institute.

For a copy of a presentation about the survey given at the Communication Network's Fall 2008 conference, click here.