The Organization:
Established in September 2000, the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation seeks to advance environmental conservation and scientific research around the world and improve the quality of life in the San Francisco Bay Area. The Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation is among the top ten largest foundations in the U.S. and one of the largest funders of environmental conservation and non-biomedical science in the world.

Position Description:
Reporting to the Chief Administrative Officer and also directly engaging the President, the Director of Communication will be responsible for developing and implementing a dynamic communication program which will proactively advance the interests of the Foundation’s policy and programmatic agenda. In keeping with an emerging array of policy initiatives and grantee activities, the Director of Communication will be a person who has a depth of understanding of the rapidly changing means in which content is aggregated and delivered. The Director of Communication will provide leadership in building a communication team and work closely with other program leaders and Foundation staff in helping implement a mission-focused, enterprise-level communication strategy.

In this new position, the Director of Communication will continually develop and improve approaches to advance the Foundation’s programs and initiatives. The Director of Communication will effectively utilize social media and other online formats, as well as more traditional media/communications vehicles, to ensure information about the Foundation is accurate, consistent and accessible to external audiences. Moreover, by clearly defining programmatic communication objectives, the Director of Communication will help facilitate each program area to be more strategic about which communication strategies and tactics it employs.

The Director of Communication will work to ensure there is a deepening interconnection and cross-pollination among the programs and initiatives of the Foundation. The Director of Communication will manage two Communication Officers when they are hired.

Key Responsibilities
The broad goals for the new Director of Communication include:

• Increase program and initiative impact.Put communication plans and systems in place which will help engage the very people needed to achieve the desired transformational change at the programmatic level.
• Communicate about the Foundation’s goals and priorities with grantees to create greater synergy and impact.Create a greater understanding of the Foundation’s overall mission to help grantee partners align their efforts and make greater progress on issues important to both parties.
• Strengthen its brand and profile to establish the Foundation as a thought leader in the sectors it cares about most. The Foundation can use its expertise and results from its work to inform and influence audiences that are crucial to the Foundation’s transformational change efforts.
• Reinforce, train, and grow Foundation leadership and staff capacity to engage effectively with key audiences about the organization’s mission, program outcomes and goals in alignment with the Foundation’s core values.
• Provide communication oversight of critical information relayed to the Board of Trustees and provide counsel to Board of Trustees and program leadership on strategic communication as needed.
• Ensure all Foundation staff have access to useful and timely internal information about the Foundation.

Professional Qualifications:
The Director of Communication serves in a critically important role within the Foundation. The Director of Communication ideally should embody the following professional qualifications and personal attributes:

• A passion and extraordinary professional ability to use strategic communication and marketing in a manner that will advance the Foundation’s values, mission and goals.
• A demonstrated record of success as a strategic communication leader, in a multi-layered, intellectually charged work environment.
• Demonstrated understanding and experience working with a full range of communication, marketing, and multi-tiered issue campaigns.
• A proven record of developing, writing, and producing distinguished communication materials through print, broadcast, print, and social media.
• Demonstrated leadership and management skill, including ability to manage internal and external teams effectively and to supervise external professional communication consultants.

Competencies and Attributes:

Problem solving 

• Thinks critically and provides practical solutions based on thorough analysis in the face of real-time issues

Customer service

• Provides courteous and responsive support, while balancing the requirements to adhere to legal requirements and Foundation policy
• Develops departmental priorities aligned with program and organizational priorities and needs, with the goal of maximizing Foundation impact

Project management and quality of deliverables

• Delivers high quality products in a timely and efficient manner
• Mobilizes resources to develop and implement work plan to achieve goals
• Brings and incorporates the best current communications thinking into the Foundation
• Maintains awareness of current standards and processes
• Contributes to the team and to the Foundation (includes administrative skills, coaching, managerial / leadership skills)

Leading and Inspiring

• Creates a clear and compelling vision for achievement and leads efforts that positively impact the Foundation
• Empowers others to use their talent and capabilities to take thoughtful risks with the intent to drive impact and make change

Demonstrating Integrity and Fairness

• Serves as a role model to others and acts in accordance with the Foundation’s values
• Fosters a work environment that promotes the highest levels of integrity and honesty; is able to work through and resolve complex ethical issues

How to Apply:

Interested applicants should send a cover letter, resume by email to: jobs@moore.org. Please include Director of Communications in the subject line.

Compensation includes a competitive base salary, a performance incentive plan, and an excellent package of health, retirement savings and other benefits.

The Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation is an equal opportunity employer. All correspondence will remain confidential.

Organizations:

• An Arlington, VA-based advocacy organization that focuses on environmental conservation seeks an online marketing coordinator and a senior manager of online marketing.
• A global security advocacy organization in Alexandria, Va. seeks an online marketing coordinator.

Position Descriptions/Qualifications/Application Information:

Full job descriptions and application information is available at the website of Brainstorm Creative Resources, which is handing all three searches. Click the links below to learn more about each of the open positions.

• Online marketing coordinator (Environmental Conservation)
• Senior manager of online marketing (Environmental Conservation)
• Online marketing coordinator (Global Security Advocacy)

Fast forward almost 20 years later, and even though the PDF is still very much with us, that habit of turning reports, whitepapers, books, policy briefs and the like into digital facsimiles and emailing and posting them online runs the risk of being labeled as an example of an OLD new media practice.

In fact, just last week, the Center for Digital Information (CDI) held a roundtable discussion — with the hardly subtle title Beyond the PDF – that showed off some impressive examples of how think tanks, foundations and policy institutions are taking advantage of the best the new technology has to offer – interactive graphics and visualizations, mapping tools, online databases, multimedia, and touch-interface smartphone and tablet applications — to do  what Jeff Stanger, the group’s executive director, describes as more effectively  ”injecting” information into public policy debates and other social change discussions.

For anyone who cut his or her teeth in a world where print and print-like products were the gold standards of information dissemination, it takes a moment (sometimes longer) before you realize that a game can actually do a pretty good job of informing people about the challenges of trying to come up with a manageable federal budget or that a cartoon-like presentation can answer the question “how will the affordable health care act affect me?” as least as well, if not better, than traditional text presentations.

Those examples — including others that detail the differing political beliefs Americans hold, the potential threat to developing countries from climate change and how Americans cope with high energy costs – show how by embracing the power of new digital technologies, we can turn static, often dry data, into useful online engagements that hold great promise of thoughtfully informing and advancing public dialogue on topics such as health, education, the environment, the economy, national security, international affairs and global development.

Another advantage that true digital publications offer is the ability to comprehensively measure  the depth of user engagement — from number of visitors to page views to which information garnered the most attention and interest.  Still, that level of measurement is no substitute for a higher bar that any material disseminated to influence thinking or behavior must ultimately meet to be judged a success– did anyone do any different as a result? Did they take action?  However, it’s far better knowing that people are at least paying attention to your materials than wondering if they’re getting read at all.

Ironically, where the now (in some quarters) scorned but still ubiquitous PDF offers great efficiency and obvious cost savings over traditional print counterparts, these newer digitally native products come with both a higher price tag and greater time demands, not to mention the requirement for people newly skilled to do this work.  Still, that’s an argument that shouldn’t dissuade against turning more information products into digitally native forms.

Still, how soon can we expect that other organizations — especially those wedded to the tradition of producing products that even in digital form look and feel like their hard copy analogs — will themselves be ready to go “digitally native?”

Gabriella Fitz, co-director of IssueLab, a nonprofit that archives distributes, and promotes the extensive and diverse body of research being produced by the nonprofit sector, and who probably sees more of the traditional research reports than most people, agrees that “more and more social cause research should be presented in interactive formats. The fact is that people don’t have the time to read 40-page white papers.”

But Fitz also worries that research that smaller foundations and nonprofits produce might get ignored “just because they don’t have the budget to produce these kind of interactive pieces.” She also acknowledges that “a lot of folks default to PDFs because they simply don’t have the skills or creative encouragement to do differently and don’t have the money to hire those who do.” She is also optimistic that “we can work on the skills and the creative encouragement.” The money, question, though still might be a hurdle too high for some.

On that point, Stanger says organizations doing the research need to take the lead in making the case that the cost of not embracing the new ”threatens the vital informational role” of foundations, think tanks and policy institutions. He adds, “In a society increasingly accustomed to information in digital form, credibility, authority, and relevance are attributes that will be reserved for research organizations that successfully adopt new interactive forms that are native to digital media.”

Bruce Trachtenberg is executive director of the Communications Network

Organization:
Founded in 1864, St. Louis College of Pharmacy consistently graduates one of the largest classes of new pharmacists in the nation. The College admits students directly from high school, and the six-year curriculum integrates the liberal arts and sciences with a professional program leading to a Doctor of Pharmacy (Pharm.D.) degree. The College offers a full student-life experience, including nearly 50 student organizations and intercollegiate athletics. More than 1,200 students from 25 states are currently enrolled at the College.

Position:
St. Louis College of Pharmacy seeks a communications professional who is responsible for creating content and managing print projects that meet the college’s high standards and marketing goals for publications.

Responsibilities:

• Write and edit a wide range of college materials and publications, i.e. annual report, academic catalog, brochures, newsletters, marketing materials, and event collateral pieces through stages of publication. Plan content and generate story ideas; researching, interviewing, writing, and editing publications. Advise campus clients on publication content.
• Edit and proofread copy provided by college departments for style, clarity, and tone. Handle client proofing and work with vendors.
• Serve as communications liaison for other college departments and outside vendors. Work collaboratively with college departments to ensure that all publications meet the standards the college’s style guide and graphic standards manual.
• Work closely with in-house graphic designer, a freelance designer, and freelance photographers to manage the production of printed pieces from concept to delivery.
• Assist the development and alumni activities offices with special events and other projects as necessary.
• In conjunction with the graphic designer, maintain and promote internal awareness of a graphics standards and editorial style manual and oversee the use of the college logo(s) and other visual identity items.
• Occasional writing of: speeches, letters, news releases/media materials, marketing materials, or preparation of presentations for college activities.

Qualifications:

• Bachelor’s degree in journalism, communications, or related field.
• Three to five years of writing and editing experience in higher education or nonprofit communications.
• Exceptional writing, editing, and interpersonal skills.
• Command of AP style
• Attention to detail, good organizational skills, and an ability to work under tight deadlines are essential.
• Experience managing communication projects, including working hand in hand with designers, printers, mailers, freelance writers, and photographers.

How to Apply:
Click this link to apply online.

According to the Nonprofit Technology Network’s (NTEN) third annual Social Network Benchmarking Survey, 90 percent of nonprofits are using at least one commercial social network like Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn. While adoption of such platforms by the broader nonprofit sector dwarfs that of foundations (our 2011 survey shows use Twitter at 29% and Facebook at 27%), it illuminates the extent to everyone must now compete in a public square jam-packed with virtual soapboxes.

To Holly Ross, executive director of NTEN, these numbers suggest that both nonprofits and foundations have entered a new phase in which being a part of the social media universe is no longer enough. If you want your message to be heard, it must be driven by strategy that informs every aspect of how you participate, including making sure the specific social media platforms you pick to carry your messages are the right ones for the goals you want to achieve.

As a case in point, in the accompanying video, Holly talks about how NTEN’s use of Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn has evolved over the past three years. In the early days, each post that NTEN created was automatically distributed through all three channels. Over time, staff began to understand the nuances of each platform and the ways in which each could be used to advance different elements of the organization’s overarching strategies.

As a result, Facebook is now used primarily to promote the organization’s efforts to “connect” with members and constituents. Given this goal, NTEN isn’t particularly concerned about what visitors to its Facebook page are talking about — just as long as they are talking with NTEN and with each other.

Staff finds Linkedin a much more conducive virtual space for going deep with work-related questions, which fuel the organization’s “learn” strategy. In that space, natives can be goaded to submit pages of comments about their use of cloud computing or how they plan to allocate next year’s tech budget.

While the right strategy is key, Holly also believes another essential element to social media success is an organizational culture that both supports and is comfortable with the kind of give and take that comes with engaging with people outside your organization online. As she puts it, “If you don’t have that culture at your organization you can have the best strategy in the world but you won’t be able to make these tools work for you.”

Just a few short years ago we were suggesting it was ok just to get your feet wet with social media. Today, you have to willing to take a deeper dive. But at least there’s a lot more good guidance available — like tips and suggestions Holly offers in the video — to help decide whether social media is right and how to make it work for you.

For more, click the image above to watch the video.

Susan Herr, a regular Communications Network contributor, is president of PhilanthroMedia.

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 core of the report is organized around three sections — Program Highlights, Learning and Program Data – that are meant to illuminate progress toward the foundation’s mission of “building peace and advancing human freedom.”  Each of these sections details in a series of clickable text boxes and supporting illustrations, such as charts and graphs, the challenges the foundation is addressing, how it has responded and what it believes it is accomplishing.

For instance, in discussing its work to prevent violence from preventing turnout in national elections throughout Africa, the foundation lists among its accomplishments how it “coordinated conflict early warning systems in Liberia to foster dialogue and built diplomatic capacity within Sudan to ensure the country’s peaceful separation.” In response to concerns that the troubling world economy would create conditions that could increase “the vulnerability of those most likely to be trafficked and exploited,” the foundation cites work it did during the year “to stop the exploitation of children and workers.”

The report also summarizes findings from an independent survey the Center For Effective Philanthropy conducted in 2011 to learn how Humanity United’s grantees feel about their dealings with the foundation. It gets high marks for how its grantees regard the foundation’s support to them affect public policy. At the same time, Humanity United notes it needs to do a better job in how it communicates its mission to grantees.

Surely the foundation’s progress report is a step in that direction since Humanity United’s grantees, as much as anyone else, are a key audience for the report. For all the audiences it is targeting though, including other foundations and nonprofits, policymakers, the news media, and even the general public, the actual measure of the performance of the report will come down to — in the words of Randy Newcomb, Humanity United’s president and ceo — whether it helps “foster an increased sense of transparency and accountability for our work.”

How do you think the foundation did?

The practice of plucking words from one part of speech and using them in another is as old as English itself. If we tried to ban it, we would undermine a good chunk of the language, with no real benefit and much loss of useful vocabulary. A simple example: Any time the elders in your church tell you the meek shall inherit the earth, they are not just expounding an ideal. They are also mixing up parts of speech. “Elder,” “meek,” and “ideal” are all adjectives that have undergone a conversion and were born again as nouns. But they have lived their new, altered lives for centuries without being burned at the stake. (“Stake” was a noun in the 9th century that became a verb in the 14th.)

I bring up this history because, in one recent communiqué, we got a thoroughly justified complaint about the overworked noun “collaborative.” The word has been driven to exhaustion, no dispute: funding collaboratives, learning collaboratives, advocacy collaboratives, community collaboratives, artists’ collaboratives. But instead of focusing on the dreary, ceaseless repetition of “collaborative” — which nowadays struts and frets its way into every story in which any bunch of people does anything together — the complainant leveled the charge that “collaborative” is actually an impostor. It’s really an adjective, not a noun. That is technically correct: “collaborative” didn’t hop the grammatical fence until the early 20th century. But by now it’s everywhere — and that’s the real problem. It’s the proliferation of the word — the insistent tediousness, the lack of imagination — that makes it irritating. Its ancestry is mostly beside the point.

There are plenty of other words to describe groups of people working together: team, network, alliance, corps, group, committee, coalition, association. And, for that matter, the former adjectives cooperative and collective. (We will skip over cabal, cartel, conspiracy, and syndicate — although if we were being honest, we’d have to admit they fit the bill much more often than is polite to acknowledge.) Finding a better word, or at least a less tired one, is the real solution to “collaborative.” If a few of those preferable words are themselves migrants from other parts of speech, I suspect most readers would say, “So what?”

Mind you, this isn’t meant as a defense of ripping words from their native grammatical habitat and just relocating them willy-nilly. Among other things, species tend to proliferate and become destructive when dropped carelessly into new surroundings — like kudzu crawling through Georgia, or melaleuca overrunning the Everglades. “Collaborative,” set loose in the garden of nouns, ended up becoming weed-like in just that way. So sure, it’s good to be suspicious of old words in new roles. It’s just that trying to eradicate migrant words is a little too much like trying to wipe out invasive species with pesticides: you probably won’t succeed, and you’ll despoil much of the landscape in the process.

Organization:
Every day, the Ms. Foundation for Women (MFW) helps over 100 organizations nationwide fight for changes like good paying jobs, reproductive health, ending violence against women and girls and the inclusion of women at decision-making tables. It  delivers funding, builds skills, develops leaders, connects activists with allies, and amplifies the voices of its grantees to create change that benefits women, families and communities.

Position Description:
MFW seeks a Marketing and Communications Specialist to support its e-marketing and communication efforts and related electronic and print communication programs.  S/he will support the Marketing and Communications department’s marketing efforts by acting as the brand steward and assisting in the redesign, maintenance and updating of MFW’s website; helping to develop and execute e-Marketing campaigns for MFW’s various constituents; and maintaining MFW’s presence on social networking websites including Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and others as required.

Additional tasks will include materials management and general marketing-material development; event support; fulfillment of information requests from internal and external audiences; photo and video research, editing and cataloguing; design; and writing and editing of marketing materials.

Key Areas of Responsibility:

• Maintain all aspects of MFW’s print marketing collateral (newsletters, annual reports, brochures, official publications, donor materials, reports, presentations, event materials, etc.);
• Collaborate with Program Officers on soliciting news, updates, and reports from our grantees to develop offline and online content;
• Contribute to the planning and implementation of a comprehensive, long-term online and offline marketing strategy;
• Conduct research and develop fact sheets and position papers;
• Serve as the brand steward for the organization
• Manage and respond to external requests of staff information, materials requests; photo and video requests – research, editing, production, etc.; and
• Working closely with the Creative Content Specialist, co-lead MFW’s e-communications by creating and executing e-marketing campaigns under the direction of the VP, Marketing and Communications;
• Working closely with the Creative Content Specialist help maintain the e-marketing database software system (Convio)
• Contribute to MFW’s website and social networking sites;
• Compile reports on MFW’s e-marketing and social media outreach;
• Manage the production of marketing materials and newsletters, both print and electronic;
• Provide event support; and
• Assist with internal communications initiatives.

Qualifications and Requirements:

• A bachelor’s degree in English, Marketing, Communications or another related field.
• Three to five years’ of relevant work experience with a demonstrated commitment to women’s issues and social change preferred.
• Exceptionally organized and possess the ability to manage multiple competing priorities.
• Self-starter and independent with the ability to work with minimal supervision.
• Experience with website content management systems, e-marketing software (preferably Convio), and design software such as Adobe Photoshop, InDesign and Illustrator.
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills.
• Knowledge of video and photographic production desirable.
• Positive, can-do attitude, demonstrated flexibility and solid team-player approach.

How to Apply:

Click this link to apply online.

The Organization:
The William Penn Foundation is a leading American philanthropy located in Philadelphia. With assets of approximately $2 billion, the Foundation is a vital part of the civic life of the Philadelphia region. It currently manages programs in: environment and communities; children, youth and families; and arts and culture. In 2011, the Foundation initiated a strategic planning process and hired its new President, Jeremy Nowak. The Foundation is charting a new direction and has created three new pivotal senior roles. These three leadership positions will contribute to the implementation of a robust new strategy that will be completed and become public in June 2012. The three new roles are: Director of Strategic Partnerships, Director of Grant Programs and Philanthropic Ventures, and Chief Knowledge Officer.

Position Description:
This new position, which reports to the president, will function as a critical member of the senior management team with oversight of emerging partnerships and an existing portfolio of external communications. Works closely with the President to collaborate with public and private institutional partners to increase philanthropic participation in the most promising social innovations. The Director will provide the strategic leadership and organize and deploy Foundation resources to develop relationships and drive partnerships that encourage the participation of major individual and institutional grantors. S/he will also oversee selected other external functions including corporate communications and information services in our areas of philanthropic expertise.

Responsibilities:

• Develop philanthropic strategies in partnership with Foundation President, Board members, and the senior management team
• Increase allocation of grant resources and philanthropic support for the Foundation’s work
• Leverage support with new and established funding sources
• Manage a portfolio of external prospects for programs and strategic collaborations
• Oversee the communications staff of the Foundation and related information services for philanthropic partners
• Manage a portfolio of high-level relationships, including direct and frequent communication through travel and visits
• Engagement of potential donors and partners within a wide range of program initiatives and opportunities
• Drive partnerships with public and private systems and manage opportunities through to successful conclusion

Qualifications:

• Graduate degree and 10 years of public and private sector experience
• Previous experience in positions leading collegial and highly collaborative projects
• Background in external communications
• Demonstrated leadership in implementing high profile strategic initiatives
• Experience driving multi-project tasks to successful delivery
• Solid knowledge of philanthropy and social enterprise
• Thorough project management experience and skills

Demonstrated Capabilities/Competencies:

• Ability to work with a sense of urgency
• Innovative use of knowledge resources for relationship development
• Exceptional strategic planning and execution skills
• Programmatic experience and the demonstrated capacity to articulate programs and impact
• Ability to infuse creativity, innovation and insight into prospect cultivation and project development
• Entrepreneurial spirit and creative approach to strategy development
• High degree of personal initiative incorporating innovation and vision
• Excellent communication skills; ability to interface with high net-worth and high profile individuals
• Strong collaboration/relationship building skills and ability to wield influence externally

How to Apply:

Submit cover letter and resume before March 12 to: sharla@leadrecruit.com with the subject line “Director of Strategic Partnerships”

The Organization:
The W.K. Kellogg Foundation (WKKF) is the nation’s fifth largest foundation and a leading philanthropic foundation partnering with communities to create the conditions vulnerable children need to be successful in school and in life communities.

In recent years WKKF has sharpened its focus on improving conditions for vulnerable children, concentrating on key factors of success and programmatic intersections across Education & Learning; Food, Health & Well-Being; and Family Economic Security in carefully identified communities.

WKKF embraces working within its place-based strategy. Employees engage at an eye-level with communities and have found that this maximizes impact and provides insight into what grantees and the foundation are hoping to achieve. By putting a strong emphasis on sharing this learning across the foundation and with the outside world, WKKF ensures that its investments also have impact well beyond the specific communities in which it partners. This “practical application of knowledge” is an important creative component of the work of the Communications Officer. Such contributions will be as important as grantmaking itself in helping to achieve WKKF’s mission, making this an exciting time to join a growing communications department in a dynamic, multidisciplinary framework at this premiere foundation. Beyond the traditional communications role, this Communications Officer will be expected to serve as a key liaison to WKKF staff, grantees, community partners and other stakeholders to articulate and advance WKKF’s mission, profile and voice.

Position Description:
WKKF seeks an innovative and resourceful Communications Officer who will enhance the ways in which the foundation works and communicates among staff, with its communities, grantees, partners, fellow funders, media, policy-makers, opinion leaders and other stakeholders.

Serving under the direction of the Vice President for Communications, the Communications Officer is responsible for managing a portfolio of communication projects, including some communications grantmaking; managing the work of communication professionals (agencies and contract support) in the foundation’s priority places (Michigan, Mississippi, New Mexico and New Orleans); collaborating with internal and external stakeholders to design, plan and implement communications campaigns and projects; implementing integrated communications strategies; providing communications support to grantees; and identifying and nurturing opportunities for affecting positive systemic change within

The ideal candidate will be an energetic, results-oriented, interdisciplinary thinker and team player able to translate concept into action and provide clarity of message through a broad range of strategic communications opportunities, e.g. public awareness campaigns, publications, conferences, media relations and social media. S/he will be an exceptional listener, with a client-service approach and proven ability to collaborate effectively with persons from diverse cultural, social, and ethnic backgrounds. S/he must possess the flexibility to adapt quickly to change in a demanding and intellectually challenging environment that requires handling multiple tasks around ambitious deadlines and on budget.

Successful candidates will be exceptional project managers with outstanding organizational skills and attention to detail; excellent written and verbal communication and presentation skills; and hands-on experience in the design, editing and production of electronic and print materials. S/he will possess 8-10 years of internal/external communications experience gained through working in one or more of the following organizations, e.g., agency, corporation and/or large non-profit institution. A bachelor’s degree in a relevant field (communications, marketing, journalism, English) is required and a master’s degree and/or an understanding of program design and development, systems, networking and community change as well as current knowledge of broad social and economic forces affecting communities and families, especially those who are poor and underserved, is desired.

Throughout the past six years, WKKF engaged in a comprehensive strategic planning process and a multi-year organizational assessment that resulted in a new strategic framework, a mission statement, a statement of values, a new place-based strategy and an internal process of identifying and validating the core convictions and aspirations that make the foundation unique. In concert with these changes and led by WKKF’s Vice President for Communications, the foundation embarked on a new identity campaign designed to provide insights and clarity around WKKF’s narrative and to provide a communications platform that is more focused, coherent, integrated, connected and aligned with WKKF’s long-term direction and goals. WKKF’s Communications Department is part of the fabric of the Foundation and takes a client service approach to working internally with foundation staff as well as supporting grantees and community partners with communications-driven program efforts.

Working at the W.K. Kellogg Foundation is both a great privilege and a great responsibility. Serving under the direction of the Vice President, the Communications Officer will join a high-performance team of client-focused individuals who partner with staff, grantees and other external stakeholders across WKKF programs, geographies, and initiatives to design, plan and implement communications campaigns and projects; implement integrated communications strategies; and identify and cultivate opportunities bring sustainable change to communities.

With a strong customer focus, the Communications Officer will:

• Develop and implement communication strategies that advance the critical work of assigned areas (e.g., program, place, element, approach) and project a clearly defined sense of WKKF’s mission, values, impact, shared achievements, policy goals, and aspirations.
• Lead efforts to develop and integrate clear and consistent messages.
• Determine opportunities for events that highlight efforts and successes.
• Represent the Foundation’s voice and profile to the outside world – to the news media, key influencers and thought leaders, grantees and employees – for assigned area of responsibility.
• Coordinate communications and outreach across all messaging platforms including print, web, social media and conferences to communicate with each of WKKF’s audiences – internally with foundation staff, and externally with grantees, community partners, fellow funders, media, policy makers, opinion leaders and the public.
• Integrate and coordinate messages and messaging.
• Manage communication agencies and resources to support the work, including all project management responsibilities.
• Write and edit content for various communications initiatives and manage supporting teams engaged in related initiatives.
• Partner with WKKF’s Learning and Innovation Team to think creatively about how to “package” knowledge in interesting ways — through videos, events, design and games, among others. Through the use of technology, strive to be more effective and creative in distributing knowledge to those who need and want it, in forms that fit their exact circumstances.
• Provide leadership for on-the-ground execution of communications-driven program efforts.
• Provide communication support as appropriate to grantees.
• Maintain strong, authentic relationships with grant seekers and grantees, ensuring understanding of WKKF program direction, goals, and expectations.
• Provide high-level technical assistance to grantees, including consultation on model development, partnership negotiations, leadership capacity building and coaching.
• Develop and maintain strategic relationships to leverage participation of other foundations, businesses, governmental agencies, and other key decision makers in alignment with WKKF core values and program interests.
• Screen and recommend grants for funding; prepare funding documents; conduct site visits; and manage and monitor grant portfolio.
• Actively develop and manage working relationships with key staff and external stakeholders.
• Build and cultivate relationships with program and operations staff to facilitate inter-connectedness and drive forward communications efforts.
• Facilitate effective linkages, teams and partnerships with external individuals and entities including public relations firms and those in the social media.

