About The Communications Network:
Formed nearly 20 years ago as a membership association, the Communications Network today is a stand-alone nonprofit organization that promotes the use of consistent, strategic communications as an integral part of effective philanthropy. The Network connects communications professionals working in philanthropy and the nonprofit sector to each other for guidance and mentoring and regularly sponsors learning and networking opportunities through webinars and the annual conference. Today, the Network’s membership represents a wide range of communications leaders from foundations, nonprofits and consultants who work to advance communications strategies and practices in all mediums.

To build on its past success, the Communications Network has just completed a year-long strategic review that resulted in a refined focus and sharpened mission to increase the number of foundations and nonprofits that use communications to achieve measurable benefits for individuals and society. The Network will achieve this goal by developing and disseminating evidence of effective communications strategies, sharing best practices with the field, and growing and diversifying our membership to engage more people who are doing this work in or on behalf of foundations and nonprofits.

We also plan to continue to continue the activities and programs members have come to expect. These include our excellent professional development opportunities, such as regular webinars that feature experts discussing communications trends or must-have skills, as well as our well-attended annual conferences that bring together communications practitioners from around the nation to learn, share and be inspired.

We also want to encourage even more engagement among members — a vibrant and growing community of communications practitioners who believe passionately in the power of communications in service of bettering society.

Position Description:
Working alongside the Network’s executive director, our new Community Manager will support our overall mission by developing programs and activities, both on- and off-line, designed to keep members engaged and to help create connections and promote the exchange of information about effective communications strategies and best practices.

In addition, the Community Manager will ensure that the Network is at the forefront of effective and innovative uses of communications platforms that foster and facilitate member engagement.

Primary Responsibilities:

• Help manage the content and overall functions of the Network’s website and other electronic methods (such as emails and listserve) used to distribute/share news and information to members and other communicators in philanthropy.
• Contribute articles and blog posts to the website and solicit contributions from members.
• Manage the Network’s Twitter feed and Facebook page.
• Help identify topics for webinars and help organize and promote these to members.
• Assist in the planning and management of annual conferences and/or other special events.
• Help foster connections between and relationships among members of the Network, including populating online member database and developing in-person connections when possible, regionally and nationally
• Work with the Executive Director to identify/create opportunities for offline engagement and participation in the Network, such as through alliances with regional associations, philanthropic trade associations, local “chapters” or member groups in other cities.
• Oversee operation of listserve, compile results from members’ queries, and monitor activity to identify topics that might lend themselves to more in-depth editorial treatment, webinars or potential programming for future conferences.
• Work with Executive Director to develop and maintain a “demonstration database” featuring case studies about effective use of foundation/nonprofit communications.
• Maintain email distribution lists.
• Stay current on online communications tools and new media best practices.
• Other duties as assigned.

Qualifications:

• Minimum five years of professional experience; prior experience in communications and/or managing websites and developing online content preferred.
• Excellent analytical abilities, outstanding oral and written communication skills, and strong attention to detail.
• Strong organizational and project management skills with ability to juggle multiple projects and drive toward deadlines.
• Broad understanding of, and willingness to stay abreast of new media technologies, applications, and processes.
• Avid interest and ability to think creatively about the use of the “new media,” especially as it relates to content delivery and information exchange.
• BA/BS in English, computer-related field, or equivalent experience.
• Ability to demonstrate mastery of English grammar, spelling, and copy editing and knowledge of major style guides.
• Ability to organize projects, juggle multiple tasks and relate well to a wide team of in-house content providers, editors and other interested parties
• High level of interpersonal maturity and poise, including “grace under pressure.”
• Flexibility, and a high comfort level with ambiguity and entrepreneurship.
• Basic knowledge of html coding would be a plus.

How To Apply:
If you are interested in the position, please send via email to info@comnetwork.org a cover letter explaining why you are suited for this role, any relevant work samples (including web links), a resume, and salary history and requirements.

The Organization:
The Savory Institute promotes large-scale restoration of the world’s grasslands through holistic management. We use properly managed livestock to heal the land and empower others to do the same. We also remove barriers on the path to large-scale success through activities such as conducting research, creating market incentives and raising public awareness.

Position Description:
The Savory Institute is hiring a full-time Communications Director to develop and implement the organization’s communications strategies. The Communications Director will report directly to the CEO and will be part of the senior team responsible for scaling up efforts around the world to use properly managed livestock to restore grasslands.

This person will be responsible for managing both internal and external communications for this non-profit organization. S/he must have excellent writing, oral communications and editing skills and must be self-motivated, detail-orientated and be able to work under tight deadlines in a dynamic, fast-paced, high-intensity environment.

This position may require both domestic and international travel.

This is a contract position.

Qualifications:

• 8+ years of professional experience in marketing, communications and/or public relations for a relevant non-profit or for-profit sectororganization.
• Experience developing communications strategies and messaging for advocacy campaigns.
• Experience developing and implementing strategies to build and maintain effective relationships with external stakeholders
• Experience pitching print, radio and television stories
• Experience implementing online communications strategy, including web content development, campaigns and social media
• Excellent organizational skills
• Ability to multi-task, effectively prioritize and work accurately under time constraints
• Experience with Holistic Management not necessary, but a plus.