Qualifications:
This is an exciting opportunity for an innovative and collaborative professional to assist a premier organization with its ambitious communications and program goals.

WKKF is open to candidates whose skills and experience have been developed and proven in a variety of settings (e.g. large, complex non-profit organizations, agency, academia, corporate). A minimum of eight years of relevant communications experience with evidence of increased responsibility and a Bachelor’s degree in a relevant field (communications, marketing, journalism, English) are required; an advanced degree is preferred. Candidates with a comprehensive understanding of program design and development, systems, networking, and community change as well as current knowledge of broad social and economic forces affecting communities and families, particularly surrounding education reform are strongly encouraged to apply.

While no one person will embody all of the qualities enumerated below, the ideal candidate will possess many of the following professional and personal abilities, attributes and experiences:

• Broad experience in strategic communications, executing a range of communications initiatives (e.g. public awareness and education campaigns, conferences, publications social media), and media/public relations as well as significant successful experience dealing with regional and national media.
• Demonstrated ability to develop and implement communications strategies that have impact. The ability to think globally while working locally, representing WKKF to a variety of stakeholders and intermediaries in a credible and influential way and with a selfless manner focusing on values and the greater good.
• Excellent writing, editing, analytical, and oral communication skills including the ability to collect, review, synthesize, and present information across varied communications platforms. Experience coordinating with external agencies as well as hands-on experience in the design, editing, and production of electronic and print materials.
• Exceptional project management skills with the flexibility and capacity to adapt quickly, multitask and meet deadlines within demanding timeframes, and resourcefulness in setting priorities. Strong organizational skills and exceptional attention to detail with the ability to work both independently without close oversight, take initiative, and contribute ideas for enhancing performance.
• Accurate and current knowledge about trends, movements, and policy development (ideally surrounding education reform) to help advance national dialogue, translate concepts and data into digestible formats by a broad range of audiences and capitalize on emerging opportunities.
• Highly developed and active listening skills, a client-service orientation and strong relationship building skills; successful experience working as part of a multidisciplinary team and working effectively with persons from diverse cultural, social and ethnic backgrounds. Ability to use interpersonal and political skills in collaborative, diplomatic ways and a willingness to set aside a personal agenda in favor of organizational and/or community goals and objectives.
• Comfort with and the ability to work effectively within communities and in partnership with grantees, including appreciating historical contexts, discerning nuances of relationships and power dynamics, understanding racial/ethnic realities, and respecting community needs and desires.
• An optimistic outlook and the humor, integrity, and patience necessary to work within a transformative environment.

How to Apply:
Applications including a cover letter describing your interest and qualifications, your resume (in Word format), salary history and where you learned of the position should be sent to:  kf-co@nonprofitprofessionals.com.

To expedite the internal sorting and reviewing process, please type your name (Last, First) as the only contents in the subject line of your e-mail.

The W.K. Kellogg Foundation is an equal opportunity employer and proudly values diversity.

Candidates of all backgrounds are encouraged to apply.

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.”

According to Katya, many of us focus the power of our marketing and communications skills on what inspires external audiences while failing to apply the same care and consideration to colleagues whose buy-in is the first step in any viable campaign.

Katya first developed these concepts for a workshop I dropped in to grab footage from at the 2011 Communications Network Conference in Boston. Far and away the most engaged session, I attended, I was struck by how readily attendees could distill attributes of their colleagues in to archetypes like the “monkey” and the “genius.”

There was a lot of laughter in the session but it wasn’t at the expense of our colleagues.  Katya made clear she doesn’t mean these as derogatory terms but overblown stereotypes intended to capture the essence common workplace behaviors.  (She cops to having attributes of the monkey and the genius herself, as do I.)  She is suggesting that, once armed with insights gleaned by focusing on what tends to inspire our peers, we can share ideas in ways more likely to be embraced.

So when I asked Katya if what she is proposing is simply a way to manipulate others, she forcefully responded:

 “…understanding where another person is coming from — and connecting to their world view — is respectful.  That’s not manipulation.  And frankly, trying to convert someone to your worldview and just bulldozing forward your agenda in the name of authenticity, I don’t think that’s a good way of communicating.  It’s not respectful and it’s largely ineffective.”

Ouch.

I’ve justified a world of words under the banner of personal authenticity. This five-minute video is worth a listen if, like me, these days you are more interesting in simply winning the good fight.

Susan Herr, a regular Communications Network contributor, is president of PhilanthroMedia.

Organization:

Hispanics in Philanthropy (HIP) is a transnational network of more than 500 grantmakers, donors and philanthropic leaders who share a commitment to improving resources for the Latino civil sector, encouraging the participation of Latinos in philanthropy and increasing the effectiveness of philanthropy through greater equity and diversity. HIP designs and manages wide-impact, multi-site philanthropic programs. Its flagship program is the award-winning Funders’ Collaborative for Strong Latino Communities, which works to build the capacity of U.S. Latino nonprofit organizations to become more effective advocates for their constituencies and the greater Latino community. HIP, with a staff of 18, has national headquarters in San Francisco, regional offices in Miami, Mexico City and New York, and staff and consultants located in several states and the District of Columbia.

Position Description:
The Communications Manager is responsible for the planning and implementation of a marketing and communications plan for HIP that increases the visibility of the organization, raises awareness in the philanthropic sector about the unique needs and opportunities in Latino communities, and increases the visibility of Latino givers to expand philanthropic giving in Latino communities. He or she will play a leadership role in developing a communications strategy that maximizes engagement of institutional funders, individual donors, nonprofit organizations, and other partners through social media, online tools, and mobile technology. This will include positioning HIP as a key information hub for the Latino nonprofit and philanthropic sector, as well as laying the groundwork for facilitating and encouraging giving by and for Latinos through social media and mobile technologies.

The Communications Manager is responsible for communications about the organization as a whole and also works with representatives from the various offices at HIP to promote their specific projects and success. Specifically, the Communications Manager will set and guide the strategy for all communications, website, and public relations messages and collateral to consistently articulate HIP’s mission, and will work closely with leadership on a variety of strategic initiatives. The winning candidate will demonstrate a proven ability to develop smart messaging strategies and content in collaboration with other team members within a short turnaround time.

Key Responsibilities

• Plan and implement a marketing and communications plan for HIP, including a plan for the use of online tools, social media, and mobile technology to promote HIP’s organizational goals and mission.
• Coordinate development, distribution, and quality control of mass communications for all HIP offices, including HIP’s e-newsletter, web site, social media channels, press releases, and print materials.
• In collaboration with HIP program staff, develop messaging strategies and content related to HIP program activities, such as grant disbursements, events, trainings, and research publications.
• In collaboration with HIP development staff, develop messaging strategies and content related to HIP development activities, such as fundraising campaigns, membership solicitations, and events.
• Coordinate webpage and social media channel maintenance—ensure that new and consistent information (article links, stories, and events) is posted regularly.
• Evaluate the effectiveness of HIP’s communications, including the tracking and measurement the level of engagement through various channels over time.
• Manage all media contacts.
• Mentor and lead HIP staff and fellows in strengthening their writing and communications skills.

Qualifications:

• At least five years of demonstrated experience in an organizational communications setting, with hands-on experience in public relations, communication strategy, marketing and/or nonprofit management.
• Experience using social media, online tools, and/or mobile technology to promote organizational goals and mission.
• Experience managing complex and numerous projects concurrently.
• Strong leadership skills, with the ability to serve as a unifying force for coordination of communications activities, leveraging full participation and contributions to content from staff and volunteers across multiple programs, functions, and sites.
• Ability to take knowledge and transform it into exciting and useful messages, and disseminate final products to appropriate multi-stakeholder audiences.
• Strong writing, proofreading and copy-editing skills.
• Ability to be focused and detailed, meet deadlines and juggle multiple tasks, and work as part of a team, while maintaining the big picture and a sense of humor.
• Master’s degree in communications, computer sciences, public relations, business and marketing, public administration, or related area a plus, but not required.
• Ability to develop bilingual Spanish/English messaging a plus, but not required.
• Graphic design and/or web video editing and posting skills also a plus.

To Apply:

Please send cover letter, resume and brief writing sample to Hannah Winnick, preferably by e-mail, at hannahsw@hiponline.org, or mail to Hispanics in Philanthropy, 55 2nd Street, Suite 1500, San Francisco, CA 94105.

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.

Over the past decade or so, Northwest Health Foundation – board and staff included – has been working very hard to move “upstream” as forcefully and as deliberately as possible, to make the most of every philanthropic dollar it spends, and to apply each of those dollars toward efforts that most effectively reach social justice and health equity.

This is not about making sure program staff “loops us in” on their work. It’s about working in partnership on meaningful social change platforms. These platforms involve making sure our public health system is adequately funded (it is not), working so everyone in our state has access to a basic level of health care (they do not), reducing racial and ethnic health disparities (we have a long way to go), etc.

Your foundation may not be quite as outspoken about policy change, but isn’t all philanthropy about social change? And how can an organization be committed to social change without being fully committed to communications, media relations, and messaging your point of view everywhere it can?

What this means for me is not an environment where I am asking program staff to take communications seriously, but where I am constantly challenged – not only by program staff but even by many of our grantees – to take full advantage of every communications vehicle necessary to seek the broad policy and institutional changes that continue to elude us.

And the challenge goes both ways. More and more, my challenge to staff is to write op-eds, blog entries, and letters to editors. And because they take social change seriously, they take these challenges seriously. Some of our staff’s opinions on institutional racism, health care reform, junk food marketing to children and soda taxation can be found in our relatively new blog, and in newspaper opinion pages over the past couple of years.

Not long ago, two of our staff approached me with a challenge to tell our story around our work to promote health equity. What does health equity mean? What does a health equity grant look like? How to we talk about equity in a policy setting? Program dollars were applied to this project, which resulted in a series of videos and messages called “Perspectives on Equity,” which can be found here.

Local advocates have already started sharing the videos and using the messages, and it wouldn’t have happened if these two staff from the program and strategic planning side of our organization hadn’t provided me with the resources, the time and insight on their part, and mostly, the challenge, to get it done.

All this can make for a full plate of work. But that’s the way it is at a foundation that has more than money to offer, but also technical and strategic assistance, and yes, communications, all geared to help us all achieve a more just and equitable society.

When we’re aligned on that goal, or any goal for that matter, the communications-program issues evolve quickly from mere “respect” to the mutual challenge of getting “there” together.

Chris Palmedo is Director of Public Affairs for the Northwest Health Foundation in Portland, Ore.

Organization:
The mission of The Broad Center for the Management of School Systems is to raise student achievement by recruiting, training and supporting executive leadership talent from across America to become the next generation of urban school district leaders. The Center identifies talented leaders from education, business, the military, nonprofit organizations and government who have the passion, knowledge and skills to take on executive leadership roles in urban education. The Broad Center operates two primary leadership development programs: The Broad Superintendents Academy and The Broad Residency in Urban Education. The Broad Center is a flagship initiative of, and funded, by The Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation.

Position Description:
The Communications Director will report to the Executive Director of The Broad Center and his/her primarily role is to develop and lead The Broad Center’s media and communications initiatives in support of our mission and programs. The Communications Director will be responsible for developing and executing an overarching communications strategy for The Broad Center’s programs. He or she will be responsible for media relations, speechwriting, publicity, press and public events and writing and developing collateral materials for the Center.

Specific responsibilities include:

• Create and implement an aggressive and sophisticated annual communications strategy to ensure consistent, high-impact activities and messaging
• Increase national awareness and recognition for The Broad Center (and its programs) and our mission and results
• Improve our ability to communicate our key messages and beliefs to the Center’s core audiences
• Secure high-profile, national speaking engagements for The Broad Center senior team; research and write important and impactful speeches on a quick turnaround basis
• Develop and write opinion pieces that are insightful, topical and which generate debate, as well as assist members of The Broad Center network to develop and write opinion pieces
• Work closely with those leading the Center’s evaluation efforts to ensure data collection on results is done in a way that will provide value to key external audiences
• Establish strong relationships with key media that cover the activities of the Center; increase and deepen media coverage for the Center, its participants and alumni
• Provide media and communications training and support to Broad Center staff and network members
• Develop and execute communications strategies that continually strengthen the brand of the Center to our key constituents, including potential candidates for our programs, educators, policymakers, newsmakers, opinion-makers and the public at large

Strategies will include:

• Website
• Social media
• Recruitment collateral and mailings
• E-newsletters
• Other duties as necessary to ensure organizational success.

 Qualifications:

• At least eight years of professional experience in communications for a company or organization with strong name recognition and significant brand awareness and/or political or issues campaign experience
• Experience managing communications functions such as messaging, brand management, advertising, collateral materials, social media, website development and market research
• Exceptional track record in working effectively with the media, including demonstrated success in pitching and placing news articles, profiles and opinion pieces in local and national newspapers, TV, radio and Internet
• Ability to quickly grasp and synthesize complex issues
• Ability to execute on a number of diverse projects simultaneously; comfort with taking initiative and making progress amidst competing priorities
• Excellent judgment and political savvy; personal reputation for integrity and ethics
• Self-starter; highly motivated; hands-on professional
• Successful experience working in a fast-paced, dynamic, results-oriented team environment
• Superb verbal and written communications skills
• Comfort with and ability to use technology in a productive and efficient way including expert experience with Word, Excel, Outlook, Power Point, Twitter, Facebook, Flickr and Internet research. Command of Associated Press style and familiarity with Factiva, Burrelle’s, Cision, LexusNexus and ConstantContact
• Passion for improving K-12 education
• Undergraduate degree required; graduate degree preferred

How To Apply: 

The Broad Center has engaged Koya Leadership Partners to help in this hire. Please submit a compelling cover letter and resume to Brad Bauer here.

Organization:
The Ford Foundation supports visionary leaders and organizations on the frontlines of social change worldwide.

Position Description:

The Chief, Media Strategy and Influence plays the lead role in developing proactive and reactive media plans for the foundation as part of an overall communication strategy that helps advance social change in the U.S. and around the world. The Chief reports to the Director of Communications and plays an important and active role across the organization, working with talented program staff and outstanding communications colleagues on a fascinating array of national and global issues that affect hundreds of millions of people and lie at the heart of public debate.

The position requires a professional who knows how to work within a complex organization, find its best and most potent content, and successfully develop and place that content in targeted media in a way that conveys compelling ideas, fulfills strategic objectives, builds reputational capital, and advances the Ford Foundation brand.

The Chief, Media Strategy and Influence forms a team with other senior communications staff, and works closely with the Director and VP of Communication in guiding Ford leadership on key media issues and opportunities, and in working with the President to maximize his role as voice of the organization and its mission.

Areas of Work:

• Media Relationships: Developing and maintaining high-level and fruitful relationships with key media (10%)
• Proactive Strategic Outreach: Strategic thinking and forward planning as part of a team, with responsibility for developing and carrying out proactive media outreach that results in strategic news, feature and oped placements that advance foundation priorities, including in online and traditional venues (25%)
• Reactive Tactical Response: Responding to breaking news and identifying opportunities in public debate to highlight foundation initiatives and values. On the flip side, responding to critics in a timely and effective way (10%)
• Day-to-Day Management: Managing and executing day-to-day media relations, including prioritizing and managing multiple concurrent requests for support from journalists, program officers, and field offices (20%)
• Writing: Taking the lead on drafting strategic messaging, Q&As, background briefs, talking points, news releases (20%)
• Events & Training: Organizing press events and press conferences; scheduling and managing media coaching and training for program staff (5%)
• Brand Strategy: Working with the larger communications team in developing overall brand and strategic thinking and activities (10%)

Key Characteristics:
The foundation is seeking a talented and versatile colleague with experience in strategic media, breakthrough messaging, and sensitive issues management on both domestic and international fronts. You must bring at least eight years experience in strategic communications work, with an emphasis on building mindshare in public debate, and serious background in the nonprofit and/or public sector. Political experience preferred.

The candidate must be a superior writer and conceptual thinker with the capacity to develop and follow through on long-range plans while managing day-to-day demands. You must be able to maintain fruitful relationships with high-level journalists, bloggers, opinion writers and others in the global media. A demonstrated ability to interact successfully with internal and external partners in a complex environment is essential – in particular the ability to translate high-level technical thought into clear, compelling, and results-driven communications strategies and messages.

Other Qualifications:

• Excellent grasp of the evolving media environment, including new media, and the political, cultural and economic impact of the changing media landscape on non-profit communications
• Thorough familiarity with agenda-setting media organizations and journalists, both in the US and globally, and a proven ability to develop and execute media strategies that drive coverage and conversation and influence key audiences
• Nuanced understanding of efforts to advance democracy, human rights, economic development, free expression, and other areas that define the Foundation’s grant-making

Personal Qualities and Skills:

• Poise, professionalism, confidence and diplomacy
• Great networking in the media world and a zest for staying abreast of the news
• Passion for modeling excellence in communication; writing, speaking and presenting that is simple, clear, compelling and persuasive
• Politically savvy and aware; excellent judgment and discretion; trustworthy
• Detail-oriented and self-directed; yet able to work well in teams
• Leadership and capacity to mentor and bring out the best in others
• Personal commitment to the foundation’s mission and values

How to Apply:
Interested candidates should  contact Alfred Ironside, Director of Communications, Ford Foundation at a.ironside@fordfoundation.org.

The Organization:
The Mountain Association for Community Economic Development (MACED) is a 35 year-old multi-strategy sustainable economic development organization that seeks to create economic alternatives that work for people and places in need in Central Appalachia and Kentucky. MACED’s long-term goals are a strong and diverse economy; increased family well-being, particularly for low-income people; healthy and protected land, air and water; and an effective and accountable democracy.

MACED is a fast-paced, dynamic and growing organization with a 32-person staff that manages $21 million in total assets. The organization focuses its efforts on sustainable development and change strategies that generate economic and environmental benefits to people and places. These strategies include: 1) providing financial capital and expertise to individuals, businesses and communities, 2) conducting research and engaging in effective communications to support good public policy, and 3) demonstrating effective community economic development efforts that make a difference. MACED has recently completed a new strategic plan that focuses on two sectors (new energy and sustainable forestry), deepens our commitment to entrepreneur and enterprise development, and promotes the development of a new economic vision in Appalachia and Kentucky.

Position Description:
MACED is looking for a highly motivated and experienced communications professional to join its staff as the communications director. This senior position will lead MACED’s efforts to more effectively communicate about our work; increase our ability to influence thinking about development and policy in our region, state and beyond; and market our programs more successfully. Central to this position are a commitment to MACED’s vision and long-term goals along with experience and expertise in the communications field. The communications director will coordinate our communications team and staff; lead the development and management of a communications strategy; oversee MACED-wide communications; and support communications at the program level. The communications director serves on MACED’s management team and is supervised by the president.

Progress toward MACED’s long-term goals requires effective communications. MACED must be able to tell the story of our work, engage in public education and debate about important issues, and reach people and businesses to involve them in MACED’s programs. This new position will provide additional capacity needed to develop a clearer and more coherent communication strategy and increase the volume of effective communications carried out by the organization and its programs.

For MACED as a whole, additional communications capacity and leadership will help strengthen our brand and enhance existing communications vehicles while developing new ways to reach our audiences. The Kentucky Center for Economic Policy (KCEP) will receive a special focus from this position. KCEP is a state-wide MACED initiative that conducts research and advocacy around state fiscal and economic policy issues. The initiative relies heavily on communications to get the word out about research and influence public and decision maker opinions on policy issues. MACED’s demonstration and enterprise development programs rely on effective marketing to generate demand for products including financing and technical assistance. The Appalachian Transition Initiative is a communications effort aimed at fostering public conversation about the region’s evolving future. The communications director will add value to these diverse efforts by helping make our communications clearer, louder and more compelling.

Approximately fifty percent of the communications director’s time will be devoted to the overall MACED communications strategy and organization-wide efforts. Thirty percent will involve program level support and twenty percent will be committed to communications support for the Kentucky Center for Economic Policy. The communications director will coordinate a communications team and will supervise one staff member along with communications contractors.

The duties and responsibilities of the communications director include but are not limited to the following:

Develop and Manage Communications Strategy:

• Facilitate development of MACED communications goals, approach and strategy.Ensure alignment of communications with MACED’s overall mission, vision, goals and five-year plan.
• Coordinate brand development and facilitate brand coherence and flexibility as appropriate across the organization.
• Coordinate the MACED communications team.
• Supervise communications staff and contractors.
• Build the communications capacity and skills of other MACED staff.
• Serve on the MACED management team.

Oversee MACED-wide Communications:

• Manage website design, development and maintenance and increase web audience.
• Oversee expanded social media presence.
• Cultivate relationships with media and develop stories to pitch to media outlets.
• Strengthen contact management systems.
• Develop systems to capture stories of our work in order to document impact and communicate impact to others.
• Oversee design and production of organizational materials including newsletter, impact report and collateral materials.
• Engage in content development including copywriting, layout and production.
• Work with development staff to integrate communications and fundraising.

Support Program Communications Efforts:

• Provide communications support to the Kentucky Center for Economic Policy.
• Provide communications assistance to research and policy team’s other issue campaigns.
• Work with programs to develop and implement marketing plans.
• Support documentation of program work to assist in evaluation and promotion efforts.
• Cooperatively engage in content development and production of program materials including copywriting, editing and design of publications and materials.

Minimum Qualifications and Characteristics:

Knowledge and experience:

• Commitment to sustainable development and to economic, environmental and social justice; five to seven years of work experience in communications, public relations, marketing, journalism and/or advocacy; minimum of a four-year college degree in journalism, communications or a related field; strong design skills and aesthetic sensibilities; broad knowledge of the communications field and experience in production using a variety of media; understanding of marketing; successful experience in supervision and group facilitation; able to work successfully on a team with diverse members.

Personal characteristics:

• Highly self-motivated; highly creative; commitment to strategic thinking and innovative action; ability to both lead and collaborate effectively; well-organized, attentive to detail, and able to work on multiple projects at once; keen sense of humor
• Technology and software: Strong computer skills and strong knowledge of communications-related software.

Communications:

• Strong writing skills; strong interpersonal communication skills.

Physical:

• Close vision with or without corrective lenses necessary for computer work; manual dexterity needed to operate computer; ability to perform assigned duties in a time-efficient manner; valid driver’s license.

Preferred Qualifications and Characteristics:

• Graduate degree in journalism, communications or a related field; experience working in non-profit organizations and in advocacy efforts; knowledge of the Appalachian region and Kentucky; knowledge of economic development and development finance; knowledge of contact management systems.

How to Apply:

Please e-mail your resume, three references and a cover letter specifically explaining why you are a good fit for this position to commdirector@maced.org. Application review will be on-going and continue until the position is filled. For more information about MACED visit www.maced.org.

The position offers a competitive salary, based on experience, plus a generous benefits package. Position is based in Berea, Kentucky. Berea is a beautiful, small college town, an hour south of Lexington, on the edge of the Appalachian region. MACED is an equal opportunity employer.

The Organization:
The Global Buildings Performance Network  (GBPN) is a first of its kind regionally organized global partnership advancing knowledge and expertise through an international network. We support building energy policies globally in order to achieve the abatement potential of the building sector. Specifically, GBPN:

• Promotes best practice policy packages for building energy efficiency and low carbon performance;
• Offers world class energy efficiency expertise to policy makers and business leaders; and
• Advances designs, policies and programs that promote low GHG, energy efficient buildings worldwide.

Position Description:

The GBPN is looking for a highly skilled and dynamic Global Communications Manager to serve as a core member of the organization’s senior team. The successful candidate will be an experienced global communications professional committed to the mission of the GBPN, with past experience leading an ambitious and effective communications program.

The Communications Manager will work in a variety of media and with a diverse array of private and public sector stakeholders, both domestically and internationally. The Manager will help shape and implement the internal and external global communications strategy for the organization and provide guidance on all communications matters to the GBPN executive team. During the first year of engagement, the Communications Manager will serve as the project manager for all startup communications activities, including the management of outside vendors and the development of the communications protocol for the GBPN’s regional hubs. The Communications Manager will report to the Executive Director of the organization and work closely with the Technical Director and Operations and Finance Director in the GBPN’s Paris office. This position will require independent work, some international travel, and interactions with leaders in energy policy and building performance.

Primary Duties and Responsibilities

The Global Communications Manager will perform the following and other duties as assigned:

• Work with consultants and the executive team to guide the development, implementation, monitoring, and revision of the internal and external communications strategies for the organization.
• Manage external consultants to develop the look, feel, and branding of the organization on and offline.
• Manage network communications and internal stakeholder relations, including production of the GBPN’s monthly e-newsletter and online news.
• Work collaboratively with the communications and program staff in regional hubs to ensure coordinated and consistent communications, including the development of common guidelines and quality assurance protocols for all GBPN publications and online content.
• Lead the drafting, editing, and management of creative and impactful written work products targeted at multiple global audiences including funders, business leaders, policy makers, technical experts, and professionals in the buildings sector.
• Work with program staff to develop and publish content for the GBPN’s website and online presence.
• Serve as the lead media contact for the GBPN.
• Develop and manage the communications budget for the organization.
• Supervise any communications or knowledge management personnel at the global center in Paris.
• Assist with other outreach activities as needed, including event planning and management, publicity, social media, and graphic design.

Qualifications & Experience:

The successful applicant will have the following qualifications:

• 5+ years experience in a similar role, such as communications strategy, journalism, web/blogs/new media, public relations, political campaigns, publishing, etc., with at least 2 years international experience
• Bachelor’s degree or equivalent required, post-graduate qualifications in media/communications preferred
• Experience developing and successfully implementing a complex communications strategy, particularly for a startup organization or new program
• Experience implementing global communications efforts and adapting communication strategies for a variety of international audiences and media markets.
• Exceptional writing, editing, and communications skills in English and in a variety of formats (e.g., web, print publications, briefing papers, press releases), proficiency in additional languages preferred, particularly Mandarin, Spanish, or French.
• Experience pitching, networking with, and responding to reporters, bloggers, and media contacts
• Experience working in service to a broad range of clients and stakeholders
• Superb attention to detail and organizational skills
• Ability to work under pressure, prioritize, and be flexible, experience managing complex, global teams a plus
• Professionalism, poise and the ability to work as part of a team, maintain a sense of humor, and interact with a diverse array of people
• Working knowledge of current climate and energy debates, the buildings sector, climate or energy economics, international policy, and/or work with multinational institutions a plus

How To Apply:

CEA Recruiting is assisting GBPN with the search. Use this link to CEA’s website  to submit a resume, cover letter, and salary requirements. Resumes received by February 17, 2012, will be considered for the first round of interviews.

The Global Buildings Performance Network is an equal opportunity employer.

CEA Recruiting works with leading environmental nonprofits, foundations, and businesses to recruit top talent and design effective organizational staffing strategies.

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Now, with more and more organizations shifting to online publishing, the resulting “publications” are beheld and experienced in different ways than their former print counterparts.

As we recently explored in a Communications Network webinar, online publishing is also moving far beyond simply uploading a pdf version of a print document. Instead, the ability to add video, link to other information sources and even invite users to read and post comments, provide opportunities to create online publications that contain content that is both informative and engaging.

The webinar, hosted by Mitch Hurst, a Communications Network board member and founder of the MH Group, features a presentation by Michael Hoffman, CEO of See3 Communications, a Chicago-based online strategy firm. Hoffman shares examples of different kinds online publications, including new approaches some organizations are taking to the traditional annual reports. He also discusses new and emerging publishing platforms, such as Treesaver, that can help “spruce up” your online publications and make sure they display just as well on a tablet or smartphone as they do on a desktop computer.

To watch the webinar, click the image below.

Let us know how your publications are changing and what you are learning from your work.

Organization:
The Hogg Foundation for Mental Health advances mental wellness for the people of Texas as an impactful grantmaker and catalyst for change.

Position Description:
The Public Affairs specialist is responsible for producing high-quality, professional, engaging communications materials such as news releases, newsletters, brochures, and website and social media content. Other responsibilities include:

• Assisting in developing and implementing integrated communications strategies to engage policy makers, advocacy groups, consumers and family members, foundations and other stakeholders.
• Assisting in maintaining the foundation’s website, blog and social media on a daily basis. Assists in monitoring public engagement on the foundation’s social media sites and responding as needed.
• Producing monthly reports for website and social media tools to track and evaluate communications.
• Contributing ideas for stories and related visual content, including graphic images, videos and photographs.
• Developing and editomg content provided by others.
• Assisting in producing the Daily Clips email newsletter by researching and contributing articles and distributing newsletter daily.
• Representing the foundation at external meetings and developing positive professional relationships with DDCE and university communications staff and other foundation stakeholders and constituents.
• Coordinating with internal and external subject matter experts and stakeholders to ensure accuracy and appropriate messaging of communications materials.
• Gathering and verifiing accuracy of information used in online and print materials.
• Serving as media liaison in absence of the communications manager and on specific projects as assigned.

Required Qualifications:

• Bachelors degree in communications, journalism or a related field.
• At least two years of professional experience in communications, media relations, public affairs or a related position.
• Demonstrated ability to write quality materials and content for print and online publication.
• Experience in developing and managing content for an organization’s online media, including websites, blogs, e-newsletters and social media sites.
• Experience with media relations. Demonstrated ability to meet deadlines while producing quality communications materials.
• Excellent oral and written communication skills and professional demeanor.
• Equivalent combination of relevant education and experience may be substituted as appropriate.
• Equivalent combination of relevant education and experience may be substituted as appropriate.

Preferred Qualifications:

• Experience working for a nonprofit or philanthropic organization, an agency providing mental health or health services, or an organization focused on mental health or health topics and issues.
• Experience in graphic design and production for print or online communications.
• Familiarity with various media organizations and journalists, both in Texas and the U.S.

How to Apply:
Visit the University of Texas website for the complete job description and follow the instructions for applying online.

As social media becomes more ubiquitous organizations need to better understand how their issues are being influenced in online conversations. There’s a lot of talk about “listening” to discussions taking place online and, particularly for organizations that serve broad constituencies, monitoring social media to gain a better understanding of how issues are playing out.

Before Twitter and Facebook and other social networks launched, it took organizations considerable effort to gain an understanding of where their audiences or communities stood on their issues, or to understand what issues they deemed important. Whether through polling, focus groups, community meetings, or other feedback loops, organizations had to spend considerable time and energy to understand the landscape on which they were operating.

Without applying too much magic to the often messy and increasingly complex world of social networking, and understanding that offline influence doesn’t map directly to online activity, there are new opportunities for organizations to mine the online space to better understand sentiments about their issues and to identify strategies for constructive online participation.

Tools to monitor the online space – social networks, blogs, mainstream media – are becoming increasingly sophisticated and can provide sharp pictures of the content and interactions taking place about specific issues and organizations. These can be used for initial scans to gain an understanding of the current landscape and also for ongoing monitoring to track the direction of conversations.

Grantmaking foundations, for instance, can gain an understanding of how they may or may not be influencing the issues on which they are focused, or how active their grantees are in participating in online discussions. Community foundations can gain a deeper understanding of the key influencers in their communities and how community problems and solutions to those problems are being discussed.

Opportunities exist for program staff, in particular, to deepen their understanding of how their grantmaking issues are being captured, who the key influencers are, and how they might shape online communications initiatives that help further their programmatic goals.

Grantmaking foundations have traditionally lagged behind other sectors when it comes to utilizing shiny new technology tools for communications and public outreach. This has hurt their ability to monitor issues and develop strategies to react in ways that ensure their voices are being heard. Sophisticated new online monitoring tools, and the expertise to interpret the data and develop strategies for online participation and outreach, go a long way toward leveling the playing field for foundations and their grantees and increasing their impact on the issues they care about.

Some good resources about social media monitoring tools can be found here, here, and here. A good Wiki that includes information about both free and paid tools can be found here.

Communications Network board member Mitch Hurst is founder of MH Group.

Last big improvement to your website?
We launched a new site in 2011, which took Barr to a new level of transparency and clarity about our work. It also gave us new ways to feature grantees.

An interesting communications project you’re working on?
One of Barr’s major focus areas is climate change. Even though this is a global challenge, Barr is focused on Boston and Massachusetts. We believe what happens locally can push the national conversation. So, we are starting conversations about what it would take to raise the national media profile of the local work.

Last nonfiction book you read?  The take-away?
Half the Sky. The takeaway? That the world is a brutal, exploitative, limiting place for far too many women. Investments in setting that right have about the highest ROI imaginable.

“Networks” is a word that comes up frequently on your site. What role do networks play in your communications?
Barr has been focused on networks for a long time and communications not long at all, so the question I am actually trying to answer is what role communications plays in our network efforts. We are increasingly looking at ways to embed communications from the beginning and throughout network efforts.

Are you engaging with social media?
Barr does not have any social media profiles – though I have a few personally. I like Twitter best as a listening tool. I devote 5% of my time at most.

Favorite communications tool more foundation folks should take advantage of?
The telephone.

Do you evaluate communications?
Not yet, though we intend to begin in 2012. I’d love to hear from Communications Network members what methods they use.

When you were 13, what did you want to be when you grew up?
An English teacher.

What aspect of Barr’s work has received greater public attention than any other, and how did that happen?
The Barr Fellowship. It happened because these are amazing people with amazing stories.

Do you do an annual communications plan?
Not a communications plan, per se, but detailed work plans for every program staff. As we pull these together, we flesh out where communications opportunities are in their portfolios, and I make sure I understand any major initiatives where they’ll be depending on me.

Has the foundation ever talked publicly about a failure?
Yes. Our Executive Director recently spoke to a group of Massachusetts education leaders. She started the talk with reflections on a failed strategy. It is on our site here.

Does your foundation blog?
We don’t have a blog, though the “News and Knowledge” area of our site is blog-like in look and feel – short posts, regular updates, organized by topics, etc., all shareable on social media.

Another foundation whose communications work you admire?
The Boston Foundation. They are as aggressive and out front communicating on issues as Barr is not. Even if we don’t always agree with the positions they take, I appreciate the role they play in fueling a robust public discourse.

Most memorable take-away from the Communications Network’s Fall conference in Boston last September?
Swanee Hunt’s challenge to “fall in love with your audience.”

Biggest complaint about how the media covers your issues?
In general, the media hasn’t helped get us past confusion and policy gridlock on climate.

Got a novel deep down inside you?
No, but I have a play.

A Quick Word With… is edited by Michael Hamill Remaley, Vice President of Communications & Public Policy, Philanthropy New York, and a frequent Communications Network contributor.

If you’d like to suggest someone for a future profile, please use this form.

Social media has great power to connect people within and across communities–geographic communities, communities of practice and interest and communities of faith and belief. How are nonprofit organizations mining these connections to achieve their missions? Crowdsourcing is often the answer.

Ever hear of Kiva, Ushahidi, Kickstarter, or the Crisis Commons? How about Wikipedia or Pepsi Refresh? Given the ubiquity of these programs, most of us have already connected in some way with the power of crowdsourcing. A term coined by Jeff Howe in a 2006 Wired magazine article, crowdsourcing is the act of sourcing tasks that are usually performed by individuals to a large group through an open call.

Let’s examine some of the ways that nonprofits are using crowdsourcing. 

The first order of business for many nonprofits is raising the money needed to work toward their mission. Crowdsourcing has become a powerful fundraising mechanism, especially for small and start-up projects. Kiva is a widely-known, micro-lending website that allows people anywhere to make loans to entrepreneurs around the world. By tapping into the generosity and investments of donors in developed countries, Kiva is changing the lives of thousands of hardworking men and women in the developing world. It has a 98% repayment rate and makes more than $1 million worth of loans each week to people like Mohannad, a 24-year-old grocer in the Palestinian territories, or Ada Luz, a young mother selling baby clothes and toys in Peru.

Less well-known is Kickstarter.com, through which arts and cultural projects seek funding through crowdsourcing. An example is See Savannah Art Walls (SeeSAW), co-founded by Savannah artists James Zdaniewski and Matt Hebermehl. SeeSAW seeks out artists, neighborhoods and property owners who are willing to work together to create public art. Kickstarter is currently raising money for a “muralcle on 34th street”–a rotating mural on a wall near downtown Savannah. At the time of this article,, it has raised almost $2500 of its $5000 goal from 51 backers.

All across the United States, communities are launching special “giving days” or “match days” to draw the power of the crowd into providing funds for nonprofits. Colorado Gives Day raised $12 million in December 2011, and GiveMN has raised over $48 million in the last two years.

Another goal for many organizations is fostering the sharing and aggregation of information. Ushahidi provides a free, open-source program that helps people collect and map information, often related to the effects of natural disasters. “Ushahidi,” which means “testimony” in Swahili, was initially developed to map reports of violence in Kenya after the post-election fallout at the beginning of 2008. Ushahidi received funding from the Knight Foundation’s News Challenge. Knight sponsors numerous similar projects, including Safecast.org, which crowdsourced information on radiation levels in Japan after its devastating earthquake and tsunami. Another tool called Crisis Commons offers key resources to first responders in natural disasters.

Crowdsourcing is commonly used in the software development community: developers will often have on-line “hackfests” where they crowdsource the development of a particular software solution. The philanthropic sector is putting this energy to work in the area of healthcare reform. Last year, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation sponsored the Blue Button contest to encourage software developers around the world to create programs that would make medical records available at the touch of a button.

Community development is another place where crowdsourcing is gaining traction. The Community Foundation of Greater Birmingham used the Prize2theFuture contest to crowdsource ideas for creating “something cool and vibrant” on one city block in downtown Birmingham, Alabama. It received more than 1,100 submissions from individuals and design teams in 39 countries, vastly exceeding any expectations.

Gathering the “wisdom of the crowd” to select prizewinners gives nonprofits the opportunity to heighten awareness and draw in new supporters. Thousands of nonprofits have raised funds and awareness through the Pepsi Refresh challenge, launched when PepsiCo decided to take the $20 million it would have spent on Super Bowl advertising and invest it in community groups. On a local scale, the Brooklyn Community Foundation sponsored the Do Gooder Awards, which drew 250 nominations of local leaders and 300,000 votes. “The Nobel Prize, Brooklyn-style” will be repeated this year after its huge initial success.

These disparate examples demonstrate how nonprofit organizations and leaders in local communities and across the world are harnessing the incredible power of the social media revolution. Our motivation to gather through new communications technology is the same motivation that used to draw neighbors to a barn raising. The tools we’re using are certainly different–we bring our dollars and voices and smart phones, instead of hammers and saws. And the barn we’re raising might be in Japan or Peru, Savannah or Birmingham, or even a place down the street. Still, we know that if we pull together, the job will get done, and we’ll have a sense of working as a community for something we all value.

–Rebecca Arno

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.

Google's new analytics dashboard.

The biggest change is an effort on Google’s part to emphasize common sense and meaningful measurements. Web analytics had always, for the most part, been built around the way servers dish up content, and measured things accordingly. I remember discussions all the way back in the 90s about “hits” evolving into visitors, visits and page views.

Hits, as we thought of them then, were recorded any time a server got a request for any piece of content. The problem was that some web pages had tons of individual elements, so someone looking at one particularly cluttered page would be measured as dozens or hundreds of requests. This turned into a more meaningful measurement of page views, but even this fell flat as questions developed around who was coming to a given site, and then later, whether it was their first time there, where they came from, how many pages they looked at—all the metrics Google now captures.

These core indicators (visitors, visits and page views) are still very much at the heart of the new Google Analytics. What’s changed, though, is the ability to more easily drill down into them to figure out what they mean and how they relate to each other, a deeper look at audience behavior, important context around what may be going on underneath the numbers and, most importantly, ways to measure engagement.

It’s more important then ever to define goals and figure out what you want to measure.

At a session hosted last spring by Public Policy Communicators of New York City, Greg Olson, a Google rep from Boston, started an overview with a simple question: what’s important for you to measure? I thought he put it very succinctly: Don’t try to derive meaning from the numbers. Define first what’s significant and then detail how you want to track those factors over time.

I’m often asked questions like, “I get 10,000 page views per month. Is this good?” or “How many Twitter followers should I have?” The answer will vary depending on what sort of organization we’re talking about, how its audience behaves and whether they’re following best practices—but the question is wrong. Think instead in practical terms.

Here are a few questions that may be helpful in getting some initial perspective on what to measure:

• How often do you update your website? If it’s less frequently than once a week, it’s unrealistic to expect high traffic; visitors will find you and return to your site to consume new content. Frequent website updates aren’t necessary for every organization and shouldn’t be forced, so be realistic about who will come to see what you’ve got if it doesn’t change all that much.
• Is your site well integrated with social media? Even if your organization elects not to be on Facebook, Twitter, or other services, you should still provide a means of sharing your content via email and social networks.
• How many entry points do you have to your website? The more incoming links you have to your website, whether on your own social media or from other sites, the better, obviously. More entry points mean more traffic but, most importantly, traffic from diverse sources.
• What do you really want people to do on your site? Is it most important that they know about your core mission, or do you want them to read and consume a lot of content? How important is it to you that your visitors share what they find on your site? (Here, too, be realistic: we’d all love for someone to read every bit of content we put up, but it’s pretty respectable if visitors consume 3-5 pages on a typical visit for most sites.)
• Do you want visitors to spend time on your site, or is it your main goal to send them elsewhere?
• Do you have multimedia like videos and interactive presentations? What are your goals in terms of how you want these to be consumed and shared?

Thinking about these larger topics won’t give you a list of numbers to shoot for, but if you consider these issues, they will help you focus on the measurements that actually matter to you, rather than looking at a number and wondering if it’s good or bad.

Think in terms of audience, where they came from, and what they’re consuming.

That’s how Google has organized the new Google Analytics suite, and it works.

“Audience” gives you an overview of your visitors, and this is probably the most familiar report for those used to previous versions of Google Analytics. Here you get all the basic metrics everyone talks about (visits, visitors, page views and a few others), in the context of visits. Other reports in this area look at demographics, about which Google now provides even more in-depth information, like geography and language); behavior (whether visitors are new or returning, how often they visit and how much content they consume per visit); technologies they’re using; and reports around mobile and social media usage.

The new "visitors flow" traffic visualization tool.

In this area of its new version, one of the most interesting tools Google now offers is a report called “visitors flow.” This report diagrams, visually, where your visitors came from and where they entered your site, but most interestingly, what their path was once they arrived. You can magnify the diagram and increase the number of connections it shows to zoom in on a very significant level of detail. This is the kind of thing you can spend hours exploring if you’re not careful. Think of it as a visual reference for the numbers, so you can get a quick look at what content is really working and the connections your visitors make between sections of your site.

“Traffic sources” provides in-depth looks at where visitors are coming from, and this is particularly important if you’re doing any sort of external promotions, be they link shares with other organizations, links back to your site from social media or advertising or key word buys for your organization. The “content” area allows you to look at traffic from the lens of the particular content your visitors are consuming. You can look for particular pages or see an overview of what’s most popular.

The new real time view allows you to see who's on your site right now.

There’s even a real-time view that allows you to see who’s on your site right now, what search terms brought them to you and where they’re coming from.

You can now easily share customized dashboards of metrics with others in your organization.

Google now provides a way to make multiple dashboards that you can share using a link and it also allows you to set up automatic emails of summary reports to designated people.

That  really helps one of the most difficult aspects of dealing with analytics within your organization: which information to share with whom and how. With this new feature, you can set up high-level reports for executives, specific reports for program staff and even summaries you can share outside your organization.

Have you had experiences with the new Google analytics?  Let us know what’s been most helpful to you.  Questions are welcome, too.

Jai Sen (@jai_sen) is a digital media strategist based in New York City.

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.”

To Oliphant, the word countdown should have a different meaning to those of us in the business of building a better world. He thinks we would be better served to regard countdown as a reminder that we don’t have unlimited time to accomplish our work.

I agree. In fact, I’d argue that his talk should remind all of  us in communications that words not only matter, but more so in the context they’re used. Also, who better than people who work in communications to help their organizations amplify the message that the work they do and causes they support are extremely urgent and there’s much yet to be done before the clock runs out.

When the countdown begins, count us in.

–Bruce Trachtenberg

When trustees of the  Mary Black Foundation decided to tackle teen pregnancy in the communities of Spartanburg County, South Carolina, they did what they usually do: make grants.

From the period between 2009-2011, the foundation committed $200,000 in multi-year grants to efforts that ensure high quality teen pregnancy prevention programs are available to the youth of Spartanburg; train parents and trusted adults to have open conversations with their children about love, sex, and relationships; and increase access to condoms and contraceptives.

But staff also saw this program area as an ideal opportunity to deepen the impact of the foundation by integrating strategic communications into its work.

Communications was still relatively new at the foundation, as Cate Ryba had only joined Mary Black as the first communications officer in 2009.

After exploring multiple options, the foundation decided early in 2011 to create a social media campaign, anchored by web videos, featuring local community advocates talking about the topic.  The resulting campaign, “Speak Out, Spartanburg,” included the usual suspects: a school board, pastor and corporate leader.

But based on a belief that messages directed to youth would be more effective if driven by youth, Ryba and the Foundation’s sole program officer, Curt McPhail, conducted a series of focus groups with youth to hone the campaign’s focus. Afterward, they recruited eight of the focus group members and charged them with the task of producing pregnancy prevention videos aimed at their peers.

The squad of students came to the foundation’s offices weekly from September and December 2011 to produce the resulting six videos.  Because they starred, participants were also motivated to tap their own networks to disseminate the videos throughout Spartanburg.

McPhail, thinks that having “these extra tools in its toolbox” better positions the foundation to create deeper relationships in the relatively small community it serves. As a result of this effort, Ryba also got the chance to hone video skills, which she intends to deploy more broadly to support the foundation’s work.

To learn more about the project, lessons both program and communications staff learned and to see samples of the teen-produced work, watch the accompanying videos.

Susan Herr, a regular Communications Network contributor, is president of PhilanthroMedia.

The Organization:

World Wildlife Fund (WWF) is the largest network of multinational conservation organizations in the world. WWF works in 100 countries and is supported by 1.2 million members in the United States and close to 5 million globally. WWF acts at every level, from local to global, to ensure the delivery of innovative solutions that meet the needs of both people and nature.

The Arctic is one of 19 priority regions supported by WWF-US. The WWF-US Arctic Field Program contributes to the goals of a Global Arctic Program: conservation of Arctic ecosystems, species, and cultural values. Our strategies include science-based planning that incorporates climate change considerations, promoting stewardship in Arctic governance, and advocating for responsible practices, including marine protection, in the shipping and offshore oil development sectors. The US Arctic Field Program pursues these goals through three main initiatives:

• Fish Forever: WWF focuses on protecting habitat for wild salmon in priority areas such as Alaska’s Bristol Bay and Russia’s Kamchatka Peninsula, advocating for sustainable fishing practices and the reduction of bycatch in Bering Sea fisheries, and promoting measures to protect the integrity and productivity of key marine and coastal ecosystems.
• Arctic Oceans Protection: WWF argues for preventing offshore oil and gas development until adequate oil spill response technology is in place, sensitive areas are protected, and critical gaps in our understanding of these Arctic ecosystems have been filled.
• Arctic Bridge: WWF staff work across the maritime boundaries of the Chukchi, Beaufort, and Bering Seas to engage communities, NGOs, and partners in conserving trans-boundary species and marine ecosystems.

Position Description:

WWF seeks an External Affairs Manager to provide key support for the Arctic Field Program’s conservation strategy through communications and development. The ideal candidate is a skilled communications and/or fundraising professional, with experience working in Alaska on natural resource use issues, creativity, and passion for conservation. The Manager will work in a variety of media and with a diverse array of private and public sector stakeholders. The Manager will report to the Managing Director of the WWF-US Arctic Field Program and will work closely with the WWF-US communications and development teams.

Primary Duties and Responsibilities
The External Affairs Manager will perform the following and other duties as assigned:

• Develop local and regional communications strategies for Alaska’s Arctic Field Program. Identify opportunities to communicate externally about global Arctic issues/events to bolster WWF’sconservation and fundraising efforts in Alaska.
• Work with the Alaska team to identify key opinion leaders in Alaska on selected issues and develop a strategy to influence those individuals.  Develop annual communication plans for WWF projects in the Arctic (including Beaufort-Bering- Chukchi and Kamchatka).
• Work closely with senior Alaska team members to plan events, timelines, and decision-making processes relative to OCS leasing, Pebble Mine, species, and fisheries management processes. Assist with fundraising and donor communications. Oversee the preparation of special donor reports. In coordination with WWF-US development officers, support the Managing Director (MD) in cultivating relationships with key financial partners inside and outside Alaska. Meet on a regular basis with the MD and the VP of Development to develop and update an ambitious fundraising strategy.
• In accordance with plans developed with Alaska and DC staff, prepare press releases and advisories, conduct direct outreach with local media representatives, and write opinion pieces in anticipation of and in reaction to policies in state and federal agencies. Write occasional blog posts or facilitate staff blog posts and program updates. Develop and maintain regular contact with Alaska and North Pacific media outlets, selected donors, and partners for the Arctic Field Program.
• Communicate with Alaska and Russia teams to understand progress and setbacks. Monitor new technical information, policy developments, issues, and trends related to key conservation issues. Work closely with the Managing Director to monitor and report on overall progress toward conservation goals.
• Provide feedback (and coordinate Alaska team feedback) to the WWF-US communications and marketing staff on external communications products. Look for opportunities to keep the Arctic and Bering Sea featured regularly in WWF publications and other products (annual report, catalog, FOCUS, Arctic Circle, and Pulse).
• Identify specific opportunities to heighten the profile of WWF within Alaska and garner support from partners for WWF conservation goals.
• Overall, coordinate closely with core WWF teams, including Alaska, HQ communications, Global Arctic Program communications, marketing, development, and government relations. As appropriate, coordinate with WWF Russia and other Arctic offices’ communications staff.
• Provide input on communications opportunities and strategy during project development.  Support WWF-US marketing team to ensure that the Arctic section of the WWF-US web site
• remains current and relevant.

Qualifications:

• 8+ years of experience working in senior-level communications or similar positions
• Experience developing and successfully implementing external communications plans
• Deep familiarity with environment/natural resources issues in the north Pacific and Arctic
• Knowledge of Alaska and experience in community-level education preferred
• Strong interpersonal skills and ability to work effectively with a diverse array of funders and colleagues
• Excellent oral communication and writing skills, and a polished and diplomatic style<
• Ability to thrive in a team setting
• Fiscal/budget management skills
• Attention to detail and strong organizational skills
• Creativity, flexibility, and innovation
• Ability to analyze, prioritize, and complete work with minimal supervision
• Ability to work under pressure and meet deadlines|
• Willingness to travel occasionally (within the eco-region and to Washington, DC)
• Bachelor’s degree or equivalent experience

How To Apply:

To be considered for this position, interested candidates must follow this link to submit a resume, cover letter, and salary requirements. CEA Recruiting is assisting WWF with this search. Please direct all applications and inquiries to CEA Recruiting. This position will remain open until filled.

WWF is an equal opportunity employer.

CEA Recruiting works with leading environmental nonprofits, foundations, and businesses to recruit top talent and design effective organizational staffing strategies. For more information, visit www.cearecruiting.com.

Organization:
Philanthropy Northwest promotes, facilitates, and supports collaborative action by philanthropic organizations with the goal of strengthening communities in our region. We envision vibrant, healthy Northwest communities that honor our people, our culture and our past. As a network of networks, Philanthropy Northwest represents a diverse community of grantmakers in six western states: Alaska, Idaho, Montana, Oregon, Washington and Wyoming. Since 1976, we have worked to meet the needs and interests of this expanding community through education, networking, research, publications, public policy work, and customized consulting.

Position Description:
We seek an energetic and innovative individual to manage all aspects of our growing communications program from brainstorming messaging to making copies, from developing a LinkedIn strategy to writing op-eds, from starting on-line discussions to posting press releases on our website. The ideal candidate has a history of success and a strong belief that their creativity, experience, and intellect are ready for this challenge. The Communications Manager will need strong connections both externally and internally with members and co-workers, and specifically with our Online Services manager. The individual will also proactively solicit and share communication opportunities with all staff. Our office is located in the Belltown neighborhood of Seattle, easily accessible by public transportation. This position is a full-time position, and reports to the Deputy Director.