How to Apply:

To be considered for this position, please submit a resume and cover letter to contact@savoryinstitute.com.

Location;
New York City

Organization:
Hunter College occupies a distinctive place in American higher education. Throughout its 140 year history, Hunter has opened doors of opportunity to aspiring students regardless of race, nationality or religion by offering a first class education at an affordable price. Hunter’s outstanding undergraduate programs and professional schools have trained succeeding generations to meet essential needs and strengthen the economy of New York City and the world beyond. Currently Hunter is the largest college in the City University of New York system, with over 22,000 student pursuing both undergraduate and graduate degrees in more than 170 different programs of study

Hunter has an outstanding leadership record in educating women, providing educational opportunities for minorities and conducting advanced research in disciplines across the academic spectrum. A leader in serving the public through research on public policy questions in the areas of aging populations, AIDS, and gene structure, Hunter also has stellar Social Work and Education schools, as well as a top-rate Nursing School that offers one of New York City’s few Bachelor of Science degrees in nursing.

Hunter’s President Raab is very active in the New York City community and is constantly striving to enhance the College’s reputation through her efforts to increase awareness and appreciation for Hunter’s mission.  Under her leadership, the College is expanding and upgrading its facilities to reflect its status as a top-flight academic institution.  In these efforts, Hunter needs a strong individual to help ensure that the college is maximizing its exposure to the community at large.

Position Description:
Hunter College is seeking an exceptional individual to fill the position of Assistant Vice President of Communications and Marketing (AVPCM).  The AVPCM is responsible for presenting the College’s accomplishments, activities and priorities to a wide variety of external and internal audiences through media markets, marketing materials, advertising, the internet, social media and internal publications.  The AVPCM is charged with generating positive media coverage about the college, developing marketing efforts and materials to recruit higher quality students, fundraise with individuals and institutions, as well as improving internal communications among Hunter College faculty, students and staff.  In conjunction with senior staff, s/he will develop the core marketing messages for the College and ensure clear and consistent delivery of these messages externally and internally.

Specific responsibilities include:

• Overall:  Improve the image of Hunter College to yield increased alumni giving and major gifts and grants, and attract better faculty and higher quality students.
• Public Relations:
• Set media relations strategies and plans
• Direct all aspects of media relations to further the goals of the President and the College
• Serve as chief spokesperson for the College
• Media train key faculty and staff
• Serve as liaison with public relations agencies
• Manage crisis communications

• Communications & Marketing:
• Recruit and supervise a group of full and part-time writers, graphic designers and student interns
• Responsible for all major communications and speeches from the President and other senior administrators
• Review campus-wide and external communications, marketing materials and websites to ensure fit with overall marketing plan and promote consistent branding
• Evaluate communications and advertising opportunities and work with other departments to determine the best strategies for the College
• Produce brochures and other marketing materials to support Hunter’s efforts to sell the College to key audiences such as potential donors
• Use social media to drive awareness of and attention to events, speeches and other College activities, and improve usage of the web and internet to disseminate Hunter news and information
• Perform other duties, as requested, to support the President and help meet the College’s public relations, marketing and fundraising goals.

Qualifications:

• Bachelor’s degree is required, and at least ten years of demonstrated success in marketing and/or communications arenas is required.
• Creative, strategic thinker with excellent planning and analytical abilities and demonstrated administrative, leadership and interpersonal skills. S/he must be an intelligent, articulate individual with a high energy level and drive.
• Proven organizational and communication skills, ability to motivate people, manage multiple projects and partners.  S/he will have worked closely with an organization’s top executives and have successfully managed freelancers and consultants.
• Must have experience supervising a professional communications staff and have a strong record of accomplishment, including planning and directing an integrated media relations and communications program with print and electronic components that included editorial, design, advertising and photography.
• Experience with crisis communications and serving as institutional spokesperson in a wide variety of situations required.  Demonstrated ability to communicate effectively, orally and in writing, to many kinds of audiences, including media.  Ability to write speeches and/or supervise this function.
• Knowledge of marketing, print and video production functions highly desirable.
• Experience with fundraising and alumni communications a plus.

Compensation:
Commensurate with experience; benefits are competitive.

How To Apply:

Hunter College has retained the services of Harris Rand Lusk to conduct this search. Inquiries, nominations, and applications may be directed in confidence to:  

Jack Lusk, Managing Partner or
Anne McCarthy, Senior Director
Harris Rand Lusk
261 Madison Avenue, 11^th Floor
New York, NY  10016
amccarthy@harrisrand.com

Hunter College is committed to enhancing its diverse academic community by actively encouraging people with disabilities, minorities, veterans and women to apply.  Hunter takes pride in its pluralistic community and continues to seek excellence through diversity and inclusion.

Organization:
The Nellie Mae Education Foundation is the largest public charity dedicated to improving academic achievement across underserved communities in New England.

Position Description:
Reporting to the Communications Officer, the Communications Associate will work closely and collaboratively with members of the communications department in the execution of their projects, manage multiple and competing deadlines for internal and external stakeholders, and take a proactive and innovative approach to the Foundation’s social media efforts.