Primary Responsibilities

• Develop, implement, and manage a comprehensive communication strategy to support our organizational mission and contribute to our annual goals.
• Write, edit and/or proof copy for print and on-line communication including issue-focused reports, program announcements, and press releases.
• Develop and manage coordinated on-line presence with social media tools, including our website, blog, LinkedIn account, Twitter feed, and Facebook page and in partnership with the Online Services Manager.
• Manage print publications from concept to distribution, including annual conference programs, annual reports, Trends in Northwest Giving, and other special reports.
• Manage electronic publications from concept to distribution including our regional, corporate and state-specific e-bulletins.
• Lead and support co-workers on recording, editing and posting program recordings on-line, such as podcasts and video recordings.
• Manage relations with mainstream media to promote organization and members.
• Lead and support members and co-workers in developing and executing the communication strategy and projects.
• Follow emerging communication tools and recommend appropriate integration.
• Develop and execute marketing plans for the Philanthropy Northwest Job Bank, and the Philanthropy Northwest Funders Directory.
• Collaborate with consultants as appropriate.

The following serve as core responsibilities for all staff:

• Respond to requests from any member for technical assistance.
• Meet or talk with specifically assigned members about their current activities, areas of interests, staff changes and other news, at least once a year.
• Regularly update records in database including staff changes.
• Relay information to other Philanthropy Northwest staff during staff meetings, via emails and in person.
• Personally invite members to upcoming programs of special interest.
• Identify and act on opportunities to support outreach to prospective members.
• Communicate the stories of members via various communication tools such as the Philanthropy Northwest blog, newsletter and website.
• Professionally represent Philanthropy Northwest at member programs and community events.
• Support a positive and high-functioning work environment by acting with integrity, honesty, and respectfulness towards co-workers and participating in team-building activities such as staff retreats, staff meetings and office celebrations.
•  Performs other duties as assigned.

Qualifications:

• Ability to think strategically, manage multiple projects, and easily adapt to shifting priorities.
• Excellent writing, proofreading, and editing skills for print and on-line communications.
• Experience with and passion for digital and emerging media (e.g., social media, blogs, podcasts).
• Excellent customer service skills — in person, on the telephone, via email, and on-line.
• Strong attention to detail and commitment to quality.
• Experience in managing committees and vendors.
• Confidence and curiosity in testing new ideas.
• Comfort in coaching and leading co-workers on implementing communication strategy.
• Extroverted and engaging personal style.
• Experience in nonprofits, philanthropy and/or membership organization.
• Experience with Microsoft Office, databases, and graphic design programs.
• Four-year college degree or equivalent, preferably with background in communications.

Salary & Benefits:
The annual compensation for this full-time (40 hours/wk) position includes a package of benefits including medical, vision, dental, Flex-Plan and retirement. Salary range is $45,000 to $60,000.

How to Apply:
Please submit a resume and a cover letter as to why you would be a good fit for this position to HR@PhilanthropyNW.org with the subject line “Communication is (You fill in the blank)” no later than Friday, January 20, 2012. Please include up to 3 professional references.

Position is open until filled. Only qualified applicants will be contacted for an interview. People of color are encouraged to apply.

Sacramento, Calif.

The Organization:

Sierra Health Foundation is a private philanthropy with a mission to invest in and serve as a catalyst for ideas, partnerships and programs that improve health and quality of life in Northern California. Sierra Health is committed to improving health outcomes, promoting health equity and reducing health disparities in the region through convening, educating and strategic grantmaking. Since we began grant funding in 1985, we have awarded $83 million in cash grants to 855 nonprofit organizations.

Position Description:

Reporting to the president and CEO, the Public Affairs and Communications Director will will manage the communications functions and operations of the foundation. This includes public and media relations, development and production of print materials and electronic media, and responsibility for public affairs programming. A key role will be to provide communications direction for the foundation’s health-related programs and public policy initiatives. The position also will provide advice and technical assistance to grantees on media relations and communications projects. This position will include supervision of staff, including the Communications Manager.

Responsibilities include:

• Enhancing the general public’s awareness of Sierra Health Foundation’s work.
• Designing and implementing communication strategies to support and promote Sierra Health Foundation and its work.
• Ensuring Sierra Health Foundation’s internal and external communications provide a consistent image and message in alignment with the foundation’s mission and values.

Qualifications:

• Bachelor’s degree in a related field and at least five years of experience managing public affairs and/or communications programs, preferably for a foundation or other public benefit organization. A master’s degree is preferred.
• Demonstrated experience and leadership in managing a comprehensive strategic communications, media relations and marketing program to advance an organization’s mission and goals.
• Strong analytical, decision-making and planning skills.
• Extensive writing and editing experience.
• Experience with budgetary responsibilities, including budget planning and implementation.
• Management skills, including supervising staff, consultants and contractors.
• Exceptional written, oral, interpersonal and presentation skills.
• Effective leadership, project management and relationship-building skills.

Compensation:

This is an exempt position and the salary is commensurate with experience. Sierra Health Foundation offers a generous benefit package.

How to Apply:

Apply for this position online at www.sierrahealth.org/employment. Please submit a cover letter, including salary requirements, and your resume.

Sierra Health Foundation is an Equal Opportunity Employer

NO E-MAIL OR PHONE INQUIRIES, PLEASE

The Organization:
Venture Philanthropy Partners (VPP) is an innovative nonprofit organization focused on connecting investors to programs that are improving the lives of children and youth of low-income families in the National Capital Region.

VPP helps nonprofits serving low-income families build their organizational capacity to support strong programming by providing these groups with “growth capital.” With this unique type of organizational support – which ranges from in-house expertise to access to a network of consultants, resources and professional advisors – VPP is directly impacting these organizations’ ability to significantly improve the lives of youth in the region.

VPP’s large-scale, multi-year funding efforts combine growth capital, strategic assistance and a network of talented professionals, with expertise in social services, juvenile justice, government relations, outcomes, evaluation and finance. VPP also advises philanthropists, corporate and nonprofit leaders and policymakers on how to integrate VPP’s investment strategy approaches into their own philanthropic initiatives.

In June 2000, VPP’s co-founders—Raul Fernandez, Mark Warner and Mario Morino—along with 26 other technology and business leaders came together with several foundations to contribute more than $30 million to capitalize VPP’s first investment fund. The first 12 organizations that received growth capital from VPP produced outstanding results, providing improved programs for almost 15,000 more children and youth.

The tremendous growth and increased capacity of nonprofits working to improve the lives of children and youth from low-income families over the past decade shows that VPP’s strategic investment approach works. To date, VPP has raised $50 million for its second fund from individuals, foundations and institutions to support its philanthropic investments and has grown its investor community to over 70 individuals and families, three institutional funders, two corporate partners and the federal government. This funding will let VPP provide growth capital to nonprofits and finance VPP’s own opera¬tions and expansion through 2014.

In July of 2010, the Social Innovation Fund (SIF), administered by the Corporation for National and Community Service, selected Venture Philanthropy Partners as one of eleven organizations nationally awarded SIF grants as part of its inaugural portfolio. VPP’s “youthCONNECT” investment is a pioneering collaboration of government, private philanthropy, nonprofit organizations and evaluators that will dramatically improve opportunities for an estimated 20,000 low-income youth, ages 14-24, in the National Capital Region.

Position Description:

VPP is seeking a Communications Director to take a leadership role in helping it influence and achieve its goals. VPP offers a highly challenging and intellectually engaging environment, an opportunity to meet and interact with thought leaders in multiple disciplines, and the chance to be part of a great team of people with similar social purpose.

The successful candidate will work directly with the President and CEO, senior staff, board and outside consultants to develop and implement a strategic communications strategy to support the next phase of VPP’s funding strategy while pursuing additional opportunities to position VPP as a leader in its field and give exposure to VPP beyond traditional audiences.

Job Function and Responsibilities

• Serve as a strategic communications advisor to the President and CEO, Partners and other senior staff on organizational priorities.
• Work with members of the VPP team to prepare content/materials for external meetings and speaking engagements for the President and CEO (i.e., research briefings, speeches, talking points, etc.).
• Participate in senior-level meetings and planning sessions on the direction and priorities of the organization.
• Work with staff to ensure a streamlined and open internal communications structure.
• Develop goals and objectives with regard to the communications elements of the VPP operating plan, and provide guidance and support to achieve them.
• Develop structures within the organization to ensure quality and consistency in all external communications products.
• Craft organizational and programmatic messages with the board, investor community and other key audiences.
• Manage communications associate and act as mentor to advance professional development.
• Work with advocacy experts (including staff/board members, coalition partners and outside consultants) on communications strategy and implementation related to the organization’s advocacy efforts.
• Work closely with organization’s development staff to plan and execute communications focused on fundraising and strengthening funder relationships.
• Oversee all of the organization’s media relations and regularly interact with the media to raise the public profile of VPP.
• Develop and maintain relationships with reporters (local and national) who focus on issues related to children and youth, low-income communities and philanthropy.
• Oversee all public communications including newsletter, social media (Twitter, YouTube, etc.), reports, collaterals, presentations and website.

Qualifications:

The position requires an individual with strong executive presence and experience. VPP is looking for a driven, high-energy performer who is resourceful and creative, and possesses a heartfelt connection to the social and community issues and causes that drive VPP’s mission.

Specific qualifications include:

• Passion for and commitment to VPP’s core mission, values and philanthropic investment approach.
• Unquestioned personal and professional integrity with the ability to instill a high level of trust and credibility.
• Bachelor’s or Master’s degree and minimum of 10-12 years experience in a combination of philanthropic communications, public relations, journalism or other relevant communications background.
• Strong background in issues related to children and youth of low-income families and experience with Washington, D.C. metro-area audiences strongly preferred – some knowledge of or experience in the investment field a plus.
• Experience with the development and execution of a comprehensive, long-term strategic communications plan to guide overall organizational planning.
• Superior communications skills, including strong writing and editing skills.
• Demonstrated ability to build, manage and inspire staff.
• Strong knowledge of technology relevant to building and improving capacity of organizational communications.
• Experience working with people from diverse backgrounds.
• Experience working with people across an organization, such as within matrix management systems.
• Enthusiasm, polish and dedication necessary to lead a dynamic communications effort.
• Experience devising and implementing strategic and effective use of social media outreach (Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, e-newsletters, etc.).
• Experience supervising the production of communications products (print, video, etc.).
• Demonstrated skill in proactively building relationships with top-tier reporters and editors, and in successfully positioning issues with the media to achieve high-impact placements.
• Experience developing and managing budgets for communications activities.

Compensation:

Compensation for this opportunity has been designed to attract candidates with significant experience with a commitment to this community and the nonprofit sector.

How To Apply:

Send resume and cover letter to settleson@verizon.net, subject line: VPP – Comms Director.

For more information about VPP and its important work, click here.

Do you do an annual communications plan?
Yes, and I cannot imagine working without it. The plan has to stay flexible, but it serves as a reminder of the big picture and helps me stay focused.

What was your undergraduate major?
Industrial Design. The concept of understanding human behavior and human factors is fascinating.

How did the “Challenge:/Response:” revolving display on the Crown home page come about?
It started with the theme of aspirations for societal change. We wanted our messages to come through the work of our grantees and the problems they address – as more of an if/then scenario. At one point we thought of problem/solution, and we realized it gave the perception that we have the answers.

A recent interesting communications project?
The beta form of a new family intranet. It not only brings us closer to a paperless office but also centralizes all internal family communications. It includes content from multimedia to board books, calendar sharing to newsletters, as well as research and reports to family archives.

What are your primary target audiences?
Family members and grantees, with secondary audiences being applicants and the funding community. Engaging geographically dispersed family members can be challenging.

Favorite non-professional, non-general news blog?
Good.is, yes it is just that good.

Most memorable take-away from the Communications Network 2011 annual conference in Boston?
The theme of passion being fueled by injustice and inequity is what has stuck with me. All of the speakers told stories of their work being inspired by their commitment to discovery and fulfill greater passions in life.

With seven different program areas, what’s the hardest aspect of working on so many topics?
When dealing with so many critical issues it’s a challenge to avoid emotional numbing. You want people to understand they can play a role in a respective area but you want avoid desensitizing the issues because there is so much to cover.

Do you have a novel deep down inside you?
I started two this year and wonder which one I will finish first.

Do you evaluate communications?
We track website use and get anecdotal feedback from family members and grantees. We plan to build in a more comprehensive approach for the future.

Who’s your favorite underappreciated journalist?
Soledad O’Brien. I admire her authentic approach to documentaries on public education, race and religious freedom.

Another foundation whose communications work you admire?
The Knight Foundation understands the ever-changing landscape of information and what is needed to truly lead transformation across various communities.

The last time you learned something important from a communications colleague?
When I recently watched a video posted on the Communications Network web site. I was impressed by the notion of understanding your content commitment threshold and being comfortable letting go of content.

Last significant improvement you made to your website?
In April we launched a completely new website. It not only symbolizes the collective work that was done as a family, it also gives voice to our portfolios, grantees, grantmaking process and aspirations for social change.

When you were 13 years old, what did you want to be when you grew up?
A biomedical engineer; I think I researched options in World Book Encyclopedia.

What’s the last policy-oriented/big-picture book you read?
The Art of Non-Conformity by Chris Guillebeau.  Although it pertains to life in general, I appreciate the concept of defying common assumptions and exploring how you can make the world a better place while being your truest self. Having an open mind, pushing possibility, challenging status quo and removing creative restraint can push everyone to a new way of thinking and living, regardless of what we do.

A Quick Word With… is edited by Michael Hamill Remaley, Vice President of Communications & Public Policy, Philanthropy New York, and a frequent Communications Network contributor.

If you’d like to suggest someone for a future profile, please use this form.

That sentiment was summarized in a video produced at the end of that year’s conference. Even though some of the people featured are doing different things in different places today, everything they said then still rings true today (if not more so).  

As you’ll see, then and now, the Network is a community of people who are committed to helping each other make communications central to the work of philanthropy.

Watch the video to see why you don’t have to “go it alone.”

–Bruce Trachtenberg

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.

Think about it. Is a blog post worth the effort if no one takes the time to comment?  What about a video that reaches only a couple of hundred views?  Does a Tweet that is not reTweeted serve any purpose at all?

On the flip side, consider your own inclinations when it comes to engagement.  If you are like me, your finite time is spent are plowing through a vast number of sources.  How often do you take the time to respond to posts you read?

If engaging others is tough now, I’m willing to bet it will only get tougher.  That’s because — with the advent of new platforms like Klout.com that rank our “relevance” in the social media sphere as a way of determining V.I.P. status – potential commenters will be too busy gathering followers to even read what we write.

That said, engagement is key to the work of the Communications Network, so we’re constantly experimenting.  An example is our now three-year-old “Gorilla Engagement” squad.  We launched it during the Network’s Fall Conference in New York City in 2009.  Our all-volunteer squad comprised a group of folks who agreed to Tweet, videotape and blog their thoughts during the conference. It worked so well back then, we’ve continued it ever since.

Over the course of three conferences — New York, Los Angeles and most recently Boston — we have captured almost 400 people on video, published several dozen blog posts and benefited from countless Tweets pointing people to Network-related content.  These efforts ensured that whatever happened in those cities, didn’t just stay there, but they offered a look inside to people everywhere.  

Because of the success of our volunteer Gorilla Squad during our conferences, we decided to make it a permanent Network fixture.  Early in 2011, we recruited a group of Network members and asked if they would be willing to serve as squad members throughout the year, and not just at conference time.

There was no obligation on their part.  Instead, they agreed to offer an occasional blog post, participate in videos showcasing work, and Tweet about things that they thought would be of interest and use to communicators in philanthropy.

The videos we produced include Will Bohlen talking about how the German Marshall Fund of the United States uses Scribd to expand audiences for its publications, Rebecca Noricks of the W.K. Kellogg Foundation describing an experiment to embed QR codes in an annual report and Julee Newberger, formerly of the Annie E. Casey Foundation, who talked her program colleagues into openly sharing how communications is essential to their work.

These are just a few examples of the way we’ve tried to take advantage of the opportunities social media provides to engage our membership and increase the sharing of information about innovative practices that we think will help advance the role communications plays in foundations. Over the course of doing this work, I’ve also learned a few things that might be useful to others who want to increase the level of engagement in their efforts:

• There are no silver bullets.  Engagement is about relationships and relationships only flourish through time and attention.  Those who comment on your blog want to know they are being heard.  Even motivated guest bloggers need care and feeding.  Determine where, when and what types of participation are most important and make sure someone is focused upon the grunt work required to make it happen.
• Pursue those already active in the social networking sphere.  When New Year’s resolutions roll around this year, many of us will vow to make more time for social networking that builds our professional credibility. But the best bet for targeting contributors is to identify those who are already actively participating in a wide-array of virtual conversations.  If they already have social networking clout, consider offering them ways to cross-post content they are already creating.
• Spotlight new voices.  While it makes sense to pursue folks who are already active in the sphere, don’t limit your recruitment to those who already have significant visibility. Look for up-and-comers who have a clear understanding of how visibility on your site, through comments and/or blog posts, can advance their professional credibility.   And then support them in those efforts as opportunities arise.
• Acknowledge them early and often.  Those willing to engage should be viewed as rare and precious assets.  In that spirit, I’d like to acknowledge the contributions of our first-year round engagement squad, whose members include: William Bohlen, German Marshall Fund; Dan Brady, Forum of Regional Association of Grantmakers; Allyson Burns, Case Foundation; Sylvia Burgos Toftness, Northwest Area Foundation; Tim Hanrahan, McKnight Foundation; Christine Mulvin, formerly of the Health Foundation of Greater Cincinnati; Julee Newberger, formerly of the Annie E. Casey Foundation; Rebecca Noricks, W.K. Kellogg Foundation; Chris Palmedo, Northwest Health Foundation; Charity Perkins, The Duke Endowment; Bev Pfeifer-Harms, Missouri Foundation for Health; Jessica Schwartz, The Wallace Foundation;  and Cassandra Stalzer, Rasmuson Foundation.

Susan Herr, president of PhilanthroMedia, has been overseeing our Gorilla Squads since they first jumped into action at our 2009 conference in New York City.

I understand, of course, that weird phrases like “knowledge product” came into being because the word we once considered perfectly serviceable (“reports”) no longer fully does the job. Nowadays, “reports” take their place on websites alongside videos, blogs, webinars, webcasts, diavlogs, TED-like talks, and other whiz-bangery whose newfangled names have a tinny ring vaguely similar to the non-dairy contents of cheese food. But never mind; it appears that “reports” won’t do anymore. We need something broader.

Of course, we could just as easily say, “information” or “publications” (which, technically, includes non-text stuff that is “published” on the web). But a lot of people evidently consider those words too prosaic or old-fashioned. They don’t have the sophisticated, business-school cachet of “knowledge” or the hard-value seriousness of “products.”

I even wonder whether “knowledge products” is becoming more popular in the United States these days because so many political economists have been wringing their hands over the alleged decline in American industrial production. The typical headline is usually something like, “U.S. economy over-dependent on financial and other services; Americans no longer make things.” I won’t get into the merits of that argument; I’m simply suggesting that Americans might lately be feeling self-conscious about our overabundance of opinions, advice, and other gas-baggage, compared with our manufacturing of things you can touch, feel, and spread on sandwiches.

So what’s the solution — to produce more things? Nah. Just re-label the opinions and advice as “knowledge products.” Presto: A production boom!

In the video interview that follows, Michael Berman, senior vice president, of The Strategy Group, which designed RWJF’s online marketing strategy, talks with Communications Network contributor, Susan Herr, about how new digital technologies are creating opportunities to extend the “tail” of news and also reach and engage new audiences.  As he puts it, “A lot of people aren’t going to read the story on page A17 that you worked forever to get in the paper.  Let’s go find them when they are searching on a relevant  subject or reading a story about something similar.”

Berman doesn’t suggest these new approaches should replace tried and true communications strategies. However, when appropriate — and if the budget is available — they are worth considering for the extra value they provide.

Watch the video to learn more.

For his research, which he discusses during the webinar, Berger, and his Wharton colleague Katherine L. Milkman. assistant professor of Operations and Information Management, analyzed nearly 7,000 New York Times articles to determine the unique qualities of the ones that made the paper’s most emailed list.

During the webinar, you’ll learn, among other things:

• The kind of content that is most likely to be shared.
• The role emotions play in increasing an item’s online popularity.
• Whether content that angers you has a greater chance of going viral than things that make you laugh. 
• What you can do to make your content something people will want to share with friends and colleagues.

To view the webinar, click the image above.  if you like what you see, please pass it on.

The “Message House,” as Fest calls it, is a simple, yet powerful tool to help foundation staff excel at messaging.    

Click here to watch the video.  At the log-in screen, choose “guest” and then follow the prompts.

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.

Here at Knight Foundation, I focus on online communications, creating content for Knight’s blog, Twitter, Facebook and other social media channels. I am constantly looking for creative ways to share the stories of our grant programs’ impact, like using Storify, a new social media platform, to talk about the foundation’s latest arts grantees.

I am also focused on why @knightfdn uses social media to be a better grantmaker and how we can use it to help accomplish our programmatic goals of creating informed and engaged communities.  I spend my day doing everything from reputation monitoring online to looking at analytics to determine what our audiences care about and how we can best communicate with them.

So several months into the new job, what’s surprised me most about the transition? How seamless it has felt and how much I love it!

One of the greatest aspects of my work is getting to be involved in the wider variety of programming that matches my own personal interests, which at Knight includes journalism and media innovation, the arts and community engagement.

In my previous role as a Senior Program Associate at The Overbrook Foundation, my primary responsibilities were identifying and administering the foundation’s media-focused grants. Unfortunately, I did not always have the time to involve myself in other programmatic interests or adequately communicate to various audiences about the projects on which I worked.

Yet having had a programmatic role at Overbrook makes me more in touch with how best to promote projects and programs. For example, I am conscious of how busy program staff are and I now view myself as a resource to help them find opportunities to share what they’re doing and learning. My job is also made easier because we make a conscious effort to involve all program staff in communications. There are also constant opportunities to connect with grantees, partners and other foundations.

Working on communications isn’t brand-new to me. While at Overbrook I was able to advise grantees on media work and help the foundation increase its social media presence. At my new job, though, that’s what I get to do exclusively and I could not be happier.

My move may have been an unusual one, but I know that my true interests are in how foundations, philanthropies and non-profit organizations can use technology to further their missions.  There is no better place to do that than in this space.

As I think about what I want to accomplish moving forward, I hope to find new ways to use technology to connect and broaden our existing audiences, encourager greater participation and increase our own efficiency and that of our grantees and other foundations.

In order to accomplish that, I want to learn from you – other foundation communications professionals. Hopefully we as a collective group can continue to share resources, create stories, navigate trends and understand how we can use technology to do what we do, better.

So tell me, how is technology changing how you communicate? What new projects are exciting you? What are your biggest challenges? Where do you see the biggest opportunity to enhance your online communications efforts?

You can find me at miller@knightfoundation.org, at 305.908.2623 or on Twitter at @ElzbthMllr.

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.

In the spirit of eating humble pie (I love pretty much any type of pie, around this time of year), I thought I’d take a stab at defining some communications-specific terms.  I’m going to source this attempt from two places:  1) what I’ve picked up from my career and my colleagues; and 2) Wikipedia.  Yes, not exactly the most rigorous approach, but I’m throwing this out there to see if maybe we can crowd-source these terms in the hopes of eventually arriving at a common language.

STRATEGIC COMMUNICATIONS:   This is a tough one.  When we use this term, I think we mean, the deployment of communications strategies and tactics to further a social change goal, like, increasing the number of children with health insurance, or, making sure that all Americans have access to high-quality education.  I also think we use this term to help define what strategic communications is not, like we don’t feel like we’re doing strategic communications when we’re asked to execute a tactic without a strategy.  Interestingly, Frank Karel, former vice president of communications for the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, is considered one of the foremost pioneers on the use of strategic communications for social change, and yet in his seminal piece on the subject, he never uses the term.

TACTIC:  A plan, procedure, expedient, or activity that furthers a result or set of results.  Not to be confused with the strategy or the result itself.  Tweeting is a tactic, not a strategy, but tweeting can be used in service of a strategic goal.

BRAND:  Wikipedia says that the American Marketing Association defines a brand as a “name, term, design, symbol, or any other feature that defines one seller’s good or service as distinct from other sellers.”  Obviously, this definition is skewed towards the for-profit world, which is why words like these tend to raise the hackles of our colleagues when we try to talk to them about branding.  I think brand, in our field, is more about defining, clarifying, and deploying one’s organizational identity, so that one’s audiences have a clear sense of what your organization’s values are, and how your core areas of work flow from those values.  As Jelly Helm put it, poignantly, at the Network conference:  “A brand is a symbol of what you love.”   However, having a crisper definition of what brand is and isn’t doesn’t necessarily help the conversations that follow, I’ve found.  You’re still going to have to battle through questions like, “Is it about having a new logo? Is it about having a statement that we have to use all the time in our conversations and presentations?  Is it about sticking our organization’s name and logo on everything?” In struggling to answer these questions, I came across a really great paper about branding in the nonprofit context from the Harvard Kennedy school, take a look.  And, you may want to take a look at Tony Proscio’s thoughtful points about branding on the Network’s Jargon Finder.

MESSAGE:  Wikipedia gets really basic and abstract on this one:  “A message is information that is sent from a source to a receiver.”   Or, “It is a vessel that provides information but….it can also be that information.”  (Whoa, that’s DEEP.)    Generally, though, I think that most of us think of messages as something more than basic bits of information.  I think we think of messages as compelling nuggets of language intended to convey the value of a topic or an idea, beyond the facts, although messages are often rooted in facts.

I’m going to stop here now, and ask:  any clarifications?  Any other words you want to group-define?  And, do you have any examples to or moments to share when you saw your colleagues not only understand these concepts, but live and breathe them?

Minna Jung is communications director at the David and Lucile Packard Foundation and vice chair of the Communications Network.

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.

The original 60-page case study, “Out of the Box: Queer Youth in South Africa,” presented a nuanced picture of a group of people whose voices are rarely heard. Because of the valuable insights in the report, Atlantic wanted not only to disseminate it as far and wide as possible — but to make sure it got notice.

According to Elizabeth Cahill, senior web strategist, Atlantic had initially considered producing a short slide show or video that would grab the attention of Atlantic’s audiences. Even though the foundation has the technical ability to create that kind of presentation, it can sometimes be a complicated and time consuming task.

“As we thought about ways to present this report, I happened to log onto our video channel at YouTube one day and lo and behold I saw a free trial for a program called Stupeflix,” Cahill said.

The beauty of Stupeflix and other, similar programs is that they have built-in templates that make it simple for people to quickly pull together a video, Cahill said.

All one needs to create a video is compelling text, photos or other images. In Stupeflix, for example, users choose from a drop down menu of several templates, plug in their text, photos or video clips and add music from a list of options provided by the program. The program also handles transitions and other tasks that normally take hours to complete.

After testing out the free trial of Stupeflix and comparing it with other programs, Cahill signed up for the $299 a year service.

Using the ready-made program, Cahill and her colleague Tricia Rosensohn created a 3 minute video that the foundation posted to YouTube that gives viewers a captivating summary of the key findings in the case study.

“We know that not everyone is going to sit down and read the report,” Cahill said. “We wanted to distill the key lessons so that people could walk away with what they needed and dive in deeper if they want. It’s a great way to get a larger audience.”

Cahill said she was impressed by this type of video program.

“It allowed us to pull together a video much faster than traditional video tools,” she said. “It’s really easy if you know how to edit text and crop images.”

Cahill said it took them about 4 to 6 hours to create the video executive summary, including the time to learn to use the program.

From her experience, Cahill learned several lessons that she is applying to future videos:

• Choose reports that have easy-to-distill findings and strong images available. Not every report is a good candidate for a video executive summary. Atlantic’s “Out of the Box” case study lent itself to this approach in part because it had stunning photographs. Reports without easily accessible images or clear findings can still be turned into a video but they will be more time-consuming to complete. Cahill is working on another video where the images are not easily available. She estimates it will take her about 15 hours to complete. For some reports, a podcast with an interview of the author might be a better approach to add a multi-media component, Cahill said.
• Release the video executive summary at the same time as the larger report for maximum impact. Because of timing issues, Atlantic did not release the video executive summary until about two weeks after the announcement of the longer report. While the longer report has garnered more than 6000 downloads, the video executive summary has had 150 views on YouTube. That figure isn’t bad, but Cahill said she’s sure it would have been much higher if Atlantic had released it simultaneously with the longer report.
• Take advantage of YouTube’s call to action feature. Non-profit organizations with a YouTube channel can add a “call to action,” which allows them to add a hyperlink that will bring viewers to the full report that the video summarizes.

Cahill is happy with Atlantic’s experiment with this tool and says she will continue to use it on reports that lend themselves to video executive summaries.

“If you look at the ‘Out of the Box’ video it seems like it took a lot of work, but it really didn’t,” she said. “Most of the work is in getting the story right. The program lets you focus on the story rather than the technology, which is what good technology does.”

Susan Parker, a Communications Network member, is the owner of Clear Thinking Communications. This post was adapted from a version published in her e-zine.

That said, not all op-eds are equal, and some stand out more than others.

The lead article in the current issue of free-range thinking, a monthly journal for public interest communicators that contains helpful how-to’s and best practices, and which is published by Communications Network member Andy Goodman, features a summary of practical tips for writing op-eds that get the job done.

Click here to download and read “Your Cause (in 600 words) Six tips for writing more persuasive op-eds.”

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.”

But there’s another part of the story. Sometimes we think you don’t get it, either (with all due respect to my esteemed colleagues)! When I’m knee deep in planning an initiative to address, for example, children’s mental health, and then I’m asked to think about “what is tweet-able about this” or “why is this press-worthy?” it can feel distracting and disjointed with the long-term goals we’re trying to achieve.

And that’s where the tension can develop.

But I maintain that that tension is a necessary, healthy tension. From time to time, program and communications can creep back into our silos. We’re both thinking about how to achieve our goals from different perspectives – I from program, you from communications – the key is to come together to do that, and identify areas to complement each other’s work ahead of time, if possible.

What works for me is when I seek input from communications in developing initiatives. Inviting communications staff in early to think about audiences and messaging only strengthened the overall strategy of the initiatives. It also helps in identifying areas of cross-over up front.

Here are a few tidbits of what I feel helps the process:

Stop the Us vs. Them mentality. I wholeheartedly agree with what Susan Herr said in the comments to Minna’s piece. Ultimately, we need each other to achieve our organization’s mission! Let’s show each other the respect we deserve. Stating “program staff doesn’t get it” won’t win folks over. Instead, shifting the culture towards one of mutual respect works wonders. The way to do that is through understanding that we have mutual goals and different perspectives.

The tail doesn’t wag the dog. Ultimately, here at Connecticut Health Foundation, our initiatives exist for the purpose of creating health systems change. The initiatives are not for the purpose of sending out a press release or writing a blog, and nor are they for the purpose of us giving grants. But both of these are important pieces to the process. In pursuit of our goal, some of our activities will be program-focused, and others will be communications-focused. And that’s okay so long as the work is discussed ahead of time and is complementary, whenever possible.

The friction between grants and media timelines. Sometimes, grants are not “sexy” from a media perspective, but they are necessary for making change. And media timelines differ greatly from grant timelines in that the media is rapid and grants take time to make change. Sometimes the opportunities won’t match up perfectly.

Start working together as early on in the process as possible. The onus is on both of us to work together – if you as communications are thinking you should work with us, that’s a good sign. Where I’ve found success in working together with communications is involving you in the planning stages. That way, we can offer each other suggestions on where our work links, and offer constructive feedback. Roles are defined up front and areas of cross-over are better defined.

Ultimately, the Connecticut Health Foundation exists to achieve our mission of improving the health of the state’s residents. Pulling back to remember that, and seeing everyone as playing a role, can really bring us together.

It is also important to periodically revisit this topic because I certainly don’t think I have all the answers.

What would you add to this list? Do you agree that the tension between our departments is necessary and even healthy?

Nowadays, it seems like digital media changes faster than the blink of an eye. How do we not only keep up with it, but also measure its impact? This was the focus of the “Measuring Our Reach in a Digital World” group therapy session at the 2011 Communications Network Conference, and seems to be an ongoing discussion among communication professionals.

Measuring impact is more than collecting numbers – it’s about listening to what the data shows and acting on it. It’s about assessing how close you are to reaching your audience and meeting your goals. For example, at Everyday Democracy, usually between 750 and 900 people open our e-newsletter out of about 5,000 subscribers. These numbers are typical for our type of organization, so at the surface it seems like we’re doing our job.

In an earlier e-newsletter design (see below), we had a sidebar where we featured advice from our program officers, videos, and books. Providing advice is a core component of our work, so it’s important to us that people are reading it, sharing it and acting on it. After digging deeper into our data, we found that our advice on the sidebar received an average of 30 clicks. The bottom line: We weren’t reaching or engaging enough people to have the impact we wanted.

Based on our analysis, we moved our advice out of the sidebar and into the main section of the e-newsletter. After this change, (see below) the clicks to our advice increased more than tenfold: The average jumped to 437, an increase of 1357%! Before, we rarely saw our advice shared on other platforms. Now, people regularly share it on Facebook, Twitter, blogs and websites. This is just one example of how we’ve expanded our reach as a result of a thorough analysis of the data.

When measuring print media, we often assume that if we mail 10,000 newsletters, every single one of them is read front-to-back. In reality, we have no way of knowing whether 10,000 people snuggled up with the newsletter for some night-time reading, or if they put it straight into the recycling bin. Digital media opens up a whole new world for tracking. Now, you can measure engagement: how many people opened it, which links they clicked on, where they’re sharing it, etc.

During the Fall Conference Group Therapy session on measuring digital media, it seemed like there was an elephant in the room: We get big numbers when we measure print media, and that looks good. Plus, measuring is easier. Let’s say you sent out 10,000 newsletters, or 500 people took your brochure at a conference. For print measurements, that’s often where the story ends. Perhaps you get a few calls or donations you can link back to those publications, but there’s not much else to track.

When you start measuring digital media, it may be a surprise that out of 10,000 e-newsletter subscribers, only 1,200 people opened the e-letter. Digital media numbers may be smaller, but they tell a us a lot more. Instead of comparing print with digital media, it’s best to compare apples to apples. Find out whether that’s a typical open rate for an e-newsletter, or see if your numbers change significantly after you test out a new idea.

After you get over the initial shock of the smaller numbers when evaluating digital media, you’ll probably find that tracking engagement is extremely useful. Here’s how you can get started:

1. Get familiar with analytics

Unless you are familiar with the analytics, you might not have an idea of what you can actually measure. This step is especially crucial if digital media is a new territory – the information might be more instant and detailed than what you’re used to.

Just about every form of digital media has an analytics system: Facebook, YouTube, podcast hosting sites and Google Analytics for websites, just to name a few. If you’re not sure where to start, look for tutorials or sign up for a training.

For example, this page has helpful information on Google analytics, including online training, seminars and videos.

2. Set goals and identify audiences

Use your knowledge of analytics to establish goals and outcomes you can actually measure. When deciding on a target audience, draw on existing demographic information about who uses different kinds of media. For example, it might be important to know that 65% of Facebook users are under the age of 35. Or that African Americans and Latinos are more likely than whites to use Twitter. Doing this background research can help you reach people where they already are.

Since different people use different platforms, create separate goals and target audiences for each. If you’re a little overwhelmed at first, start with just one.

3. Collect, collect, collect

Track everything that might show progress toward your goals or tell you more about your audience: likes, shares, tweets, retweets, visits, time spent, time of day the message went out…. the list goes on. As you collect more information, you’ll get a better sense of which statistics are most important for what you’re trying to achieve.

In order to establish trends, you may want to summarize your statistics on a weekly or monthly basis. For example, you might record the number of retweets for each message, but it might also be useful to document the total number of retweets per month.

An Excel spreadsheet is all you’ll need to start collecting information, though there are many programs out there that might save you some time.

4. Organize the data

On a regular basis (perhaps quarterly or yearly), organize the information you’ve collected. Graph the number of likes and comments on your Facebook page. List the most and least popular tweets. Create a pie chart of which sections of your website receive the most visits. Think about how you can show trends and make the information accessible even for people who aren’t in your department.

5. Identify relevant data

Not every graph or list will give you useful information. Focus on the ones that show the biggest changes, and pull out data that directly relates to your goals.

6. Draw conclusions

Now that you’ve made the data easy to understand and identified the most interesting information, it’s time to decipher all those lists and graphs. What story do they tell? What conclusions can you draw from the data? What does it say about your audience? Given this information, how should you change your strategy or implementation?

7. Implement recommendations

Maybe you discovered that you receive the highest open rate for your e-newsletter when you send it out on Tuesday. Or perhaps your Facebook fans are more interested in videos than news articles. Whatever your data tells you, act on it!

8. Return to step 3

Evaluation is an ongoing process. Test your recommendations to see if your assumptions hold true. Next time around, you may want to take a look at the information through a different lens.

What other tips do you have for evaluating social media?

Rebecca Reyes is the Communication Associate at Everyday Democracy and has spent the last four years guiding organizations on Web and social media strategy, implementation, and evaluation.

In August 2010, Bruce Trachtenberg wrote about the newly created Frank Karel Chair in Public Interest Communications at the University of Florida, named for the former vice president of communications at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and that was soon filled by Ann Christiano, a former senior communications officer at the Foundation. The chair was created to better enable the university to provide students with the background they needed to “create and deploy strategies to advance organizations’ missions and goals in the nonprofit and public sectors.”

Earlier this month, Ann was kind enough to invite me down to Gainesville as a Visiting Hearst Professional, part of her mandate to “bridge the world of academia and day-to-day practice.” In my two days on the campus, Ann crammed in seven class visits and a keynote for students and faculty titled, “Awareness is Not an Objective: Social Strategy for Social Change,” allowing me to attempt to dissuade students from believing that social media could, without an evidence-based strategy, start the revolution.

The majority of the students with whom I spoke over those two days were juniors and seniors, typically anxious about the careers that lay ahead of them, their anxiety turned up a few notches by the currently dismal job market. I assured them they would find their way, if only they promised to remember a few things. Some of my recommendations are timeless and some are a reflection of the changing communications landscape in which we all find ourselves.

Please, dear child, learn how to write. On more than one occasion, I have sat in my office, wondering how someone who cannot spell, punctuate, express a coherent thought or make a persuasive argument — I can dream — is planning to pursue a career in communications. If I polled a group of employers, I am confident that writing skills would be near or at the top of the list of desired skills most often lacking among candidates.

Be curious. Behind every great strategy is a deep and thorough understanding of the people and institutions you wish to reach and engage. You cannot know how to take them where you need them to go unless you know where they are today — and why they are there. Lucky for those at the entry level, research — because it can be time consuming and seemingly tedious — is often delegated to those on the lower rungs of the ladder. Take advantage of this windfall; be the smartest person in the room when it comes to understanding their needs, motivations and goals. Let your curiosity, a search engine and the wisdom of your social networks propel you forward; go further than what was asked of you if what you are uncovering will ultimately be valuable to the project — and the cause.

Know how to define an objective. Awareness is not an objective. It is a step along the path that those you are trying to compel to take action must follow. If you are working on an issue with which they have no familiarity, you need to make them aware. But “awareness” is in service to a higher purpose: the objective. Change policy, change behavior. These, my friends, are objectives. Want a tip? It generally has nothing to do with communications, but is what those on the programmatic side aim to achieve.

Understand metrics: what they are and what they can do for you. The magic of understanding objectives is that understanding what to measure is sure to follow. Want to change a policy? Then success is defined by a policy change. But there are metrics along the way. For those of us who utilize social media in our communications strategies, there are metrics to assess reach, engagement, word of mouth and conversions. And these metrics should not instill fear in you about success or failure. They are there to help, to shine a light on what is working and what is not, so you can optimize your efforts and increase your likelihood of reaching your objective. Understand them and know how to measure them and you will stand out in the crowd.

Don’t let them put you in charge of social media. You, along with 800 million other people, use Facebook. You are under the age of 25. These two things do not make you a social media expert. They make a Facebook user under the age of 25. There are potentially some older folks you will encounter in in your organization or agency who are scared of things with buttons and who are even more frightened of things that are changing how they do their jobs. As a result, some of them are treating social media like a trend and a channel that the “kids are all using,” versus a phenomenon that is changing how people get and share information and relate to each other and institutions. And they’re putting junior staff in charge before they are reading, often leading to tactical executions with no clear strategy — or objective. Avoid the temptation.

What more would you add to the list?

Alison Byrne Fields founded Aggregate in 2011.  The creative strategy group works with nonprofit organizations and philanthropic foundations to bring people and resources together to create social and policy change.

The Duke Endowment recently surveyed grantees, nonprofit leaders, peers and policymakers on social media usage. What did you learn?
Many more respondents feel comfortable using Facebook (70%), compared to Twitter (24%). That will help inform our future planning efforts.  Also, while 17% never use social media, the good news is that nearly 60% anticipate using it in the future.

What did you want to be when you grew up?
My parents owned a photography studio and I began working with them at an early age.  I thought I’d follow in their footsteps.  But, with a name like Charity, I was destined to work in the nonprofit field!

What are your target audiences and which are hardest to reach?
Grantees, partners, policymakers, peers, media.  We do some outreach to policymakers, but it’s difficult to measure its effectiveness.  Are we getting through the filters of their aides and gatekeepers?

Do you do an annual communications plan?
We don’t have a formal plan, but instead create an annual list of new projects and reassess ongoing work. We’re working on a more in-depth plan focused on the Endowment’s priority issues and exploring ways that communications can support program area objectives.

Your undergraduate major?
Mass communications at Towson State University.

Has TDE ever talked publicly about any grantmaking failures?
As part of our website redesign in 2009, we published “lessons learned”  for the 50 plus issues we currently fund or have funded in the past.  We hope sharing these insights in a public way has helped other funders and organizations learn from our successes and challenges.

Your favorite underappreciated journalist?
Tommy Tomlinson, a local columnist for The Charlotte Observer.  He takes the most ordinary subjects and turns them into extraordinary stories.

In building communications, which program area is most challenging?
Part of our work in children’s services is reforming the child welfare system and supporting evidence-based programs.  These are complex issues and finding the “human interest” hook is challenging, especially when the programs have names like Trauma-Focused Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and Multidimensional Treatment Foster Care.

Favorite communications tool more foundation communicators should use?
We recently started using QR codes.  With the growing number of people using mobile devices, we think this may be a way to tap new audiences.  And it’s free!

How’d you decide to start using QR codes?
I frequently visit Communications Network’s site to learn about new ideas. One video on the site featured Rebecca Noricks of Kellogg Foundation, who shared her experience using QR codes in their annual report

Last big website improvement?
We implemented a new online grant application system last year.  Because each program area has its own grant application, we developed a decision tree to help prospective grantees navigate the process and lead them to the correct application.

If your department got a $1m allocation to produce multimedia, what would you do with it?
I would spread it among a number of our grantees that have a great story to tell, but don’t have the resources to produce their own videos.

Foundation whose communications you admire?
Irvine Foundation.  Daniel Silverman does a great job integrating communications throughout the entire organization.  And their president is an avid Tweeter for goodness sake!

Last nonfiction book you read?
I’m reading three books about social media – The Dragonfly Effect, The Networked Nonprofit and Content Rules.

Does TDE evaluate communications?
We rely on surveys and Google analytics. We also work with the Center for Effective Philanthropy to survey grantees on a number of communications metrics.

The aspect of your personal life that has greatest impact on your professional life?
With a 12-year–old son, I’ve learned the importance of patience and a sense of humor, which comes in handy in my professional life.

A Quick Word With… is edited by Michael Hamill Remaley, a communications consultant, director of Public Policy Communicators NYC and a frequent Communications Network contributor.

If you’d like to suggest someone for a future profile, please use this form.

In the first of two videos that follow, Communications Network member and digital media consultant, Jai Sen of Sen Associates, discusses how the rapidly changing ways people are consuming online content  has many implications both for what we have to say and how we say it.

In this second video, Sen reminds that online content needs to be simple and seamless to access across across a range of devices — desktop computers, laptops, smartphones and tablets.

How do his suggestions, advice resonate with you? What have you seen or done that works?

Video production: Susan Herr, President, PhilanthroMedia

Almost on a daily basis, I think about many of the same challenges faced by many of my communications colleagues at other foundations—especially, how to integrate communications thinking and strategies into the DNA of what foundations do.

This was a hot, hot topic at the recent Communications Network conference, especially at the Group Therapy sessions. (See a Network member’s comment on this, here.)  The Network is comprised of communications leaders and staff who believe, as I do, that communications thinking and strategy is an essential component of what foundations should be supporting to create change.  And yet, from what I could gather during the Network conference discussions, many of us spend a great deal of time having to convince our program colleagues and our leadership teams why this is so.  In fact, we spend a great deal of time with them defining what the heck we even mean by “communications.”

When we talk about communications with our foundation colleagues, we are usually not just talking about one thing. We aren’t just talking about doing a press release or building a web site or what to do with this enormously thick report that just came out of the evaluation grant, even though we may mention these tactics.  We’re actually talking about strategies.  Their strategies.  Which are, really, our strategies, too.  We want to know, foundation colleagues:  with all of the grants you’re sending out the door, and all of the relationships and partnerships you’re engaged in with other funders and grantee organizations, are you working from a shared definition of the problem you’re trying to tackle?  What about a clearly understood theory of change?  Does your program strategy depend on getting people to care?  (Most do.)  Do you know who you’re trying to get to care, and whether you need tailored messages and tactics and channels to reach them?  Is this evaluation or this research study going to lead to stuff that’s actionable?  Will it help people learn something they need to know?

These are the sorts of questions we want our foundation colleagues to think about.  And if they work with us to find the answers, then sometimes, wonderful things can happen.  Things like, convening incredibly diverse stakeholder groups who at one point couldn’t agree on what’s for breakfast and then hearing them start to speak a common language and coalesce around a particular set of solutions. Or, things like seeing essential bits of the message platform you helped create show up everywhere, even seeping into the words and the attitudes of top decision-makers on policy.  Or, things like an actual shift, over time, in public opinion or attitudes about a particular issue that might actually signal a readiness for real change and action, because your foundation supported concerted and coordinated communications efforts, and gave these efforts enough time to take hold, and succeed.

And when you see these wonderful things, you feel good.  Because you know that the communications for a particular social change effort worked in harmony with the program piece and the evaluation/learning piece and a bunch of other pieces so that at some point, the change actually happened.  I’ve seen change happen like this.  And I feel grateful that during my career, I’ve run across examples where program and other foundation colleagues really DO get communications.

Like:  I remember one program officer looking at me in puzzlement, when I mentioned to her that communications officers at many foundations sometimes faced challenges in making the case for communications strategies and resources by way of staffing or budget.  “Really?” she said.  “But why?  After all, isn’t having a communications strategy really the only way to unlock the power of all the content and knowledge produced out of foundations’ investments in social change?  I mean, you can support the best project in the world, one that seems like a highly promising answer to someone’s problem—and you can fund people to evaluate it and prove how great it was—but how’re you gonna get people to care?  How’s anyone going to find out about it?  And how do you get anyone to care about big, complex problems if no one understands the problem, and therefore, no one can act to solve it?  Dontcha have to give people ways to talk about the issues we work on, so that you can engage the right audiences and stakeholders, and create momentum for change?”

This response made my heart sing like a bird.  I may have to import her to next year’s Network conference.

I know I’m not alone in fervently wishing that communications/program integration was a more common characteristic of foundation life.  In a recent survey the Network conducted, we asked communications practitioners to tell us honestly how closely they work with their program colleagues. While some respondents said they were making progress, albeit slowly, we also heard from some who said communications strategy at their foundations is barely given much due in decisions about advancing the mission and left for the end of a big project, rather than built into ambitious grant-making efforts. More pointed commentary, and bemoaning lost opportunities, was reflected in this response from one person: “Program staff seem to be making decisions without thought to the importance of properly messaging our work. Initiatives are designed without any communications goals – or input asked for – and later the communications department is asked to cobble something together.”

Yup.  That’s what I mean.  Well said.

So, I’d like to leave you with some slightly provocative questions, to take on in the comments if you wish:

• Do you believe that program staff who don’t “get” communications can actually be converted?  If so, how?
• Do you believe that communications staff can be effective at foundations when they don’t have a budget that is commensurate with what program staff allocate through grants?
• Do you believe that having your CEO on board with communications is the magic key to program/communications integration?  Is there even such a thing as a magic key?
• Do you believe that the Network has a role to play in helping you make the case for communications at your foundation?  If so, how?

One of our jobs at the Association of Baltimore Area Grantmakers is to help raise the public’s awareness of the role philanthropy plays – especially the work of our member foundations and corporate giving programs – to improve the quality of life in our region. In recent years, we’ve turned more and more to social media – notably Facebook and Twitter — to help us:

• Tell the story of what philanthropy is accomplishing in our region and across the country.
• Listen to what people are saying about issues we care about, and use this information to respond accordingly.
• Participate in an ongoing conversation with others who are also blogging, Tweeting and sharing about philanthropy via social media.

Based on our experiences and what we’ve learned over the past several years, here are some recommendations we’ve developed for making the most of social media and that might be useful to you, too:

• Start with a rationale for the use of social media, and make sure it is consistent with your overall communication strategy.

In order to enhance our ability to be the resource, network and voice of and for our funder members, we use social media, and in particular Facebook and Twitter for four specific reasons: To Communicate, Disseminate, Concentrate and Participate.

•  Develop a social media policy for your organization.

Organizations that use social media as part of an overall communication strategy to achieve set goals should have a policy in place in order to have a consistent presence and to inform, guide and empower staff. Our policy is relatively simple, is a living document, and touches on our organizational goals, values, key audiences, staff roles, specific platforms, appropriate content, monitoring and evaluation goals, and personal/professional responsibility.

• Map your social media distribution and participation opportunities in advance as much as you can– identify based on seasons, holidays, programs, events, trends, hot topics.

For example, we plan in advance to highlight the good work of our members through social media every two weeks when our “Adventures in Philanthropy” column in the Maryland Daily Record is published; or at the end of the year during the holidays we plan for the opportunity to highlight the employee giving programs of our member corporations.

• Be clear about who you “friend” and “follow” and why in order to obtain the best and most relevant ongoing information.

We are bombarded with information 24/7 and find it helpful to connect with individuals and organizations that are most relevant to our work – that we wish to reach with information, and that provide us with information to inform our work – for example, our members, partners, other foundations, policymakers and local, regional and national media.

• Find your organization’s unique and professional yet casual voice – it’s a new and different medium to engage in and with.

Our social media voice mimics our overall voice in all our communications, which is pretty straightforward, but there is a more casual, energetic and cheerful tone that we use in Facebook and Twitter that we hope encourages more dialogue and engagement than our traditional “voice” might.

• Practice good social media etiquette – participate, reach out, comment, follow, friend and thank your core constituencies on an ongoing basis.

We like to give a “shout” about the good work of our members and partners on an ongoing basis, thank those who RT or MT our Tweets, and answer those who engage with us via Facebook in a timely manner because we believe it’s the right thing to do, but also because it promotes a good working social media relationship and connection with those we are trying to reach and engage.

• Recognize that a sound social media plan requires an organizational commitment.

We built our social media plan as part of our overall communications plan – designed not to replace our traditional communication efforts, but to enhance them. As ABAG’s Communications

Director I manage our social media on a daily basis. An important part of our organizational commitment has been to engage our staff regularly regarding ideas and opportunities to incorporate their work into our social media, and to keep our board and members informed and engaged in our ongoing efforts. There is a time commitment throughout the day but I feel that it has significantly enhanced my ability to obtain and distribu

te information and has had a positive impact on overall communications.

• Evaluate! Social media efforts should be monitored as part of your overall communications efforts.

We evaluate all our communications on a quarterly basis, including our Facebook and Twitter efforts. We are primarily looking right now at the basics – # of followers and fans, # of RTs, MTs, views, mentions, likes and comments, andwhat is of most interest to those who are connecting with us. In 2012 we plan to continue efforts to evaluate and understand the im

pact of our social media and how it relates to our overall goals.

• Be thoughtful, strategic, fluid and flexible – have fun with it!

We are still learning daily about how to make the most of social media, but plan to continue our thoughtful approach while allowing for some experimentation and flexibility as we understand the opportunities and hone our skills in using social media to tell the story of the good work of philanthropy, listen, learn, and participate in the ongoing conversation every day.

That’s our list of “To Do’s.” What’s on yours?

Buffy Beaudoin-Schwartz can be reached at: bbschwartz@abagrantmakers.org

A few weeks ago, I tried to give everyone a glimpse inside the sausage-making of putting on our  Communications Network conference, and I also told you that we on the Network Board really do care about your feedback. As our new chair Rebecca Arno said recently, the Board’s right in the thick of planning for the Network’s future, and highly engaged members really do help inform our thinking.

Boy, ARE you engaged. Almost 60% of the conference attendees responded to the survey, and we got an overwhelming array of verbatim comments to read through. A full summary of the survey responses and comments can be found here, and I’ll touch on some of the highlights. But after reading through all of the numbers and all of the verbatim responses, I was left with the not-awful reminder that it’s simply impossible to please everyone. With 270 people who attended, who come from all sorts of foundations and nonprofit organizations and consulting firms, there’s bound to be a pretty enormous range of opinions and preferences. We may be united by a passion for strategic communications in philanthropy, but that’s pretty much it: for every comment that expressed enthusiastic support for a feature of the conference, there was another comment that told us not to do that anymore.