Responsibilities:
The Communications Associate is expected to fulfill the following responsibilities for the role. As the Foundation evolves and grows, these responsibilities may change and encompass additional areas within the communications department:

• Copy writing including development of internal and external correspondence, press releases and media advisories. Coordinate closely with communications staff to identify content, coordinate media outreach activities and ensure consistent messaging within the Foundation and with external stakeholders. Work with Communications staff and program officers to develop new or revise existing content particularly in the initiatives and grant sections of the website. Regularly review and provide updates for the Foundation’s website content as necessary. Responsible for developing presentations for executive staff.
• Execute the Foundation’s digital communications strategy including web and social media tools. Maintain existing models and strategies while developing new and cutting-edge ideas to keep the Foundation current in this changing media marketplace. Engage constructively with a wide range of electronic, print and broadcast media outlets (including new and traditional media), social networking sites.
• Monitor current events and trends in education to anticipate potential public statements, dissemination of information and assembling the Foundation’s news clips for distribution to staff.
• Coordinate and execute special events, (e.g. sponsorships, meetings) including site coordination, collateral development, and speaker coordination and related activities.
• Responsible for pulling data for evaluation of effectiveness of communications activities and creating reports for organizational measurement. Oversee the maintenance of Foundation’s database. Coordinate mailings with other internal and external resources.

QUALIFICATIONS:
The ideal candidate will be a rising star within the communications field. S/he will be a self-motivated and energetic communications professional with sophistication, intelligence, drive, and a demonstrable record of working in a communications department where social media and online engagement are top priorities. S/he will minimally hold a bachelor’s degree in communications or related fields, demonstrate a proven communications track record, and have a successful background in communications, public relations, journalism, or marketing. The ideal candidate will possess many of the following professional and personal abilities, attributes, and experiences:

• Experience in communications outreach in the education, public interest, research and/or non-profit sectors with a particular emphasis in digital and social media. Must have experience in content management systems and website development. Knowledge of publications and web/video/audio production is highly preferred;
• Fluency with PowerPoint and the ability and maturity to make presentations to senior staff members both within and outside the communications department;
• A deep commitment to the Foundation’s mission to promote accessibility, quality and effectiveness of education for the underserved in the six New England States. Ability to understand the Foundation’s goals, objectives and work and apply gained knowledge;
• A minimum of three to five years of experience in positions encompassing strategic communications, media relations, public affairs or digital engagement;
• A truly exceptional ability, interest, and facility to write in a variety of mediums from short e-mail news releases to published reports and from web features to persuasive op-eds;
• A proven track record developing and disseminating effective communications products and publications, both in print and on the web, from conception to publication;
• Proven ability to meet multiple deadlines and balance numerous projects while maintaining a perspective on long-term goals;
• Experience collaborating with a diverse and decentralized staff;
• Superior oral and written communications skills, used in one-on-one settings and in large group meetings. Ability to advocate and drive attention to the Foundation;
• An entrepreneurial attitude and the personal charisma and eagerness to be a dynamic and compelling ambassador to all audiences;
• Intelligence and inspiration to anticipate, conceive, express, and create opportunities. Independence and self-confidence to act decisively and, at the same time, an ability to receive, integrate and translate others’ ideas and suggestions;
• Innovative, strategic, opportunistic, entrepreneurial, and creative thinker with exceptional attention to detail. The ability to handle competing priorities in a fast paced work environment. The ability to multi-task and work well both independently and as part of a team with the proven ability to effectively leverage resources, meet multiple deadlines, and balance numerous projects;
• A passion for success within Foundations and/or nonprofit organizations is desirable; and,
• Equal parts humor, integrity, compassion, and patience necessary to address the practicalities and desires of an entrepreneurial nonprofit. A hard working, positive, mission-driven and extroverted work style. A welcome attitude to constructive criticism of his/her work.

HOW TO APPLY:
Nominations and applications are due by May 16th, 2012.

Due to the pace of the search, candidates are encouraged to apply as soon as possible. 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:nm-ca@nonprofitprofessionals.com. Please type your name (Last, First) as the only contents in the subject line of your e-mail.

Organization: 
Commit Media is an entertainment company uniquely dedicated to creating social change. We harness the power of entertainment, sports and celebrity to achieve public policy, behavior and society-wide transformation.

Position Description:
Commit Media is seeking a marketing & communications professional to develop and implement communications and marketing strategies for our clients, including nonprofit organizations, foundations, celebrities and corporations.

We are seeking an intelligent self-starter capable of quickly getting up to speed on Commit Media’s work and rapidly assuming increasing levels of responsibility.

The Director of Marketing and Research will need to assume responsibility for managing and implementing projects (both related to clients and internal projects), and client relations. This person will act as our clients’ point of contact and will be responsible for managing work projects and deliverables, ensuring client needs are met.