So despite the variation in comments, here are a few of what I would call collective take-aways from the conference:

• Most of you thought the conference was a success (95% rated it as “excellent” or “good”). Most of you plan to come to next year’s conference in Seattle (94%).
• Most of you loved the time we set aside for networking, and appreciated the spirit and the locations of both receptions.
• The “Group Therapy” approach to the breakout sessions seemed to provoke extreme reactions—many of you loved it, but some of you felt that it gave free rein to too much whining and venting (ironic, no?).
• Some of you yearn for breakout sessions and workshops that are more about skill-building and getting to solutions, or more tailored to your particular type of organization, and we hear you on that: we’ve tried that in past years, and we may try it again in the future.
• Oh my, I could write more than I have already about our collective ambivalence towards communications consultants and firms. A bunch of you were pretty annoyed by consultants you felt were being overly pushy and aggressive in the breakout sessions. It kind of sucks for the non-pushy communications consultants, too, because it makes them feel more self-conscious about joining in the breakout discussions as the good strategic thinkers and leaders we know them to be. I think this is one issue that might require some more specialized intervention, so to speak.
• Many of you pointed out how cold the breakout rooms were, and how thin the walls were, and I hear you on that—I, too, have a wonky internal thermostat—but please do realize that there’s only so much management of a venue we can do. Since moving to the Bay area, I’ve become really good at layering, so if any of you want some tips, happy to share.

Okay, that last one was a little facetious, maybe, but overall, it was really extraordinary to read all of the feedback you took the time to give us, and we are so grateful for it. But in expressing our gratitude, let me also make one final point, which is this: I hope you understand that we can’t possibly act on all of your feedback. For one thing, as I said, it’s simply impossible to please everyone, and if I were to take a crack at outlining a conference program that addressed everyone’s issues and concerns, I suspect the result would be Frankenstein-ish and all over the place. And then there’s another thing: the conference planning that the Board does is a labor of love, and we put a lot of thought into it, but sometimes we live with compromises. For example, we didn’t love the fact that three plenary speakers were on the final day, either, but surely you know what a crapshoot it is to get speakers to commit? And then deal with the tiny slivers of scheduling availability they give us? (I feel so moved every time I think that not only did Jelly Helm wow many of us with his insight and wisdom on the final day, but he also stayed with us during the entire conference.)

In other words, give us all the feedback you want—we can take it—but some of you will continue to scratch your heads about our plenary speaker choices, will continue to wonder why we did this or that with breakout sessions, will continue to wonder why we don’t just give you the answers you need, darn it. We know this, and accept this, and hope you accept it, too. And thank you again to those of you who took the time in the survey to say how much you appreciate the hard work so many people put into the conference. We love your parents for bringing you up so well.

See you next year, in Seattle.

Minna Jung is communications director at the David and Lucile Packard Foundation and vice chair of the Communications Network.

Even people who disagree with economist Paul Krugman, the Nobel laureate who writes twice a week on the New York Times op-ed page, would do well to follow his blog. You’re sure to learn something about Keynesian macroeconomics there (some of the entries are helpfully headed “wonkish”). But the most useful thing you may learn is the art of writing a thoughtful, learned blog.

Krugman is witty, personal, sometimes puckish, but almost always deadly serious, too. That’s not a bad formula for foundations and public-interest organizations. At their best, they, too, have gravely important issues to discuss, but they run the constant risk of seeming dense — or worse, stuffy.

In a recent blog post, Krugman showed that his artful mix of sprightly style and solemn subject matter is no accident. He offered a rare reflection on why, for some serious topics, a conversational tone is not just good but essential. The post came in response to someone who wrote to upbraid him for starting sentences with coordinating conjunctions. (Evidently, such people are still out there — the grammatical Walking Dead.) Although Krugman can be brutal when responding to ignorant economists, his reply to this ignorant style critic was not only gentle but wise. He wrote, in part:

Every once in a while I get correspondence from someone chiding me for the way I write — in particular the informality. I received one the other day complaining about sentences that begin with “but” or “and.” There is, however, a reason I write this way.

You see, the things I write about are very important; they affect lives and the destiny of nations. But despite that, economics can all too easily become dry and boring; it’s just the nature of the subject. And I have to find, every time I write, a way to get past that problem.

One thing that helps, I’ve found, is to give the writing a bit of a forward rush, with a kind of sprung or syncopated rhythm, which often involves sentences that are deliberately off center.

More broadly, the inherent stuffiness of the subject demands, almost as compensation, as conversational a tone as I can manage.

If I could carve stone tablets with commandments for foundation communicators, one of the items would surely be: “the inherent stuffiness of the subject demands, almost as compensation, as conversational a tone as you can manage.”

The subject matter, in Krugman’s case as well as ours, is weighty enough without the added burden of pomposity. But more important (note the conjunction, ye purists, and wail), the subject matter in both cases is often public policy — over which, in our flawed but venerable system, an actual public has an actual say. Regular people, who don’t pepper their sentences with “in addition” and “thatnotwithstanding,” need to follow and care about this stuff. To make the subject dreary on purpose is a crime against democracy.

And just to state something that really ought to be obvious, there is absolutely nothing wrong with starting a sentence with a coordinating conjunction. As with every stylistic device, it’s bad if you do it too often. But short sentences, as Krugman puts it, “give the writing a bit of a forward rush.” Policy writing can easily become a slog if weighed down with too many “howevers,” “nonethelesses,” “furthermores,” and “in additions.” Take a long, run-on sentence, drop in some periods before the “ands” and “buts,” and presto: you have shorter sentences that just might “give the writing a bit of a forward rush.” There are few editing tricks that are so easy to accomplish, and pay so rich a dividend. In my book, anyone who tries to forbid this simple improvement is just a tiresome scold.

Tony Proscio, a planning, evaluation, and communication consultant to foundation and large nonprofit organizations, is also the creator of the Communications Network’s Jargon Finder.

While the twice-yearly publication is primarily focused on European foundations, the topics should be of universal interest — and, in the case of the current issue, much should appeal to foundation communicators everywhere.  The current issue, available here as a pdf, is devoted to a discussion of “foundation legitimacy,” which Gerry Salole, EFC Chief Executive, notes in an introduction, is designed to bring “a bit more out into the open” questions of “legitimacy, transparency, accountability, regulation and self-regulation.”

One of the more satisfying aspects of holding a job in philanthropy is knowing you’re getting a paycheck from an enterprise that is, at its core, altruistic. You hop on your favorite mode of transport at the end of the workday and even if the day hadn’t gone as planned you can feel pretty good that you just spent eight or 10 hours trying to make the world a better place.

I’m sure that view was buttressed by the fact that among my responsibilities was communicating to a range of external audiences why the work we were doing mattered.  But what about others doing different work or just focused on their priorities to the exclusion of everything else going on in their organizations?  Is it right to assume they know what their colleagues are doing connects to something bigger or more meaningful?  Isn’t that the purpose of internal communications? And if so, why aren’t we as a group of communications professionals paying more attention to this topic and how to do it well?

Quality internal communications functions are designed to, among other things, make staff feel good about their work; make them feel like they’re part of something bigger and better and contributing to the well-being of a community. I’ve got a theory that one of the reasons foundations don’t pay close enough attention to internal communications issues is because they assume staff already come away each day with a high degree of satisfaction about their work.

A recent Communications Network post from David and Lucile Packard Foundation Communications Director Minna Jung, which highlighted the fact that a good chunk of our workday involves interacting with fellow staff to get stuff done, is one of the only ones I’ve seen on the topic of internal communications in years.  As she noted herself, when it comes to the topic of internal communications “none of us really like to talk about it, or admit that we do it as part of our jobs.”  True, examining how those interactions take place and thinking about they might be improved isn’t the sexiest of exercises, but foundations would serve themselves well by investing some resources in evaluating how internal communications take place and if platforms can be created or adjusted to strengthen the quality of communications among staff.

I once did external affairs work for a large company that went through a merger, and if there’s such a thing as over-committing to internal communications I was in the thick of it.  We were bombarded with daily [and lengthy] updates on the status of the company’s re-branding, the integration of benefits plans, leadership appointments, and why our Internet access was being restricted. But what they managed to get right was easing us through the merger process in a way that kept us from getting demoralized about ours or the company’s future. While there was an abundance of virtual group hugs, there were also plenty of opportunities for staff to provide their perspectives on the company’s direction.

Successful internal communications balances communications and technology. We need hardware and software and platforms that allow us to access the information required to do our jobs or to administer our benefits.We also need mechanisms [online and off] that help foster quality interactions among staff that lead to problem solving, innovation and collaboration.

It’s not enough that staff walk through the door every day and dot the i’s and cross the t’s in order to get the sausage out the door on deadline. That addresses the bottom line, but what if foundations truly embraced an internal communications philosophy that focused as much on creative exchange as information exchange?

Asking foundations, particularly smaller ones, to commit a lot of staff time to sorting out internal communications is a stretch. But foundations can commit to a set of ideals and figure out the best way to get there, whether it’s a collaboration of staff [IT, communications, program] or getting some outside help.

The bottom line is a more formal, well-thought-out internal communications plan can be a highly effective tool for foundations to enlist staff enthusiasm for their missions and surface ideas that can make them better institutions.

A recent communications success you’re proud of?
The new Strategic Plan section of our website. For each of 14 issues, we provide an overview, a description of our funding approaches, lists of grants (updated monthly), an impact story (with photos or video), results of grants (as they are available), and a link to the guidelines for that issue area.

What did you want to be when you grew up?
An architect.

In addition to grantmaking, MCF’s program efforts include advocacy.  What’s an example?
Affordable housing—a big, hot issue here, where NIMBYism is alive and well. We’ve funded several efforts to help and encourage local municipalities to honor state-mandated housing laws. We’ve funded advocacy groups and housing developers (including training local spokespeople), a county-wide campaign focusing on smart growth and several reports on housing, traffic, and density.

Biggest complaint on how your issues get covered?
What coverage there is usually gets prompted by a scandal or controversy. I’m not looking for “feel-good” stories, but I do crave more coverage of community issues and what’s being done to address them.

Do you do an annual communications plan?
We do for our outreach to prospective donors, since that’s such a key part of our overall communications. It’s very specific about messages, vehicles, timing, audiences, etc. For our other communications, at the moment we’re referencing past plans that cover all the basics.

Your undergraduate major?
English, Oberlin College.

Has MCF ever talked publicly about any grantmaking failures?
Not explicitly.

Your favorite underappreciated journalist?
Two photojournalists: Ed Ou and Tyler Hicks of The New York Times. Nearly every day I hold up one of their photos to someone and say, “Take a look at this.”

Does MCF evaluate communications?
Not comprehensively, but for various audiences. With prospective donors, for example, it’s more quantitative. We track the success of our outreach efforts by analyzing click-throughs from online advertising, the sources of clicks, the number of viewings of an online promotional video, and data collected from prospects who contact us.

MCF’s climate change program is unusually global for a community foundation, no?
In many ways, we treat it as a local story. We tell personal stories showing how this issue affects people’s lives here. For example, I’ve built stories around a rancher on whose land research is taking place to assess the ability of the county’s rangelands to absorb C02 from the atmosphere. He considers himself a “carbon farmer” who’s actually improving farmlands and rangelands by increasing the level of carbon in the soil.

Favorite nonprofessional blog?
Alex Ross’ The Rest is Noise. The classical music critic for The New Yorker posts his thoughts and observations about classical music, sometimes just interesting, other times provocative and not “fit” for The New Yorker.

Foundation whose communications you admire?
Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. They combine rigorous, detailed information on issues and grants with beautifully written and produced stories (including videos) to illustrate their impact and the issues they’re addressing. It’s the right mix of head and heart.

Last nonfiction book you read?
“Just Kids,” by Patti Smith. Besides being an intimate chronicle of a long and complicated relationship, the book also gives insight into the creative evolution of two highly original and successful artists.

Favorite communications tool more foundation communicators should use?
Video. I’d lost interest in this vehicle after seeing so many bad ones—too long, not well produced, too many talking heads, too self-serving. But I’m lately seeing exceptional video I’d like to emulate.

Something you learned recently from a communications colleague?
I did an informal survey of my colleagues at community foundations to understand how they are using social media.

Got a novel deep down inside you?
I don’t think so. But I do imagine writing something completely different from what I’ve done in my professional life once I have the time.

A Quick Word With… is edited by Michael Hamill Remaley, a communications consultant, director of Public Policy Communicators NYC and a frequent Communications Network contributor.

If you’d like to suggest someone for a future profile, please use this form.

Joined by co-conspirators Kristen Grimm of Spitfire Strategies, and Patrick McCabe of GYMR LLC, I helped lead a session at the recent Network annual conference in Boston about how foundations and communications consultants/firms can work together more successfully.  The session involved storytelling (with incriminating evidence omitted) and then the foundation folks sat on one side, the consultants/firms on the other, to come up with “Rules of the Road” for how to help the relationship be as successful as possible from the get-go.  And then we shared.  It was kind of a blast, and I was completely unwilling to remove my devil’s tail for the rest of the day.  (The horns gave me a bit of a headache.)

The two groups came up with some pretty great ideas, so I’m going to post them here, and these are not so much rules, as they are things each side wanted the other to consider, and respect, before moving forward in the foundation/consultant relationship:

And that’s it.  It seemed like a fairly even number of both foundation reps and consultants showed up to the session, so interesting to see that the consultants had more tips for the foundations.  Please feel free to share, augment, or amend in the comments.  Thanks to everyone who came!

Photo courtesy of Jessica Keyes, Prairie Sky Design.

Got 15 minutes?  Take a look at the collection of videos from our recent Fall Communications Network Conference in Boston that follow.

All the videos were shot by members of the Gorilla Engagement Squad, our volunteer team of videographers who were deployed for the third time in as many years to capture thoughts, impressions and other comments from attendees. If you were with us in Boston, click on any or all for a nice refresher on the big  topics, challenges and resulting take-aways that hopefully equipped you with fresh ideas and new approaches to apply to the work you’re doing back home.

If you weren’t there, watch the videos to get a feel for what was discussed.  Don’t be surprised if you see similarities to what you are dealing with on your job.  More so, you’ll see that there are lots of folks who are just a phone call or email away who can help you.

Social Media Challenges offers thoughts on what needs to be done make the the most of this still new and evolving way of communicating and connecting with audiences.

Achieving Kumbaya focuses on the promise of bridging the oft-bemoaned chasm between program and communications departments in foundations.

Take-Aways is a catch-all collection of the ideas, suggestions and other take-aways conference attendees said they’ll bring back to the office to help them on their jobs.

Challenges is a check-list of what people would like to overcome so communications can be an even greater contributor to successful foundation work.

Funniest Thing… is a round up of odd ball requests sometimes made of communications professionals because “hey, you’re in communications.”

Whether you’ve been to multiple Network conferences or only one, what’s your take about the current conversations?  Let us know.

Finally, we owe a big thanks to the following for their work as Gorilla volunteers — some first-timers and others repeat volunteers from past conferences.

2011 Boston Gorilla Squad members:
Maria Archuleta, Open Society Foundations
Dan Brady, Forum of Regional Assocation of Grantmakers
Sylvia Burgos Toftness, Northwest Area Foundation
Justin Christy, Bush Foundation
Stefan Lanfer, Barr Foundation
Catherine Michel, Solomon McCown & Co
Jim Miller, Dentsu Communications
Kevin Griffin Moreno, Baltimore Community Foundation
Justin Ordman, Solomon McCown & Co
Chris Palmedo, Northwest Health Foundation
Charity Perkins, The Duke Endowment
Vanessa Schnaidt, The Foundation Center
Melia Swift, Solomon McCown & Co
Liz Wainger, Wainger Group
Sheridan Wachtel, Solomon McCown & Co
Jenn Whinnem, Connecticut Health Foundation

Photo on website homepage courtesy of Jessica Keyes, Prairie Sky Design.

(Rebecca Arno started her two-year term as the Network’s chair at the Fall 2011 Conference.)

With annual memberships at 400-plus, an active listserv, dynamic on-line content, and nearly 300 attendees at our Boston conference, the Communications Network is stronger than ever.

This shouldn’t be surprising, since the practice of communications has never been more integral to the work of our organizations. In Boston, we heard how social media helped launch an uprising, how online content influences the way we view the world, and how a film transformed the ability of a young woman and her immigrant parents to see the future. And this was just on day one. On day two, we heard how storytelling can change the narrative of a country.

As I listened to our conference speakers, I couldn’t help but transfer their lessons back to my own organization. If social media can fuel an uprising, can it help boost resident involvement in revitalizing a Denver neighborhood? If a film can change a family’s future, can video help our grantees teach young children to read? I’m sure everyone in the audience had similar thoughts. We are each, in our own ways, out to change to the world.

Given the power of this work we do, we are so fortunate to have the Communications Network working every day to help us become better communicators.

A few years ago when I joined the board, we were about a year past near-disaster. The Network created by our predecessors in the 1980s had almost ceased to be. Our turnaround began in mid-2006, when Bruce Trachtenberg was hired as our new executive director. Since then, and thanks to the awesome direction of board chairs Grant Oliphant, Bud Meyer, and most recently, Eric Brown, the Network has been energetically and boldly building the organization. We are here today because of great staff and board teamwork and the myriad contributions that you – our members and supporters – have made over the years. As I step into my role as the Network’s chair for the next two years, I know I’ll be counting on that same level of energy and enthusiasm.

In fact, we need your help more than ever. Now that we’ve strengthened the Network to provide outstanding programmatic content, a listserv that connects us all year, and not-to-be-missed annual conferences, what’s next? The Network board is working on a strategic plan…one that looks ahead to design the future of our work together. With our consultants from Community Wealth Ventures, we’ve begun to do research on what our members want, and you’ll see more questions about this in the months to come.

So…are you with us? Please let me, or any of the other board member, hear your thoughts, your concerns, and your visions for the Network. Together, we can build toward the future—hopefully one as bright as that described by Jelly Helm, where we’re all operating in the economy of love—but even if we face huge challenges, the Network can and should stand ready to make us all successful.

I share some more of my thoughts about the Network and its future in the video that accompanies this post. I look forward to comments from you about what I say there and here. Please let me know what you think.

We raised similar questions ourselves two years ago in a webinar that featured a discussion with with Paul Slovic, a psychologist at the University of Oregon, and one of the experts featured in the recent Times article.

During our webinar, we asked Dr. Slovic to talk to us about what he was learning from his research about what makes people stop caring or seem less empathetic about causes you’d expect them to want do do something about.  We also asked to share his thoughts on why numbers numb, which stories have a greater chance of sticking than others and what you can do with this knowledge, especially if you want to get people to act.

As the New York Times article reminds us, the issue of  ”psychic numbing”  is just as relevant today.  That’s why we’re reposting the webinar here so you can watch the discussion, reflect on what it means to your work and offer your comments.

>>View the webinar.

by Michael Remaley, HAMILL REMALEY breakthrough communications & Public Policy Communicators – NYC

Among the many important and practical ideas that have stayed with me since last week’s Communications Network conference in Boston, perhaps the most penetrating has been one advanced by Eli Pariser in the first plenary. He spoke stirringly about a range of issues revolving around the themes of his book The Filter Bubble: What the Internet is Hiding from You.  The idea that really struck me was the connection he made between the mutating corporations controlling information and the great food-industrial complex that has had such an immense impact on our lives over the past 60 years.

My friend and colleague Lucas Held also talked about how this idea hit home for him at the conference. Over the past week, as I’ve clicked “like” several times and chosen which stories I wanted to read online, I’ve done so with Eli’s voice in the back of my head.

Pariser’s food/information corollary is brilliant. The comparison of the food industry and the companies controlling our information intake provides an exceedingly useful means of examining the existential conundrums we face in our daily information consumption.

As a hardcore fitness freak, I must admit that I have been condescending and judgmental toward those who are overweight. Even though I know that there are many elements of our system and policies that conspire against those who are overweight – food policy that makes sugars and grains cheap, transportation policies that keep people in cars, family histories that induce unhealthy diets and sedentary living – I still tend to blame individuals for their poor choices.

We now face a similar set of issues and questions around information intake and how we exercise our roles as engaged citizens. If the links you see and the results of your searches are basically the product of your previous explorations, do we have anyone but ourselves to blame for the quality of the information that these companies present us?

The PR flacks of the food industrial complex have for years told us that they simply produce the products that consumers want. But we’ve come to realize that what they have been selling us for more than half a century is not what our bodies need but what provides instant gratification and maximum profit for the companies. Pariser has performed an Upton Sinclair-like service by illuminating the fact that Facebook, Google, Amazon and the other powers of the Algorithm-Industrial-Complex are in a similar position to impact our lives.

In the past week, I’ve been clicking on more political postings, “like”-ing negative stories that I want more people to read and trying to spend less time online looking at items that are merely entertaining. Still, just as with the food industry, I know that my own healthy choices may have little impact on the rest of the world. So the question is, how can we create a system that encourages healthy information consumption and the exercise of active citizenship without limiting or otherwise “censoring” people’s access to LOLcats, TMZ and Ashton Kutcher’s Twitter feed.

I’ve been giving it a lot of thought since I heard Pariser’s message, but I still can’t offer any viable solutions. I suppose the first thing to do, just like the healthy eating/exercise problem, is raise awareness. But looking at our nation’s success in that realm, I’m skeptical of our ability to make progress through awareness alone. Perhaps we need to get the successful anti-smoking campaign people on this issue. I’d love to hear others’ thoughts on this.

By now y’all who were at our Fall conference in Boston should have received an invitation to tell us what you thought of the event. If you haven’t filled out the survey yet, and you’re still sharpening your opinions for us on how the conference went, I just wanted to say:  have at it. And thank you.

And,  this is not intended to blunt the force of your opinions, but I thought it might be helpful if I gave you a little glimpse inside the Network conference sausage-making, just to show you how much we care about doing right by you.  The Board hasn’t always planned the conferences, by the way:  after the Network was revived from near-death, the annual conference took place in San Francisco in 2006 and used the Open Space framework—a do-it-yourself approach to conference planning whereby conference participants proposed topics for discussion, rooms were assigned, and people simply migrated to the discussion of their choice.  As most people have told me since then, this approach really works well about half the time, and so it went in San Fran, but the experience was still memorable notably in that over 100 people showed up.  The Board realized that despite languishing membership, people still believed in the Communications Network, and wanted a flocking ground.

However, Ira Glass happened, at the 2008 conference in Chicago, and then the bar was set high forevermore from that point onwards.  After Ira, we all wanted great speakers, with thought-provoking, non-preachybreakout sessions and lots of time for networking.   And that’s what we’ve aimed for ever since.

So here are some of the rules we live by, to make the Network conferences worthwhile:

SPEAKERS SHALL NOT SUCK

We have felt really strongly about this from the beginning, and we’re willing to do whatever it takes to make sure speakers are great and they understand the audience.  We’ve watched speaker videos, if they’re available.  We solicit first-hand testimonials.  We’ve even taken breakout session speakers through Andy Goodman training.  We’ve suffered (our executive director, mostly) through insufferable agency representatives with endless demands.

With all that, we fail sometimes.  We just do.  It’s not a science, and sometimes you come across the astonishing circumstance where a person has been vouched for by numerous trusted sources, and yet they still suck.  Sometimes we get a speaker who appeals to some people, and not so much to others.  And, we often get dinged for the lack of racial and ethnic diversity in our line-up, and while we think you absolutely SHOULD get on us about that, we also wish you would maybe help us out a little more than you do.  Every conference in the world is seeking more diverse line-ups.   We need help making the connection, because sometimes, the connection is all that will get us through the door to then cajole, persuade, and maybe tearfully plead for the major speakers to come and show up.  For a reduced fee.

Also, diversity is about more than one’s race/ethnicity.  Remember that.  We could use a little more political diversity (avoid the Network filter bubble!).

EXCEPT IN RARE EXCEPTIONS, WE DON’T LIKE PANEL PRESENTATIONS

I think all of us must wake up screaming from nightmares in which we are forced to attend one boring panel presentation after another.  Oh wait, that’s my real life!  Yes, it’s so sad to me, how many people miss the boat on conference planning by getting two, or three, or seven speakers on a panel, giving each of them five minutes each to speak, and then watching each one take 15 minutes, thereby collectively vaporizing the time for Q&A and true interaction with the audience.  We’ll do almost anything to avoid that from happening.  (We appoint “board buddies” for session sponsors, people from the Board who work with the session designers to keep an eye on how a session is shaping up.  Are we Type A, or what?

BREAKOUT SESSIONS ARE HARD

Although the Group Therapy concept appeared to go over well this time, I gotta say, it’s hard to keep things fresh in this department.  People are eager to learn, but they’re also eager to show-and-tell, and the best and the worst of people come to play in smaller discussion settings.  We’ve had some hits with breakouts, and we’ve had some spectacular misses, and on this point in particular, we’d love it if you could share some good ideas with us in the survey about what to do in the future.

As I said in the beginning, we’ll take all the advice we can get—although I’ll be honest:  whining’s not cool, and it irritates the hell out of us.  We do have feelings.

(If you didn’t receive a survey invitation, please email brucet@comnetwork.org)

Fall conference photos courtesy of Jessica Keyes, Prairie Sky Design.

Minna Jung is communications director at the David and Lucile Packard Foundation and vice chair of the Communications Network.

We are a good-looking and passionately animated group of folks!  And we have photos and videos of the Fall 2011 conference to prove it.

Thanks to each member of the Gorilla Engagement Squad — our roving band of volunteers — we collectively cajoled more than 100 of you to offer your thoughts on video camera.    Video summaries will be rolling out over the next week.

Until then, relive the glory of Boston through these photo slideshows follow.  All feature photos taken by Squad member Jessica Keyes of Prairie Sky Designs.  Jessica is newly married to one of the Network’s newest members: Kevin Griffin-Moreno of the Baltimore Foundation who also served on the Engagement Squad.  In addition to the slide shows below, please visit our Flickr site  to view the entire collection.  Jessica has generously allowed you download any of the photos. If use any of them, she asks that you credit her in the following way: Photo by Jessica Keyes, Prairie Sky Design.

As we learned from Jelly Helm, Swanee Hunt and Van Jones, it’s key that we present ourselves authentically in the new media environment. These shots could spice up your bio page the way a formal headshot never could.

By Dan Brady, Forum of Regional Associations of Grantmakers

When I led the Group Therapy session “Culture Shift: Learning to Act as a Network,” based on the Connected Citizens report released by the Knight Foundation and the Monitor Institute, there was one area that we didn’t touch on, but now, with the conference behind me, it seems an appropriate point of reflection.

Towards the end of the report, author Diana Scearce provides a list of criteria for evaluating the health of a network.  Based on our collective experiences last week, let’s take a quick look at how the Communications Network measures up against Scearce’s checklist.

Value

There was a little something for everyone at this year’s conference, which shows just how well-developed the network has become. Whether you’re a social media butterfly, a cocktail-hour networker, or new to the field and just looking to get your bearings, the conference offered sessions and situations tailor-made to your style. There’s no doubt that everyone came away from our meeting in Boston a little bit wiser and better connected.

Participation

Well, this one is clear. With over 270 participants, this year’s conference was packed with activity. From the Aquarium opening reception to the closing address by Van Jones, conference attendees were challenged to engage with one another and the world. Of course, participation in the Communications Network is not limited to the annual conference. Year-round you’ll find ample discussion and resource sharing on the network’s listserve and a whole lot of chatter on Twitter with the hashtag #ComNetwork.

Form

The question of form has to do with weak and strong ties. At least from where I sit, both are present in the Communications Network. I’ve got a core group of folks who I feel closer to and with which I am more likely to ask questions and collaborate, but there’s a whole big network out there and I wouldn’t feel strange reaching out to any of you because our network glue.

Leadership

Clearly, Executive Director Bruce Trachtenberg and the Communications Network board provide stellar leadership. Do you think a conference like this could come together without such a crackerjack team running the show? From lining up incredible speakers to organizing the Gorilla Engagement Squad, Bruce and the board know how to channel the network’s energy towards the most pressing issues and the most immediate connections.

Connection

The Communications Network provides multiple avenues for connection among members. I always come away from the conference with a handful of business cards and a whole list of new ideas to follow up on. Luckily for me, it’s easy to connect to everyone else in the network. We’re communications people! We’re everywhere. Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, you name it. We live and breathe email. We call. We ask questions. We share. It’s in our blood.

Capacity to Tap the Network’s Assets

The depth and breadth of knowledge present in the network was made clear by this year’s member-driven approach to the group therapy breakout sessions. I mean, wow, talk about the wisdom of the crowd. Don’t get me wrong, the outside speakers were great, but the most valuable content for me came from member interactions, and the conference gave us plenty of space to share what we know (and what we don’t).

Feedback Loops and Adaptation

Each year the conference evolves in response to member feedback. Was there something that you really loved? Or maybe something you could do without? Make sure to let them know*, because this is an organization that really does respond to member feedback and takes action for the betterment of the network.

*Note from Communications Network: Look for the post-conference survey in your email inbox in the coming days.  

by Adam Coyne, Mathematica Policy Research

Few people know that I’m a third-generation Bostonian (moved when I was 11). Even though I’m now a Phillies fan (sorry dad), my childhood was filled with Hoodsies (you New Englanders know what I’m talking about); “jimmies”; and pahking our cah at the Stah Mahket. Growing up here, the concepts of Yankee ingenuity and New England frugality imprinted at an early age. As I’ve been listening to the many panels and plenaries I was struck by the innovative ideas and initiatives many of you are working on. There are some impressive programs and projects driving major social change. The ingenuity is in full swing with this group. 

It was upon reflection that I realized we didn’t hear a whole lot about frugality. This kind of surprised me. I’m not going to go into a diatribe about recessions and deficits and the rising poverty rates (which are real and really awful). Rather, the need for us to focus on providing value. As Eric Brown pointed out, we represent over 6 billion dollars in annual grant making. But the dollars for communications are much, much smaller. With the exception of the stage-crafted 5 dollars (thank you Daniel Silverman), when it comes to communications for social change every dollar counts.

Most of us are stewards of private resources that are earmarked for the publics’ interest. The bulk of our jobs are focused on coming up with the most innovative ways to spread ideas as effectively and efficiently as possible. As dissemination tools become democratized and increasingly cheap, innovative ideas and relevant content are two of the best tools we have at our disposal. In an era of cost-cutting and tighter budgets for foundations, grantees and others, I’d like to hear your stories of impact and results you’ve achieved on a budget. 

Question 1:  What do I love?

Question 2:  What do I see that no one else does?

Question 3:  What do I do about it?

Happy pondering. Leave comments, please.

by Stefan Lanfer, Barr Foundation

Audience, Oh Audience, How do I Segment…No, Scratch That. How do I LOVE Thee?

After her prepared remarks (including song, stories and unmistakable authenticity) the first question Ambassador Swanee Hunt faced was an awe-filled, “How did you do that?” Our colleague in the crowd wondered aloud how Hunt had shared of herself so honestly, so easily, and in a way so intimate that it felt like she was speaking to each of us in our living room.

In reply, Hunt said it had something to do with “falling in love” with her audience. I was really struck by that.

How reflexively in communications we talk about segmenting audiences – cataloguing wants and needs and concerns and motivations, to help us craft messages we think will resonate and stick. It’s a sensible approach. But it isn’t exactly an act of love.

Swanee’s comment made me wonder what would change if our starting point were not to segment our audiences, but instead to fall in love with them.

I don’t know quite what that would look like and I hope you’ll share ideas in the comments below. But I suspect that whatever communications result from a process that starts with love couldn’t possibly feel condescending or patronizing. It couldn’t play like ivory-tower declarations from us on high with the answers for you down there with your problems.

Because love makes it about us – as in, all of us.

And so maybe love is the secret sauce for making what Eli Pariser challenged us to make on day one of our time together in Boston (here, here and here), which is a revolution that is irresistible.

by Lucas Bernays Held, The Wallace Foundation

For a long time, experts blamed the problem of obesity on personal factors – perhaps a poor self-image, or lack of control. But in recent years scholars studying the problem increasingly point to environmental factors that influence people’s choices.

A prime example are fast-food restaurants where a large Coke costs only 10 cents more than a medium, making it a financially sound decision (given the lower cost per fluid ounce) to order a large. In other words, it’s still possible to make a healthy choice (ordering the small Coke), but the external cues and incentives set up by the food industry are nudging us in the wrong direction.

(The power of external cues can work in a positive direction, too – witness the effect of excise taxes on cigarettes and its part in reducing smoking, or the rise in 401k enrollment when you have to check a box to opt out, rather than check a box to opt in. These issues are explored in Nudge by Richard Thaler and Cassie Sunstein, though their conclusions have not gone uncontested by critics including members of the House of Lords.)

We’ve all thought of the World Wide Web as being a blank slate – free of any of these cues.

But in his address at the Fall 2011 Communications Network Conference in Boston on Sept. 22, MoveOn.org founder Eli Pariser warned us that new steps taken by Google, Facebook and other technology firms may actually be nudging us in the direction of being consumers of “information junk food.”

Here’s what the author of the book The Filter Bubble: What the Internet is Hiding from You told a surprised audience:

-That if you take two people who use search engines regularly and have them do a Google search on a particular term, about 60 percent of the search results will be different. What’s happening, Pariser said, is that Google is shaping its results according to what you’ve clicked on in the past. He offered the example of what happened when two friends searched the term “Egypt”. One got news of protests; the other got information on travel. The algorithm had automatically aligned search results with the prior search behavior of the user.

-That on his facebook page, he was surprised one day to find that all of his conservative friends had disappeared. Why? Because he was clicking on news from liberal friends more frequently.

What’s behind this, Pariser explained, is the goal of both technology companies to offer content that is relevant to users. And relevance is defined by past behavior. He quoted former Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt as saying: “It will be very hard for people to watch or consume something that has not in some sense been tailored to them.”

In many ways, this is just an extension of what people have been doing for decades. Some folks who pick up a newspaper will go first to the sports section, others to the local news, and some to the obituaries.

The difference, though, he noted, is that this is done automatically for you. It’s “invisible and passive.” In effect, Pariser argued, you have been placed in a “filter bubble” – and you have no way of knowing “who Google or Yahoo! think you are.”

This kind of automated narrowing of perspectives could lead to big problems:

Personal biases – or distortions, as he put it – that are reinforced. People experience pleasure when their pre-existing opinions are confirmed, and irritation when those opinions are contradicted. So instead of being exposed to facts that might change your opinion, you’ll be exposed mainly to items that reinforce them.

-The “like button” problem. These buttons are important, as they trigger what items rise to the top of news lists. But “like” has specific connotations – like pleasure, or amusement. And that may make it less probable that people will hit the “like” button for stories that are important, but perhaps not amusing – like the revolution in Iraq, or bank defaults. Those stories could wind up in the background.

-The psychological equivalent of obesity. If you’re only fed a diet of what others find amusing, and that is likely to be aligned with your current interests, you won’t get the “nutrition” that new perspectives could provide. As he put it, “you could end up in a world surrounded by information junk food.”

Pariser didn’t mention that this shift toward “personalization” of the Internet is really part of the wider shift documented by Clay Shirky of power from the few to the many. Four decades ago, there were three nightly TV newscasts, that you could supplement with your local newspaper and several national newspapers. There were a relatively small number of editors who at least made you aware of what (and I can say this as a former newspaper editor) was, based on their usually thoughtful but hardly infallible judgment, relevant, important, and interesting. You may have skimmed the news from overseas, but at least you knew it existed.

To my mind, the strongest part of Pariser’s argument is that this “filter bubble” – a clever metaphor –is not visible. That argument should, in an age where the Pew Survey Research Center on the People and the Press charts worrisomely low levels of trust in institutions, resonate with both those on the right and the left. (If there was any doubt about the findings, the Center’s latest report was called Distrust, Discontent and Partisan Rancor.)

But it’s also hard not to feel that Pariser’s target is really human nature. The argument that news is like spinach – and that we need a kind of Web-based “fairness doctrine” – seems like a tough one to make.

A different argument was advanced by actress (“Ugly Betty”) and activist America Ferrera, who recounted how she has helped build a school in Mali, and rescue a young woman in Kolkata profiled by Nicholas Kristof who would have otherwise been sold to a brothel and denied the chance for schooling. In Ferrera’s view, it’s all about telling a compelling story.

“You can’t expect that a PSA is going to work in this day and age,” she said. “How you tell the story is as important as the story itself. Creative thinking in the storytelling is really essential to reaching an audience.”

In other words, all attention is ultimately voluntary – which is why Dickens did as much as anyone to shine a light on the appalling conditions of Victorian workhouses. And that’s especially true in a world that has moved from three nightly newscasts plus a local paper – to hundreds of channels, thousands of online newspapers, and thousands more bloggers.

But Ferrera also used posts on her Facebook page and Tweets to help tell that young woman’s story. And, in fact, 45 people hit the “like” button on the Kristof story, despite Pariser’s worry about the semantic implications of the word.

In a separate and fascinating Communications Network session, Nasser Weddady, outreach coordinator for Hands Across the Mideast Support Alliance, and Mona Eltahawy, a commentator, both emphasized the role of social media in the protests that led to the overthrow of the Mubarak regime in Egypt. As Eltawahy said, ”we found each other online. A revolution needs that kind of criss-crossing of people.”

So, where does this leave us?

Pariser has a point that “personalization” of online search could amplify our worst tendencies to roll around in the mud puddle of our own prejudices – in the way that the pricing of the large Coke just a hair above the medium seduces us into gluttony.

It’s also the case that in an age of institutional distrust, people put more stock in information from other people they know, usually those who are like themselves. That has a big downside. But it also opens up the potential that a woman of conscience like Ferrera, who has beauty, fame and fluency in digital media, is showing us how to tap.

“We have met the enemy and he is us,” said Pogo.

In the battle for improving the conditions of the thousands of oppressed and disadvantaged people, our own fragile humanity may be our worst feature – but also our best ally.

by Chris Wolz, Forum One Communications

Two observations from Communications Network conference: exciting opportunities to effect social change using online engagement make many foundations nervous, and the old German expression “Der Fisch stinkt vom Kopf her” has new applicability in this online age.

Dan Brady from the Forum of the Regional Association of Grantmakers led a session “Learning to Act as a Network”, building on the “Connected Citizens” project of Knight Foundation. That project is focused on “How might our grantmaking respond effectively to a world in which loose networks of individuals, not just formal organizations, are becoming powerful creators of knowledge and action?”

Dan discussed the “traditional mindset” of how many organizations – and foundations – function: firmly controlled and planned, decision-making is concentrated, insights come from individual expert actors, etc. And in contrast, he discussed what the networked approach embodies: weaving connections and building networks, loosely controlled and emergent, collective intelligence, etc. Some examples of the value of the (online) networked approach to create tools,services, insights and social action are seen in:

• Crisis Mapping Standby Task Force
• Pink Chaddi Campaign
• Open Source Software, like Linux
• Wikipedia
• Ashoka’s Changemakers
• PreventObesity.net
• EDF’s Innovation Exchange

In the session, I heard the repeated theme that foundations were too risk averse to engage in network building approaches – online oroffline – as the outcomes are uncontrolled and unpredictable. One person mentioned how the funders with which he routinely met were very guarded in sharing information and challenges  - even in face to face meetings among peers. Another mentioned how his organization had ventured into blogging as a way to expand engagement, but only after they first mapped out a detailed multi-leveled response plan to deal with negative comments on the blog (which, by the way, never came.)

In Marc Fest’s session on “Letting others do the talking: tactics for decentralizing communication without inviting chaos”, he encouraged people to find ways to get program staff communicating – online –  about their work. Again, people commented on the risk aversion of Foundations to experiment with online engagement – with blogging and social media and online network building. Marc spoke of how the Knight Foundation has had success with getting staff blogging, by emphasizing that blogs posts did not need to be like carefully written white papers, and were better if they were short, casual, timely, and personal.  See their blogs here.  Marc also spoke of how it was valuable to get the head of an organization paying attention to online efforts, maybe even blogging, in order to give the organization’s online efforts some legitimacy and focus, because “Der Fisch stinkt vom Kopf her” (a fish stinks from the head down.)

So, what’s a progressive communications director at a nervous foundation to do? After all, they don’t want to have some gaffe on their watch, like a program officer saying “We” (the royal we) “passed health care.” But they may want to position their foundation ~online~ as a thought leader, network building, and generator of big impacts.

Here are some ideas about practical steps in trying online engagement – and surviving to tell about it:

• Evangelize! share with your colleagues new online approaches and success stories – because if you don’t, where are they going to learn about new online innovations?
• Get your “message house” in order on an issue, have your colleagues use it, and relax!
• Pilot projects: try small, time limited, online engagement “pilot” projects. There’s is a reason Google and others call new initiatives (e.g. Google Chrome Beta) to great success!
• And follow the guidance of the Connected Citizens in network building:

–Listening to and consulting the crowds: Actively listening to online conversations and openly asking for advice.
–Designing for serendipity: Creating environments, in person and online, where helpful connections can form.
–Bridging differences: Deliberately connecting people with different perspectives.
–Catalyzing mutual support: Helping people directly help each other.
–Providing handrails for collective action: Giving enough direction for individuals to take effective and coordinated action.

by Larry Blumenthal, Open Road Advisors

Two thoughts struck me while listening to America Ferrera tell the Communications Network crowd this morning of her rise from meager circumstances to a life as an actress and philanthropist.

First, her passion to make a difference. Maybe it comes from the life she left behind. Maybe it comes from inside her. Maybe a combination of those and other factors. Either way, her determination as a college freshman to consider giving up the acting she loved to devote herself full-time to social issues displayed extraordinary passion for the work we do.

When an audience member asked how she chooses among numerous requests for help, her commitment showed itself again. You have to find what is in your heart, she said. That sort of passion often gets lost in the bureaucracy, politics and other nitty-gritty of the daily work inside a foundation. Ferrera proved a nice reminder to hold on to it and recognize it in others as we go through our days.

Second, her emphasis on the importance of storytelling. We in communications all talk about it. But Ferrara’s examples of how the movie “Real Women have Curves” and episodes of “Ugly Betty” and “Modern Family” touched and inspired people, hammered the point home again and again. “The way we tell the story is as important as the story we tell,” she said, emphasizing that it is OK to be entertaining.  The importance of story even cropped up in her example of how a nonprofit inspired her to participate by providing a “very detailed plan of action.” They showed her where she fit into the story and what she could do specifically to make a difference.

Her two lessons? 1) It is OK to stay true to your passion, and 2) use that passion – whether it is acting or something else – to have an impact beyond yourself.

Valuable lessons for all of us.

by Stefan Lanfer, Barr Foundation

The day’s opening session by Eli Pariser was a check on my Google love. I mean what’s not to love about a company whose mantra is Do No Evil?   I’d heard before of echo chambers and the general bemoaning of these times in which we are getting our news more and more from people who think just like us, getting what Pariser called the “dopamine hit” of having our preconceived notions reinforced. But surely not do-no-evil Google, right? Isn’t that the objective source? Just an organizer of info? Democratizing information? Maybe not.

Pariser flashed two different Google searches of the word “Egypt” during its  revolution at the beginning of this year – two searches on the same word at the same time by two different friends. One set of results was all about Arab Spring and breaking news from Tahrir square. The other a bunch of ads and travel sites and pyramids.

What?

Google’s algorithm aparently tailored to me more than I know – delivering results based on what I’ve clicked in the past.

A little sobering. And a provocative example of Kranzberg’s Law that “technology is not good or evil, but neither is it neutral.”

by Adam Coyne, Mathematica Policy Research

One of the highlights of the Network conference for me is when a topic triggers a thought that I can’t get out of my head. Today, that concept is filtering. As I listened to Eli’s plenary I was pretty ticked off by the idea that my online experience is being shaped by people I don’t know and forces I can’t control based on information that isn’t necessarily accurate or complete. As I thought about it more and discussed the topic with colleagues at break and lunch, another thought quickly crystallized. The idea of a wide open web with NO filters is equally terrifying – or at the very least, pretty overwhelming. As I untangled these ideas in my mind, I recognized that it’s not the concept of a filter that bothers me. Rather, I’m put off by a nameless, faceless “other” having control over what I do and don’t see when I log on. I want filters, but I want them on my terms. And I want them to be transparent. I can be friends with these filters.

So you heard it here first. Filtering is good. But filters have a bad rap that’s going to be tough to overcome. So consider this blog the beginning of a viral rebranding effort for ‘filters’ and ‘filtering.’ From here on out ‘filtering’ should be described as ‘curating.’ Everyone loves a curator. They are a smarter, more educated and aspirational version of ourselves. A curator is someone or something who does the hard work of scanning everything and packaging it in a digestible form. I’m not just talking art here. DJs are curators, decorators are curators, who are the online curators? There are still some “old school” curators that happen to be online, the traditional media gatekeepers, if you will. And we are all doing our own curating in some way, shape or form (think twitter lists, google reader, RSS feeds, etc.) But I want a curator who’s better than me. So please share where you get your best curated information on the web. And don’t hold back if you disagree!

by Jeff Stanger, Center for Digital Information

How can those who engage in communication around important social issues avoid the information “filter bubble” that Eli Pariser argues has resulted from algorithms, code, and data-based personalization of web sites? This is not an insignificant question as more people turn to digital sources for news and information. If you haven’t read up on Eli’s thesis, he sees algorithms (i.e., internet code) as the new information gatekeepers, gradually filtering out material we haven’t “liked” or clicked on via search engines and social media. The tech industry’s desire — made increasingly doable because of the vast amounts of online behavior data now available — is to become bespoke tailors of the online experience. This trend is of particular concern to those who are trying to raise awareness of more serious social and policy topics that don’t fit neatly into this “like” economy. The possibility exists that if your issue hasn’t been “liked” or clicked on, eventually it will fade from public view.

If we grant Pariser’s argument that code and algorithms are the new gatekeepers, one solution I see is to engage those gatekeepers on their digital-era terms (not unlike we did in the old days of newspaper editors). Rather than “search engine optimization” that tries to game the coder’s creation, why not engage directly in “search engine partner-ization,” transacted on data, where organizations with important information work alongside those who are writing the code? Let me explain:

This approach relies on two concepts: enhanced search results and web-friendly, structured data.

Enhanced Search Results: Bing bills itself as a “decision engine,” providing more than a simple list of links. Similarly, Google has been aggressively moving to deliver more than “Los Links” we’ve become so familiar with. Note Google’s acquisition of travel data provider ITA Softwarefor $700 million. They didn’t spend that kind of cash in order to include more links to ITA’s web site (they can do that for $0 million). They did it for the data the travel company has, for the purpose of creating a souped up on-Google.com experience. The trend is toward enhanced search results. Another example: do a search for the baseball hero of your choice — Albert Pujols. Los Links? Nope. Glance down the page. Albert’s thumbnail baseball card, complete with statistics as of last night’s Cardinals game, is resident on Google.com. Google didn’t suddently start tracking baseball stats; it’s pulling them over the internet as a service.

Structured Data: Enhanced search results like this depend upon web-friendly, structured data: XML, JSON, GeoJSON, etc. delivered in raw, but machine-readable format to web applications (Google is a massive web application, not a site) usually via an API (application programming interface). For the non-programmer, Google.com gets the data from another location on the internet and seamlessly integrates them into its results format.

Why don’t social policy researchers and foundations get in on this? They should. Foundations and their grantees have piles of data on a wide array of important social issues. They invest millions in collecting them. They illuminate the scope and nature of pressing social conditions. Imagine typing in “poverty rate over time,” or “number of uninsured Americans” and seeing graphical or tabular displays of those figures, funded by foundations, rigourously gathered by subject matter experts, delivered directly to the search engine of your choice as structured data. Instead of spinning wheels with search engine optimization, subjecting this vital information to the filter bubble, the social sector would be giving it to the digital gatekeepers in a format they can readily use.

But it will take a paradigm shift. Foundations and research grantees are used to thinking in terms of “data as documents” — policy reports, academic journal articles, etc. — pages and files to be somehow found by the code. The new paradigm sees “data as data” — web-friendly, structured data designed to be baked into the code.

My gut tells me that the digital gatekeepers will want to partner. Structured data are a raw material they desperately need. Social sector information will cost them $700 million less, and has far more social significance than data on flights to Boston (sorry Boston). Foundations’ research investments will enjoy long digital shelf lives and prominent placement. Their issues will be “covered” by the technological gatekeepers of our time. And our dialogue on issues of public importance will be better for it.

by Adam Coyne, Mathematica Policy Research

As I was munching a soft pretzel and waiting to board the plane at the Philadelphia airport this morning, I sent a tweet plugging the conference hashtag to my followers and sharing my excitement to see all of you in Boston. As I stood elbow-to-elbow with my fellow travelers in line jockeying for position at the gate, I thought: traveling really sucks. Then I wondered why several hundred of us would subject ourselves to pat-downs, bare feet, “full body scans” and putting our liquids in little 3oz bottles.

What is it about the Communications Network that drove our collective northern migration?  For that matter, what is a network, really?  The reality is that networks are different things to different people, and they take all sorts of forms – professional, personal, virtual, local. Sure I have my overlapping professional networks on twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn, but nothing compares to the magic that happens when real people really congregate – just ask the next flash mob you bump into.  It’s funny how I can despise people using the word ‘magic’ in regards to communications, e.g. can you please work your ‘magic’ on this project/document/event? But it feels appropriate in this context. The energy, interactions and ideas are so dynamic and electric that the air practically crackles with our collective thinking. Maybe that’s why the meeting ‘sparks’ so many great thoughts? Hmm, I guess puns don’t really translate well to the blog format.  Won’t happen again.  In fact, I’ll try to avoid them in-person too. Speaking of in-person, that’s what I’m going to focus on for the rest of this entry: what makes the in-person meeting of this network meaningful to me.

This is one of my favorite events of the year. Sure, the speakers are top-notch and the topics are spot-on with what’s happening right now in our field, but I could get the gist on twitter, or the blog, or on the website later and I wouldn’t have had to stomach airport food. What gets me truly excited about this meeting are the people. The anticipation started a few weeks ago as the e-mails were trickling in both from Bruce and from my fellow attendees: “Will you in be Boston? Would love to catch up …” “I saw your name on the list, I’ll be there too …”  “Hey, what do you think about the plenary speaker…” 

Yes, this meeting is a great chance to catch up with old friends, hopefully make some new ones, and be in a room full of people who do the same thing.  But the meaning comes from the actual interactions where I learn what people are doing; hear about exciting new ideas and initiatives; and realize that many of us are struggling with the same issues.  Over the years I’ve learned of spectacular successes and tremendous failures; seen the exploding role technology continues to have on our craft and field; and heard from some of the most interesting leaders in the nonprofit, communications and media sectors. Even better, I’ve had my ideas challenged and ratified (sometime simultaneously!); expanded my thinking of what’s possible; and become a better and stronger professional along the way because of the generosity of time, ideas and perspective that all of you have brought to the conversation. To put it simply, this group generates thinking in new, unrealized areas and helps me complete some thoughts and ideas that I haven’t yet fully formed. Your collective wisdom has fleshed out concepts and ideas, made me a better professional and a more interesting thinker, and had a direct impact on my work – for the better.

So that’s why I’m glad to be here in Boston with you. In the spirit of helping complete my thoughts and ideas that I mentioned above, I hope you will share what the network means to you in the comment section – this entry is a far-from-complete commentary. Even better, find me at the social events or one of the breaks and tell me in person too. I look forward to the conversation and to strengthening our network together.

**SEATTLE ANNOUNCED AS SITE OF FALL 2012 CONFERENCE**
Our next Communications Network annual conference will be held in Seattle, Oct. 10-12. More details soon.  To reserve a spot or get on the mailing list for announcements and updates, email info@comnetwork.org

Taming the Social Media Monster 
by Nancy Schwartz, President/Publisher Nancy Schwartz & Co./GettingAttention.org
In a post on her blog, Nancy Schwartz summarizes tips shared at a session focused on “taming” the social media monster.  (Read full post.)

From Octopus to Patriot: My Conference Transformation
by Sabrina D’Agosta, Senior Communications Officer, The Colorado Trust
Transformed in just hours from octopus to patriot, the Communications Network conference sent me home armed with new ideas and inspiration to better communicate how The Colorado Trust and our grantee partners are working to improve our communities by ensuring access to health for all Coloradans. (Read full post on Colorado Trust website.)

The Algorithm-Industrial-Complex and Me
by Michael Remaley, HAMILL REMALEY breakthrough communications and Public Policy Communicators NYC
If the links you see and the results of your searches are basically the product of your previous explorations, do we have anyone but ourselves to blame for the quality of the information that these companies present us?… (full post)

Post Conference Check Up on the Health of the Network
by Dan Brady, Forum of Regional Associations of Grantmakers
Towards the end of the “Connected Citizens” report from the Knight Foundation, author Diana Scearce provides a list of criteria for evaluating the health of a network.  Based on our collective experiences last week, let’s take a quick look at how the Communications Network measures up against the checklist…(full post)

For additional posts, click here.

(For a full list and descriptions of the Group Therapy sessions, click here.)