Responsibilities:

•  Work with non-profit clients to design and implement strategic marketing and communications plans using entertainment and celebrity.
• Research potential public figure supporters for each client and reach out to secure participation in campaigns.
• Manage the relationship with the celebrity and/or their representatives, and coordinate tasks related to their role e.g. event appearances, public service announcement (PSA) participation, media, advocacy, and social media
• Coordinate and help executive produce events and media (PSAs, concerts, albums, etc.)
• Research potential partners and vendors for both clients and Commit Media.
• Manage Commit Media’s website (writing / editing posts, updates, liaising with designer)
• Prepare reports for clients (progress reports, and welcome and impact reports for celebrity supporters)
• Write and edit written correspondence of a varied nature
• Business development research and implementation, including the maintenance of a list of potential nonprofit, foundation, and celebrity clients and opportunities; preparation of email/phone outreach and follow up; preparation of detailed proposals; meetings with potential clients.
• Overall marketing of Commit Media, including managing Commit Media’s social media presence, including websites, wiki, twitter, etc. for marketing and public relations purposes; attending conferences, if necessary.
• Create simple powerpoint decks for clients and other presentations
• Since this is a small office, the individual will have light human resources and office administration duties on occasion

Qualifications:

• B.A. degree
• At least 5+ years of work experience
• A passion for learning and promoting the missions and causes of non-profit organizations, as well as a thorough knowledge of pop culture, entertainment, and celebrities.
• The individual must be well-organized and detail-oriented
• Strong writing and editing skills
• Excellent research skills
• Strong verbal and written communication skills
• The individual should be ethical, courteous, and the ability to maintain confidentiality.
• Proficient in Microsoft Word, Excel, Powerpoint, Adobe
• Experience in managing client accounts and project management
• Knowledge of Wordpress a plus
• Fluency in Spanish a plus

How to Apply:
Please send cover letter and resume to mary@commitmedia.com

No calls please

Organization: 
AcademyHealth is currently seeking an Associate to provide administrative and substantive support on a program addressing issues related to health care financing and organization and a new initiative focused on translation and dissemination of health services research on policy and practice. The Changes in Health Care Financing and Organization (HCFO) initiative, a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation-sponsored program, funds research that examines major changes in health care financing and organization and their effects on cost, access and quality. It also bridges the gap between research and policy by translating findings and disseminating them to appropriate stakeholders. The Associate would support HCFO’s grantmaking, convening and dissemination activities.

Position Description:
The new institute, focused on translation and dissemination, will undertake activities that inform health services researchers about the research priorities of health policymakers and delivery system leaders, engage new and underutilized media to provide decision-makers with sound research-based evidence when they need it, and support activities that advance the science and art of translation and dissemination for policy and practice. The Associate would support all areas of institute’s work.

The ideal candidate is highly organized, a self-starter, great writer and eager to take on new challenges. Early career professionals with two to four years of substantive work experience in health policy or health care financing, ideally with some experience in communications, journalism or marketing. Candidates must have an understanding of, and experience using, new and emerging technologies for communicating research findings to decision-makers.

Responsibilities:

• Review and administer grants, including evaluating brief and full proposals, summarizing external technical reviews, reviewing budgets, and ongoing monitoring of existing grants;
•  Conduct agenda development, presenter coordination, and materials preparation for small and large meetings and briefings on policy relevant health care financing and related topics;
• Develop and apply substantive knowledge of health care financing and organization research and related health policy issues;
• Write issue briefs, research summaries, meeting reports, newsletter articles, and memos;
• Communicate with a variety of HCFO and AcademyHealth constituents;
• Support the efforts of the planning committee for AcademyHealth’s translation and dissemination institute and assist in implementing their recommendations;
• Provide staff and analytic support to the translation and dissemination institute’s process of identifying the research priorities of health policymakers and delivery system leaders;
• Assist in the development of web conferences, in-person meetings, and learning networks;
• Research and identify new and emerging trends in online/electronic media and develop strategies in support of program initiatives;
• Assist in the management of electronic dissemination vehicles including updating the HCFO program’s and translation and dissemination institute’s websites and social media, monitoring social media analytic, and creating reports on successful media efforts;
• Assist AcademyHealth Communications team to align messaging and a presence across various traditional and social media platforms to build engagement with the HCFO and new institute’s online and social communities;
• Work closely with AcademyHealth Communications staff to review and stay abreast of current events and trends identified through traditional and social media outlets; pages, sites, blogs, etc.;
• Assist with the writing, editing and production of marketing and program materials, including web and social media content development and contributions to e-newsletters, blogs and other communications.

Desired Qualifications:

• Masters degree in health policy, public policy, public health or related field from accredited college or university.
• Preference will be given to candidates with professional experience in health policy issues; strong communications or journalism emphasis also desirable.
• Demonstrated experience communicating technical information to decision-makers preferred.
• Strong written and oral communications skills.
• Understanding of, and experience using, new and emerging communications media and technologies.
• Demonstrated experience managing social media properties (e.g., Facebook, Twitter, etc.) including daily monitoring, posting, and content development.
• Creative, strategic thinker; able to recognize/take advantage of opportunities.
• Mature, adaptable, resourceful individual able to work independently and with a team.
• Excellent organizational skills and attention to detail.
• Demonstrated project management experience, including a demonstrated ability to efficiently plan, organize, and manage complex, multiple projects simultaneously with limited supervision or direction.
• Strong working knowledge of Microsoft Office suite (Word, Excel, and PowerPoint).

Salary:
The salary range is $45,000 to $50,000.

How to Apply:
Qualified applicants should send cover letter, resume, writing sample and three references (with phone numbers) to Human Resource Director, AcademyHealth, 1150 17th Street NW, Suite 600, Washington, DC 20036. Fax: 202-292-6800. Email: jobs@academyhealth.org. Please be sure to reference the position for which you are applying.

AcademyHealth is an Equal Opportunity Employer: AcademyHealth will provide all applicants for employment and all employees with an equal opportunity regardless of sex, race, color, religion national origin, age, marital status, personal appearance, sexual orientation, family responsibilities, disability, matriculation, political affiliation, source of income, or place of business or residence.

Organization:
The Alliance for Health Reform is one of the few truly non-partisan health policy groups in DC. We were founded in 1992 by Sen. Jay Rockefeller and our executive vice president, Ed Howard, to help reporters, congressional staff and others sort through the many options for changing the U.S. health care system, in a calm atmosphere. Regardless of the fate of the Affordable Care Act, we will continue to educate our audiences about health policy issues of national importance.

Over the years we’ve conducted more than 500 briefings on Capitol Hill and elsewhere, with registrations often surpassing 350 people. We’ve helped reporters in Washington and beyond find experts and think through story ideas. We’ve worked cooperatively with the Association of Health Care Journalists from the beginning of that organization’s life.

Position Description:
The communications manager will report to Ed Howard and work closely with him and with Anastasia Tirio, our director of operations, to identify priority audiences, the most effective means of reaching them and new ways in which we can meet their information needs.

Specific Tasks

• Proactively communicate with national, regional, trade and internet reporters (including bloggers) about the mission of the Alliance and the resources we offer
• Help reporters locate experts and data for stories involving the Alliance’s areas of interest
• Help build attendance among reporters for Alliance briefings
• Coordinate Alliance Press Club briefings especially designed for media
• Arrange one-on-one meetings between Alliance leadership and Washington-based reporters
• Develop and implement a comprehensive strategy to increase social media capabilities of the Alliance
• Develop and implement social media listening strategies and report on trends
• Edit Alliance publications, in conjunction with the executive vice president
• Draft executive communications, as requested
• Serve as liaison between other Alliance staff and web designer for questions involving Alliance website capabilities, usability, appearance and design
• Use content management system to update and improve Alliance website
• Develop and implement search engine marketing strategies to build use of our website
• Develop ideas with other staff for new content to be added to our website offerings
• Expand and promote the Alliance’s Find-an-Expert service for reporters

 Knowledge, Skills and Experience Desired:

• Substantive knowledge of and experience in legacy media, social media and health policy
• Knowledge of congressional functioning and the legislative process
• Excellent interpersonal, writing and organizational skills
• Ability to work closely with web designers
• Familiarity with maintaining a website using content management system
• Ability to work well in a team-oriented environment
• Demonstrated ability to meet deadlines

How to Apply:
Email cover letter, résumé and salary requirement to jobs@allhealth.org. The closing date for applications is May 31.

Organization:
The World Bank Group is one of the world’s largest sources of funding and knowledge for developing countries.  It uses financial resources and extensive experience to help poor nations reduce poverty, increase economic growth, and improve the quality of life. Over the past several years, the Bank has been actively making its operations and research more open, transparent, and accountable through ground-breaking changes in its disclosure of information and in providing free access to its data.  As an organization focused on results, the Bank regularly assesses its effectiveness at an operational and organizational level and shares its performance outcomes broadly.

Position Description:
The External Affairs Vice Presidency (EXT) manages strategic communications and relationships with key stakeholders for the World Bank Group. EXT’s overall mandate is to increase understanding and support for the Bank Group’s mission both at the global and country levels, and to leverage the Bank Group’s development impact through effective communications, advocacy, diplomacy and issues management.

The Corporate Communications unit (EXTCC) within EXT, manages strategic communications with the Bank’s key stakeholders. The unit works to increase understanding and impact of the Bank Group’s mission through effective communications, representation, and issues management. The unit is grouped into: Media, Broadcast, Internal Communications, and the Web Program.

The Web Program Office (WPO) is made up of four distinct business lines and teams - Governance, Online/Social Media, Technology & Innovation, and Business & User Experience - responsible for leading and managing the development of a first-class web site and corresponding off-site spaces such as open data and social media.  Each business line is managed by a team lead who oversees his or her own team and work program, reporting to the Web Manager. A total of 40 staff, consultants and contractors make up the WPO. The incumbent will report to the Director of Corporate Communications.

DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES:

Business Management (incl. strategy, operations and quality control) responsibilities:

• Drives the overall strategy for the web program and assures that it fully integrates with the Bank’s and EXT’s strategies.
• Leads and collaborates with Bank decision makers to drive, plan, implement, measure, and evolve the Bank’s web and digital communications strategies (website, content, mobile, social, etc.).
• Ensures continuity and ultimately, success for the delivery of the Bank’s new web presence.
• Provides leadership in supporting the Web Governance Council, which is responsible for providing high-level guidance on online initiatives, establishing web-related policies and roles/responsibilities, etc.  The Manager will facilitate meetings and provide regular updates on implementation progress for strategies adopted by the Council.
• Ensures that the activities and programs of the WPO are cost effective and aligned with the overall priorities and objectives of the Bank and EXT.
• Advises and oversees the development and implementation of online programs supporting communication campaigns and stakeholder engagement.
• Actively monitors and manages risks around stakeholders, environment changes, and program deliverables.
• Oversees strategies, policies, and procedures to manage organizational online channels and products. Ensures that online channels follow existing organizational policies (Access to Information, Translation Framework, etc.)
• Maintains awareness of and ensures a supportive environment for the appropriate implementation of emerging digital technologies, including but not limited to mobile platforms, social media tools, and how they may be applied to help achieve the strategic goals of the Bank.
• Directly leads some challenging projects or initiatives for the WPO, especially those that may pose institutional risk for the Bank.

People/ Talent Management responsibilities:

• The Manager of the WPO will lead, together with the four team leads and Director of Corporate Communications, the advancement of the WPO’s capabilities, assets, and reputation.
• Manages four WPO team leads and their recruitment, evaluation and career development.
• Negotiates and ultimately approves the team leads’ own work plans and for their teams, including performance objectives and related HR actions.
• When necessary, manages the intersections between and among the team leads’ programs, ensuring appropriate overlap and clear handoffs.

 Resource Management responsibilities:

• Ensures formulation of the program’s budget proposal, including multi-year forecasting, and managing the unit’s financial resources of an approximately $5 million annual admin budget and a $2 million capital budget effectively and efficiently.
• Provides the planning assumptions, parameters and budget envelopes for team leads to use in their work planning.
• Coaches, negotiates and ultimately approves the team leads’ budgets, work plans for their teams, individual work programs and performance objectives.
• Provides institution-wide reporting to various governance bodies and clients.

Relationship Management responsibilities (Internal and External):

• Serves as chief advocate and representative of the Web Program Office among senior management and key internal and external stakeholders.
• Manages the stakeholder system and political environment to ensure the web program maintains a broad, institution-wide support base.
• Maintains effective working relationships with key partners and stakeholders, such as business units, IT, and security.
• Develops relationships with external organizations for strategic partnerships.

 Knowledge Management responsibilities:  

• Disseminates best practices and lessons learned.
• Manages learning and knowledge flows.

QUALIFICATIONS:

• An advanced degree directly relevant to the role, including an MBA in digital marketing,  communications, journalism, political science, international relations, public affairs, marketing.
• A successful candidate would typically have 15-20 years relevant experience including a minimum of 10 years experience managing a group of diverse business units covering separate but interrelated functions preferably in the web or online communications space for a large enterprise.
• Experience in the oversight of complex communications strategies and IT deployments and management of $5 million plus annual budget envelopes.
• Proven record of management in a senior management capacity and ability to effectively lead and manage teams.
• Success in managing multi-national staff and stakeholders.
• Strong background in complex stakeholder management.
• Record of encouraging a culture of innovation, shared learning, risk taking, and accountability.
• Must be a results-driven, strategic planner and implementer, adept at building consensus in order to move projects from concept to completion.
• Understanding of the principles of social media and emerging technologies including mobile, blogs, multimedia, etc.
• Outstanding interpersonal, diplomatic and partnership skills required for building and maintaining collaborative relationships with internal stakeholders.
• Strong communication skills in English, including the ability to speak persuasively and present ideas clearly and concisely.
• Superior level of resourcefulness, ability to work with considerable autonomy as well as willingness to work under pressure and through the whole spectrum of activities from the strategic level to the resolution of specific issues.
• Proven ability to work in a collaborative environment with team members and across organizational boundaries.
• Proven track record of building, managing and coaching teams and creating an enabling work environment.
• Prior experience in managing people, budget processes.

BANK-WIDE MANAGERIAL COMPETENCIES:

• Focusing on the Big Picture and Overall Strategic Framework for Development: Identifies and pursues strategic initiatives which provide the greatest value and sustainable impact; balances long and short-term trade-offs; communicates clearly and precisely the development goals and the strategies for achieving them.
• Inspiring Trust & Passion in the Bank Group’s Mission: Shows great drive and commitment to the World Bank Group’s mission; helps others understand how their daily work contributes to the Bank’s mission and inspires others to proactively meet the Bank’s development objectives in partnership with clients. Treats everyone fairly, consistently, and with respect.  Maintains high standards of personal integrity.
• Promoting Client Orientation: Balances a responsive and proactive approach to meeting client needs; encourages staff to understand client needs and concerns; ensures provision of customized services and products as appropriate; Responds promptly and effectively to client needs.
• Driving for Results: Makes things happen; Is proactive; Balances “analysis” with “doing”; Sets high standards for self and others; identifies work objectives that are fully aligned with the Bank Group’s mission and goals.
• Selecting, Coaching, Appraising & Developing Staff: Builds a team diverse in gender and nationality; appraises their ability and potential; gives candid and timely performance feedback; rewards desirable behavior; provides support for professional development efforts linked to business objectives; Coaches staff to help them perform effectively.
• Planning & Managing Staff to Achieve Quality Results: Develops realistic plans with available human resources; establishes high standards of performance and demonstrates a commitment to excellence; empowers staff by removing obstacles to achieve business goals; focuses on results and delivers what is promised, on time and within budget; accepts responsibility for successes and failures; does not blame others if things go wrong; holds others accountable; supports others to succeed and acknowledges their contributions.
• Encouraging Innovation in an Open, Team Based Environment: Creates an environment conducive to teamwork, continuous learning and innovation; Thinks beyond existing paradigms; builds alliances and promotes open communication and collaboration to achieve joint objectives.
• Creating an Environment that Supports Continuous Learning & Knowledge Sharing: Uses knowledge to equip clients and staff; promotes continuous learning environment; Shares knowledge and information; Builds partnerships and creates an environment for learning and knowledge sharing.
• Influencing & Resolving Differences Across Boundaries: Gains support and commitment from others even without formal authority; resolves differences by determining needs and forging solutions that benefit all parties; promotes collaboration and facilitates teamwork across organizational boundaries; Breaks down barriers between units.
• Promoting Diversity and Inclusion: Builds diverse teams and manages differences to achieve business results. Demonstrates commitment to D&I through staffing decisions (recruitment, promotion recognition, etc.). Respects and values differences; listens with an open mind and enables all staff to actively, visibly contribute. Challenges preferences in self and others that may affect workplace decisions. Models behaviors that promote a more inclusive organizational culture.

HOW TO APPLY:

Interested candidates should send a full CV and supporting statement, highlighting your experience and skills against the requirements of the role, in confidence to Ursula Gallagher, Director, SRI Executive Search, ugallagher@sri-executive.com +353 1 6479206

The World Bank Group is committed to achieving diversity in terms of race, gender, nationality, culture, and educational background.  Individuals with disabilities are equally encouraged to apply.

Location:
Washington, DC

Organization:
Mathematica Policy Research is the leading research organization conducting social policy studies on health care, education, nutrition, disability, welfare, employment and related topics. We bring the highest standards of quality, objectivity and excellence to bear on the work we do for our clients, which include federal, state and local government agencies, as well as private foundations. Mathematica is an employee-owned company known for its rigorous research and collegial working environment.

Position Description:
Mathematica is looking for an outstanding, team-oriented individual who is committed to our mission of improving public well being, and is motivated by the ability to make an immediate and sustained contribution in the workplace and have the opportunity to grow and develop professionally.

Based in our Washington, D.C. office, the Manager of Public Affairs will assist the Associate Director in a variety of communications and outreach functions designed to increase Mathematica’s visibility and influence among policymakers, journalists, relevant social media commentators, and other stakeholders. Activities include, but are not limited to, strategic communications planning; monitoring and summarizing Congressional action on relevant appropriations, reauthorizations, and other legislation; preparation and execution of external Mathematica events, including forums, roundtables, press conferences, and conference participation; development and dissemination of deliverables supporting Mathematica products; media relations; government relations; and stakeholder engagement.

The Manager of Public Affairs will be responsible for assisting with the development and execution of an outreach plan for Congressional, Executive Branch, state, and local policymakers and their staffs, as well as DC-based associations representing these stakeholders. The successful candidate must develop and maintain effective relationships with media and routinely pitch story ideas and packages, resulting in placement of Mathematica staff and products in general market, trade, and web/social media stories.

Additional responsibilities include coordinating, managing, and implementing logistical and technical needs, as well as substantive content for external events and presentations, including forums hosted by the organization, Congressional briefings and testimony and outside conferences; preparing, counseling, and providing staffing support for Mathematica representatives for media interviews, policy outreach, and speaking opportunities; plan, research, and write a variety of print and electronic materials, including news releases, issue briefs, infographics, as well as web and social media content.

Qualifications:

• Minimum of 5-7 years of experience in communications, public relations, government affairs, or government service environment, with experience  securing media coverage at the national, regional, and niche media level, and developing, coordinating, and executing public events
• Strong familiarity with Congressional processes
• Impeccable writing and oral communication skills, as well as an ability to synthesize complex data and material into compelling deliverables for general market audiences
• Strong project management skills, including ability to plan, organize, coordinate, and execute projects and events in a team matrix environment
• Ability to be strategic and creative in amplifying and supporting the work of the organization
• Highly developed interpersonal skills, including demonstrated ability to work in a complex team environment; must be collegial and congenial
• Capacity to handle multiple priorities, often simultaneously, under deadline pressure
• Willingness to play a range of roles, from advisor to strategist to implementer and strategic communications counselor, to technology trouble shooter
• Proficient in Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint. Familiarity with Sharepoint a plus

How to Apply:
Please submit your letter of interest (including salary requirements), your resume, and a one-page writing sample via our online employment site here.

We offer our employees a stimulating, team-oriented work environment, competitive salaries, and a comprehensive benefits package, as well as the advantages of employee ownership. We provide generous paid time off and an on-site fitness center.

Mathematica is an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action Employer

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 Overview:
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 willprovide 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 50 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.

Position Description:
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 injournalism, 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.

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.