Minna Jung, communications director, the David and Lucile Packard Foundation: It’s Not You, It’s Me. (No, It’s Really You. No, It’s Really Me):  Foundations and Consultants Dish on How to Work With Each Other

Sylvia Burgos Toftness, communications lead, Northwest Area Foundation: Building communications into a foundation’s DNA: Walking the walk.

Katya Andresen, COO, Network for Good: Winning over your boss with Marketing Ju-Jitsu

David Adler, communications officer, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation: What are we talking about when we talk about communications?

Akilah Williams, communications officer, Crown Family Philanthropies: Prozac for websites: How to better manage the overhaul and maintenance of your website

Marc Fest, vice president communications, John S. and James L. Knight Foundation:  Letting others do the talking: tactics for decentralizing communication without inviting chaos

For more conference video promos, click here.

This video series was filmed and edited by Susan Herr of PhilanthroMedia, and a regular Communications Network contributor.

For more on the conference, click here to download our program to see what we did during our time together.

Activities included:

• Six plenary sessions featuring a group of stellar speakers drawn from the worlds of communications, the media, philanthropy and social change.
• Twelve “Group Therapy” breakouts, where we’ll get a chance to solve problems, brainstorm and talk with our colleagues about how to be most effective in our jobs.
• Two offsite receptions.
• Many opportunities to meet new people and connect with old friends.

In other words, a lot to engage, inform and inspire everyone who attended.

Next year: Seattle. More details soon.

To reserve a spot or get on the mailing list for announcements and updates, email info@comnetwork.org

Fall conference photos courtesy of Jessica Keyes, Prairie Sky Design.

Earlier this week, my friend Larry Blumenthal of Open Road Advisors, suggested in a post here on the Communications Network website that for foundations to succeed in the brave new world of social media, staff needs let their hair down a bit. I couldn’t agree more that “loosening up” is, indeed, a requirement if foundations want to credibly interact with online communities. However, I’d like to widen the lens a bit on the issue of grantmaking foundations adapting to the increasingly complex communications landscape.

Public figures who by their very nature are provocative [politicians, well-known athletes, television and film celebrities] are best positioned to have their voices heard; provocative messages, regardless of the messenger, will resonate above others. This was true before Twitter took over the earth. We cared a lot more about what Kobe or Madonna had to say than our local grocer even before we all started liking Kobe’s or Madonn’a Facebook pages. An obscure foreign-policy bureaucrat could make news if he or she advocated for the idea of nuking Iceland for whatever reason even before a million people started following the hastag #nukeiceland.

Social media has changed everything; at the same time it’s really changed nothing. To be sure, the interactive nature of new platforms, and the idea that anyone can publish anything at any time about any individual or organization is enough to give any reputation manager the heebee-jeebees. But PR execs have always had a high degree of concern for any dialogue, offline or on, in which the name of their institution was invoked. Seems to me it’s easier to respond if you know when and where it’s happening. For reactive communications, that’s the advantage of the online networking space.

I’m firmly on the evolution side of the social media as evolution or revolution debate. We should be neither skeptics or pollyannas. Foundations should adopt the same deliberative approach they took with other emerging communications tools, with the heightened sense that bolder and provocative messages and exchanges are the most likely to grab attention.

Institutional philanthropy always benefits from more communication and openness, not less. Us fogies who’ve been in the foundation PR game for a while have seen history prove the point.

That’s what I think.  What about you?

Communications Network board member Mitch Hurst is founder of MH Communications.

We kick off the series with Gail Fuller, director of communications, Rockefeller Brothers Fund in New York City.

A recent communications success you’re proud of?
Redesign of our Web site, which launched in December.

The target audiences for your communications efforts?
Primarily grantees and applicants, with limited media focus. My interest is in highlighting the work of our grantees, and bringing greater awareness to our interests—democratic practice, peacebuilding and sustainable development.

What did you want to be when you grew up?
The fanciful side of me thought of being a real-life Jane Marple or Hercule Poirot.  The other side of me, which loves to write, thought I’d become a children’s author. Of those, one I hope to still fulfill.

RBF’s site has many slideshows. Do you find them to be particularly effective?
My fascination with slideshows began with The New York  Times’ One in 8 Million slidecasts. I find slidecasts effective and cost-efficient; and a simple way to tell the sometimes complex stories of our work.

Is RBF into new media?
With the launch of our new site, we also launched Twitter and Facebook pages. We felt it was important to create an official Facebook page that drives visitors to our Web site. However, Twitter has been our primary social media focus.

Do you do an annual communications plan?
When I joined the RBF in 2005, I conducted a communications audit and created a two-year communications plan; and two years later I repeated that process. Having gone through many program reviews and having a much better sense of the Fund, I no longer create a formal annual communications plan. Instead as the yearly RBF goals are set, I develop communications objectives and strategies that help meet those goals.

Your undergraduate major?
Speech Communications from Wake Forest University.

Your favorite underappreciated journalist?
Amy Goodman comes to mind first. Democracy Now! is a wonderful source for global news.

Does RBF evaluate communications?
We conduct surveys with our trustees, staff, grantees, and applicants; and we also participate in the Center for Effective Philanthropy’s perception surveys. As RBF’s first communications director, my job actually evolved from a 2004 CEP survey.

As a major funder of “Democratic Practice,” how does RBF define “public engagement”?
We shifted from a goal that focused specifically on civic engagement to strengthening our democracy by looking at the democrat deficits—a decline in civic engagement; reduced participation in the formal institutions of democracy, and declining trust in all institutions, especially institutions of government—that impede us.

Last big improvement made to your Website?
Complete Web site redesign in 2010. The additions of moderated comments, a blog, and Twitter link were key steps for the Fund in engaging with our key audiences.

Favorite communications tool more foundation communicators should use?
Follow grantees via Twitter. We are able to track real-time news about and from our grantees.

Last nonfiction book you read?
The Al Jazeera Effect: How the New Global Media Are Reshaping World Politics. As events unfolded in Egypt, it was interesting to follow Al Jazeera and the greater role international media is playing in informing the world of current events.

Most interesting locale RBF has taken you?
South Africa in 2006. It was a wonderful experience, and helped shape the grantee communications work I would later undertake in South Africa and NYC.

Something you learned recently from a communications colleague?
I received wonderful advice from colleagues last year on social media that helped shape my report and presentation to the board; and it was the catalyst for moving us forward into the social media realm

RBF ever talked publicly about failure?
Yes. Following both CEP grantee surveys—in 2004 and 2010—we shared our results on our Web site; and identified key weaknesses to address.

Got a novel deep down inside you?
Yes, and I have several journals with story ideas and characters that have over taken my closet. My next birthday milestone in five years will be 50. Hoping to have made a dent in writing a children’s book—since I missed the milestones at 30 and 40.

A Quick Word With… is edited by Michael Hamill Remaley, a communications consultant, director of Public Policy Communicators NYC and a frequent Communications Network contributor.

If you’d like to suggest someone for a future profile, please use this form.

On their own, both “social”  and “traditional” media work well.  But as we recently discovered at the Connecticut Health Foundation, when used in tandem,  opportunities to reach audiences — especially new ones — can expand significantly.

Here’s what happened:

Our VP of Finance and Operations, Carol Pollack, wrote a blog titled, 3 Tips for Identifying a Chief Investment Officer.  It was one of the first posts on our new blog on our website, which launched at the end of May.

In July, reporter Nick Lioudis from NonProfit News a national online news resource that primarily services foundations, contacted us to find out if he could do two different stories about our foundation’s search for our CIO.

Thanks to some online searching, he’d read our blog about the CIO and wanted to learn more about our process so that he could share it with his wider, national audience.  The initial story resulted in an interview with Patricia Baker, our president & CEO, (registration for a free trial is required). That story led to a second, more in-depth article about investment models for foundations.

Basically a single blog post turned into two articles in a national, external publication–and on a topic we’re typically not seen as an expert on.

Some of our takeaways from this experience include:

• When you have something to say — say it. The story of our search for a CIO was not one that would have fit into a traditional announcement.  It’s doubtful that a news release titled: “CT Health Selects Cambridge Associates” would have garnered any attention. Through our blog, however, we were able to tell the story about what we learned through the process, and this is information we believed would be useful to other foundations. More so, what we said in the blog post was enough to encourage a reporter who covers the nonprofit sector to contact us for help in putting together a larger story.
• Optimize your web content for search engines.  Your web content isn’t limited just to people who routinely visit your website.  Instead, if your content gets indexed by search engines, you increase the opportunity that people who might not other visit regularly, if at all, will click through items they find find on Google or other sites.  As happened in this case, the reporter doing a search for his article discovered the post, clicked to read it and followed up.  Also the publication of the two articles helps establish the Connecticut Health Foundation’s expertise in other areas besides health, and that make us a useful source for other reporters writing future articles about different aspects of foundation operations.

That’s been our experience from using social and traditional media for maximum effect.  What’s been your experiences? Share them here.

We invite you to visit often, leave comments and be part of the conversation about how communications is–and always must be–central to the work of philanthropy.

To help, we’ve assembled a dozen breakouts, each of which has been designed so you and your colleagues can explore solutions to common problems you face on the job.

Look over the list of sessions, find the things you need help with the most, and show up prepared to kick around solutions. You’ll be better for it.

Below are the session descriptions, when they take place, and who’s leading them.  At the bottom of several of the descriptions, you’ll also find links to videos featuring leaders previewing their sessions.  We’ll be adding additional ones in coming days.  For all conference videos currently posted, click here.

(All Group Therapy Sessions take place on Thursday, Sept. 22.)

Group One: 10:15 am – 11:15 am
Group Two: 1:45 pm – 3 pm
Group Three:  4:30 pm – 5:30 pm

Group One Sessions:

What Are We Talking About When We Talk About Communications?

Session leaders: David Adler, communications officer, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and Maureen Cozine, director of communications, New York State Health Foundation

One of the greatest ironies about communications, and communications professionals, is that sometimes the hardest thing to articulate is what we actually mean by communications.

We’ve all walked into meetings and been told, “We need a press release!  Let’s build a new website!  We need to make sure people know about this!” Often, we know that the tactics and goals aren’t lining up, but we can’t always explain why.

In this session, we will present a framework for thinking about different types of communications activities that foundations might engage in—public affairs, communications interventions and grantee capacity building—and the appropriate goals and tactics for each.

The session leaders will also discuss how these three types of communications overlap.  Participants will be asked to contribute ideas about where their activities fit in this framework and whether there are other ways of organizing different types of communications activities.

The overall goal is to help session participants better explain to colleagues at their institutions what types of communications activities they can engage in, what appropriate goals for different activities are, and how those activities should be carried out and paid for.

> Video

Prozac for websites: How to better manage the overhaul and maintenance of your website

Session leaders: Jennifer Humke, deputy director, Public Affairs, MacArthur Foundation, and Akilah Williams, communications officer, Crown Family Foundation

Are you feeling anxious or overwhelmed by the overhaul of your website and the never-ending maintenance it requires once it is launched?  Does the thought of creating and editing content make you feel listless and tired?  Do you need to wind yourself up simply to get on the phone with your website designers?  If so, this session can help you.

In this day and age, not having a website is not an option. The web has become the front door to most organizations.  But the process of building or overhauling a website and maintaining it once it is launched can be difficult to plan for and manage. In this session we will discuss strategies for planning a website rebuild, selecting and working well with vendors, evaluating content management systems and technology platforms, involving non-communications staff and stakeholders, and approaches to mining and repackaging content to keep your site current once it is launched.  We’ll get this conversation started by sharing successes, failures and lessons learned from their recent experiences overhauling and managing their organizations’ websites.

After that, it’s your turn.  Come prepared to share your horror stories, lessons learned, things you wished you’d done differently as well as questions you’d like others to answer.  The session is intended to be a conversation about developing best practices for building and maintaining foundation websites, and one that we hope continues after we’re back at our offices.

>Video

Achieving Kumbaya
How to more effectively and less painfully link communications and program within foundations

Session leader: Christie McElhinney, vice president of communications & public affairs, The Colorado Trust

Is your program staff from Mars, while your communications staff is from Venus? Or have you cracked the code in figuring out how to effectively link the work of communications and program within your foundation?

Communications can help to achieve key grantmaking goals within foundations if it is understood, valued and considered up-front, as grant strategies are being developed. Obviously, communications is less effective when used in a responsive, tactical manner late in the game.

In this session, everyone will have the opportunity to air and compare their own challenges. Importantly, we will also share strategies, processes and structures that are helping foundations to move the needle on integrating – and more fully utilizing – communications.

Please join us and share your thoughts and experiences – from small tweaks to major restructurings – on what works, and doesn’t, in linking these two functions.

> Video

Measuring Our Reach in a Digital World

Julee Newberger, online communications associate, The Annie E. Casey Foundation

Back in the day, we figured we knew how to measure the results of our media outreach. We had a pretty good idea of who was reading the Washington Post vs. the Washington Times, and who was listening to NPR — and we pitched our stories accordingly. Then we tracked and analyzed our coverage with our audiences in mind.

But now we find ourselves wondering: How do I measure our reach in a landscape of cryptic Tweets and whimsical Facebook posts? How many blogs on the Huffington Post are equal to one front-page story in the New York Times? Who is @yellowtractor and is it good that s/he’s re-tweeting me?  And how do I tell our executive leadership that our print coverage is going down — but on Facebook, we are very well “liked?”

In this session, we will identify the most pressing challenges in measuring our organization’s reach in a digital landscape. The discussion will include how we link communications and social media strategy to an organization’s overall goals. Questions will be asked. Lives will be changed.

The audience will break up into small groups that work through challenges submitted by participants. Together we will tackle real-life problems, but instead of doing our own work, we will do each other’s work. Then we will go back to the office and take all the credit.

> Video

Group Two Sessions:

It’s Not You, It’s Me. (No, It’s Really You. No, It’s Really Me):  Foundations and Consultants Dish on How to Work With Each Other

Session leader: Minna Jung, communications director, the David and Lucile Packard Foundation

Communications staff people at foundations and nonprofit organizations regularly work with communications firms and consultants. Foundations can have pretty specific communications dreams and ambitions, but we often don’t have the staff bandwidth to execute these strategies ourselves. So foundations hire communications firms and consultants for any number of purposes—message development, the design and execution of campaigns, media relations, web site building, communications training for grantees. As with most things in life, sometimes the relationship works, and sometimes it doesn’t. Sometimes foundations feel as if they’ve met the communications consultant or firm of their dreams; sometimes they feel like they’ve run into a buzz saw of endless billing and missed deadlines with no actual results. Communications firms and consultants, on the other hand, may care the most about the type of communications work foundations sponsor, because they are motivated by mission-driven work.  But then they get frustrated by foundations with good intentions but lack an overall clarity of goals and strategy.

This session will feature a lively conversation moderated by Minna Jung of the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, Kristen Grimm from Spitfire Strategies, and Patrick McCabe from GYMR LLC.    Participants will come away from the session with ideas and suggestions on how to successfully manage the relationships between foundations and consultants (and will also feel somewhat lighter, if some past demons were successfully exorcised).  People will be asked to share candid, constructive stories and feedback about the opportunities and challenges inherent in the relationship between foundation (client) and consultant (contractor).  One caveat:  we ask that people refrain from specific attribution when the feedback is negative (e.g., “I’ve worked with X Firm, and BOY, do they suck).  The goal of the session is to help foundations and communications consultants, yes, understand each other a little better, and work together more productively in the future.

> Video

Plugging into the digital era

Session leaders: Laura Brahm, senior content strategist, Open Society Foundations, and Jeff Stanger, director, Center For Digital Information

What should a 21st-century communications team look like?

Foundations no longer simply pitch stories to journalists or fund media projects; we are increasingly becoming the media ourselves–communicating directly with audiences through the web and social media. And communications staff are located at “ground zero” for these activities. At the same time, responsibilities are expanding as program staff increasingly get involved with social media.  Consequently, communications staff roles are in flux, and skill sets can vary widely: some colleagues are experienced in traditional media outreach, some in digital advocacy, some in print publications. The offline staff need to be thinking digitally, and the online staff need to coordinate with offline products and actions. How do we rethink and reorganize our communications team in the digital era? What might our job descriptions, organizational charts, and workflow look like? How do we create structure, consistency, and coherence in a radically decentralized age?

As a group, we’ll discuss/brainstorm the following questions:

• What are our current priorities as foundations communications staff? What do we do? Who does what?
• What about 5 years from now? Where are the trends going?
• What tasks and responsibilities do we get rid of? What will disappear? How do you replace those actions and roles?
• Where can we find new models?
• How do we convince foundations to evolve along with us?

We’ll then break into groups to design an ideal org chart. If you were to start with a clean slate, what would you do?

The goal of this session is to come away with fresh ideas for:

• Clarity about what the essential communications roles are today and how they should be structured within your organization
• Greater alignment of roles, tools, and larger goals and priorities
• A more harmonious and effective workflow
• How to start making the above a reality

> Video

Building communications into a foundation’s DNA:  Walking the walk

Session leaders: Sylvia Burgos Toftness, communications lead, Northwest Area Foundation, and Eric Brown, communications director, The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation

“I’m stuck.  My foundation is fully committed to bringing communications into the organization’s strategic framework. My president has even made this a 2012 high-level goal. I feel appreciated and respected by management and colleagues. I’ve been privileged to participate in nearly every large initiative. Yet, I feel as I’m operating at 70 percent. I can see that we’re not harnessing the full value of strategic communications.”

Maybe you’ve experienced some of this: you’re pressed to gather up the strings of disjointed projects–expensive. You get late notice on events, speeches and sponsorships– lost opportunities.  You see a convening being designed as a stand-alone event–not leveraging and integrating it into the longer-term foundation/programmatic objectives.

Familiar? Why does this happen? How do we help move our organizations to the next level? What strategies and steps can we take to move from theory and intention to day-to-day practice?

Please pull up a chair and join us in this session. What are your challenges, experiences, ideas and successful approaches? Eric Brown will serve as our Jungian facilitator. It’ll be professional, open, honest. What’s said in Boston, stays in Boston.

> Video

Culture Shift – Learning to act as a network

Session leader:  Dan Brady, communications manager, Forum of Regional Associations of Grantmakers

The principles of crowd sourcing and networked activity all sound well and good but, as with any collaboration, the implementation can be messy, complicated, and even uncomfortable. The greatest challenge of learning to work in new ways is the inevitable resistance to culture change. Why should we do this differently? Who will participate? How much will they contribute? What is the motivation to work together? Who is responsible for the work? What’s in it for me?

Connected Citizens: The Power, Peril, and Potential of Networks, a recent study by the Knight Foundation and the Monitor Institute, offers a thorough examination of how networks work today, how they might in the future, and what role philanthropy can play in building and strengthening networks among both grantees and foundations.

In this session, we’ll break into groups to identify common barriers to network participation and look for solutions as to how these hindrances might be overcome. Using the tips and tools for network-centric grant making laid out in the report, we’ll examine the real world application of network action within philanthropy, including examples from the Communications Network, the Forum of Regional Associations of Grantmakers, and others.


Group Three Sessions:

Winning over your boss with Marketing Ju-Jitsu

Session leader: Katya Andresen, COO, Network for Good

It’s the question we all ask: “How do I convince my boss to (fill in the blank)?”

Get a black belt in boss persuasion in this interactive session.  Stop trying to change set minds and start using your boss’s values and psychology to advance your communications agenda – whether it’s investing in social media or divesting from ineffective programs.

The session will begin with a brief overview of the psychological, behavioral economics and cultural cognition principles that are critical to effective persuasion (each illustrated by true stories).  Then we’ll dive into the heart of the matter: solving your problems.

Participants will  anonymously share what ONE thing they wish they could convince their boss to do.  We’ll then work together in groups to address some of the top challenges with marketing savvy and keen political instincts.  Participants will leave with two great resources co-created during the session: solutions to common office conundrums and a set of solid gold operating principles for successful internal marketing.

> Video

Winning Words: Changing hearts & minds begins with the right message

Session leaders:  Doug Hattaway, Hattaway Communications, Daniel Silverman, director of communications, The James Irvine Foundation

Many non-profits that conduct advocacy around complex or controversial issues have difficulty developing messages that will persuade policymakers and the public. In this session, we’ll discuss challenges faced by foundations and our grantees in developing winning messages on our issues–and we’ll explore tools, techniques and ways to think about tackling common message challenges.

To kick off the discussion, we’ll present a method for crafting messages that speak to people’s hopes and values, while employing a narrative structure to communicate at multiple levels. Participants will apply this “aspirational narrative” approach to a vexing message challenge.

If you’re interested in this message workshop, please suggest a tough issue for the group to tackle!   Send your idea to Doug Hattaway at dhattaway@hattaway.com

> Video

Letting others do the talking: tactics for decentralizing communication without inviting chaos

Session leader: Marc Fest, vice president communications, John S. and James L. Knight Foundation

How can you motivate colleagues outside the communications department to share stories that illustrate the impact of your organization’s work? “Coordinated decentralization of communications” promises enhanced communications capacity, more visibility, and, generally, a more effective organization.

But decentralizing has its risks. Think of recent examples of corporate employees who got fired because of tweets. Also, persuading your colleagues to contribute information and stories can be difficult. So can getting everyone to adhere to the same script when it matters.

Join a session to learn about and rehearse strategies and tactics that you can use to meet the challenges of coordinated, decentralized communications for a highly visible and high-performing organization.

>Video

Harnessing the social media monster

Session leaders:  Margaret Figley, communications officer, The New York State Health Foundation, and Nancy Schwartz, president/publisher, Nancy Schwartz & Company

These days, one can’t attend a communications conference without hearing about the importance of having a presence in social media. However, foundations struggle with determining what distinguishes useful information from just contributing to the noise. In trying to harness the social media monster, foundations face four major issues:

• Developing a clear strategy for posting information on social media sites
• Questioning how—or whether—to keep up with the Joneses (i.e., trying to gauge which social media sites they should join and which are passing novelties)
• Finding opportunities to shine the spotlight on staff members other than the CEO on social media sites
• Determining who their audience should be and how to target them

In this session, participants will take part in a discussion about their social media trials and tribulations. They’ll be asked to share their experiences with the four issues listed above, and to discuss additional challenges they’ve experienced. Once participants have aired their grievances, Nancy Schwartz will help them to develop social media strategies tailored for the unique problems foundations face. This will include tips on creating a social media policy for members’ respective organizations, a list of useful resources, and a social media checklist to help members select which social media tools are right for their organizations and how to manage the various social media voices in their organizations.

>Video

Back in February I stumbled into a twitter conversation from staff at The James Irvine Foundation. It turns out they were having a foundation-wide training on using social media. That led me to ask Jim Canales, CEO, why would a foundation tweet? His February responses to that question are here. At the time, Jim also agreed to reflect again on the question six months later – here are his current thoughts:

Lucy Bernholz) Everyone loves digital analytics, so let’s start there. What kind of measures is the Foundation using for its social media experiment? What are you tracking? What do the numbers show?

Jim Canales) As I noted in our initial discussion, one of our 2011 goals is to actively experiment with social media, with a particular focus on exploring how social media might help us share what we are learning, listen to our grantees, build networks and demonstrate transparency. Ultimately, what matters to us is whether we used social media to accomplish those outcomes, and that’s going to take more than a few months to measure. However, six months into this experiment, we have been following a few tangible metrics, such as:

· Twitter followers: @IrvineFdn has gone from a few hundred followers to over 1,500. I also started my own account on January 1 and now have about 560 followers. I also follow close to 200 people, and who I follow and what I learn is perhaps more valuable to me than how many followers I have.

· Social media activity among staff: At the beginning of the year we had a handful of staff with Twitter accounts but no one was particularly active on any social media platform. We now have 23 staff with Twitter accounts (most of the program staff), seven who are relatively active (at least weekly), and three who are very active (daily activity.)

· Klout score: To the extent these kinds of measurements are useful, our Klout score has been steadily increasing with @IrvineFdn now at 44 and @jcanales now at 46.

LB) Have you experienced a social media success? What was it and why do you describe it as such?

JC) Perhaps our most effective use of social media this year related to the announcement of a new arts grantmaking strategy, particularly because we integrated social media into a broader communications plan from the outset. For the first time, we held a live webinar, produced an animation that illustrated the new strategy, and invited our grantees and others to provide input by commenting on our website. We promoted all of these interactive means of communications through our social media channels and noted that our announcement was rebroadcast by many of our followers. In the past, we might have announced the new strategy on our website, focused solely on written content, and sent an email to our grantees. By thinking about how to use social media and other tools that technology offers, we ended up with a more diverse and, hopefully, creative set of communications to share the new strategy and benefit from their reactions.

LB) What’s your best story of a social media Aha!?

JC) Let me refer again to the arts strategy rollout. Through this experience, we found that social media is most effective when it is connected to a broader communications plan. And we learned that the broader communications plan will likely be more creative if we recognize that our content needs to be social media-friendly. We can’t just produce long white papers and post them on our website, hoping people take the time to read them. Using a social media lens helped us communicate about our work in a more accessible manner. And the video-graphic we produced to describe our strategy has been very well received.

Personally, I continue to be impressed by how much more I am able to learn and how much new information I see through active use of Twitter. There are articles and blog posts I would have never run across on my own, and I can observe and participate in conversations, even if briefly, that help me stay connected with people I might not otherwise engage with.

LB) Where have you been most disappointed in how social media has been used by the Foundation? Have you experienced a social media failure? What was it and why do you describe it as such?

JC) As newbies to the space, I’m not sure we have yet experienced a full-fledged failure or major disappointment, but there is a challenge that we are still struggling with. For us, social media is as much of a listening tool as a broadcast tool. Being active on social media should help us learn from our grantees and other experts in our fields of interest. But given the power imbalance inherent in the funder/grantee relationship, it has been hard to generate much feedback or criticism, even friendly critiques. So we need to work harder to build the kinds of relationships with our partners that minimize that imbalance. As we expand our social media efforts, we will need to be even more attentive to exhibiting the kind of values that will be conducive to genuine dialogue. That means we need to be humble, transparent, responsive to others and open to criticism. Only then can we expect others to engage with us in the kind of genuine dialogue that will make all of our work more effective.

LB) What’s next in your social media plan?

JC) While we will continue to experiment through 2011, we are beginning to move into a more rigorous implementation phase. We have benefited from significant help this summer from our Social Media Fellow, Jonny Dorsey (@jonnydorsey), who has studied best practices in the use of social media by nonprofits and is applying that learning to our approach at Irvine. We will be using hashtags and searches to find and join social media conversations that are relevant to our work. We will continue to use social media to solicit input and advice on our grantmaking strategy. And we will strive to do all of this with the humility, curiosity and openness that we strive for in all of our endeavors.