Organization: The Center for the Next Generation is a nonpartisan strategic communications nonprofit organization that supports programs and policies that benefit the next generation of young Americans. Driven by high-quality research and data, the Center uses targeted communications to drive the development of an advanced energy economy and to build support for ensuring that America’s young people grow up healthy, are properly educated and well-prepared for the workforce. The Center believes that these are the keys to a stronger, more prosperous America.

Position Description:
We are currently searching for a Senior Media Strategist looking to join a dynamic staff to help influence the public discussion around the most important issues facing future generations of Americans.  We are a new non-profit, based in San Francisco, with bold aspirations – and we are putting together a savvy staff to make that happen.

If you are an exceptional talent, driven by the need to be involved in the great debates in policy and politics, and truly want to make a difference, please keep reading The ideal candidate will be full knowledgeable, conversant and up-to-speed in the following areas of strategic communications:

• Media Relations
• Public Relations
• Marketing
• Social Media
• Advertising

In addition, the successful candidates will be:

• an accomplished public speaker, comfortable with media interviews, speeches and everything in between
• an excellent writer
• a strong and supportive manager
• an ability to mentor and encourage young people
• fun, with a desire to work in an atmosphere that values teamwork and camaraderie

You will also have good knowledge of clean energy, children and family issues (like education and health policy), as well as politics (both national and California).

In other words, we want it all.  What can we offer in return?

• A competitive non-profit salary and benefits;
• Great colleagues, great issues to work on (clean energy, children and family issues, kids environmental health, youth social mobility);
• Exposure to leaders in policy, business, politics, the non-profit sector, media and more;
• The ability to be creative and see your ideas acted upon.

If you are a leader in non-profit communication and have a proven track record of success, you should apply.

If you are a seasoned communications specialist whom is looking to transition out of the business world into something more meaningful,  you should apply.

If you have been working in politics or on campaigns and are ready to take your skills to the non-profit, you should apply; If you are a rising star who needs a chance to show what you can do, you should apply.

If you are a rising star who needs a chance to show what you can do, you should apply.

This position will report to the president of the Center for the Next Generation, Matt James, and will be a core part of the senior staff of the Center.   While this is a position that requires highly sophisticated strategy skills, it is also a “roll up your sleeves” potion, one that will require the successful applicant to write extensively, work with the news media, pitch ideas and stories – in other words, do it all.  Some travel is also required.

Sound interesting?  Then apply.  In addition to your resume we would like to see a document (two pages or less) on “Why You?” Please use this document to address three things;

• The highlights of your most successful communications work.
• Why you think one or more of the issues the Center is working on requires our attention.
• Your theory for creating lasting change through communications.

Seem hard to do in two pages?  If you’re good, you can do it.   Show us.

Get in on the ground floor.  Help us build a powerful new organization.  Make a difference. We look forward to hearing from you.

How To Apply:
Please send your resume and two-page personal pitch to jobs@tcng.org and refer to “Communications  and New Media Director” in the subject line. If we like what we see, we will be in touch.

The Center for the Next Generation is an Equal Opportunity Employer.

Organization:
Resource Media is a nonprofit public relations and media firm providing strategic communications services and products for its mission-driven partners advocating for the environment and public health.

Resource Media’s work increases the power and impact of the conservation and public health communities. Resource Media helps advocates use their resources more efficiently to achieve their goals, and reframes contentious debates to achieve better outcomes. Resource Media discovers, develops, and delivers powerful narratives that move the public from complacency to concern to action.

Position Description:
Resource Media is seeking an exceptional leader to become its next president. The next president of Resource Media will encounter stimulating challenges and unparalleled opportunities to lead a team of creative communications professionals in solving public relations problems for specific client-partners and for environmental and public health advocates in general. The specific challenges and opportunities facing the next president include expanding and diversifying the organization’s funding streams and revenue sources, developing an organizational structure that allows for innovation while ensuring exceptional quality of product and service, and continuing to advance Resource Media as a thought-leader in connecting philanthropy, strategic communications and progressive environmental and public health initiatives.

The firm is seeking a leader with experience in conservation issues and strong relationships with environmentally motivated campaigners and funders, with a substantial set of creative strategic communications skills, and with the capacity to build, motivate, and lead a staff of extraordinary professionals by example and inspiration. The president will be expected to maintain and further develop the organization as a high performing, creative team that can deliver services and products with measurable impact.

A complete position description and application information are available here on the Isaacson Miller web site.

Organization:
The Center for Effective Philanthropy (CEP) is a nonprofit organization focused on the development of comparative data to enable higher-performing funders. CEP’s mission is to provide data and create insight so philanthropic funders can better define, assess, and improve their effectiveness – and, as a result, their intended impact. This mission is based on a vision of a world in which pressing social needs are more effectively addressed. It stems from a belief that improved effectiveness of philanthropic funders can have a profoundly positive impact on nonprofit organizations and the people and communities they serve.

 
Position Overview:
 CEP is currently seeking a creative and dynamic Director of Communications and Programming to partner with the President on all aspects of the organization’s marketing and communications. With primary responsibility for external communications designed to promote CEP’s research, assessment tools, and programming resources, as well as to positively influence foundation practices, the Director of Communications and Programming will oversee CEP’s website and its popular blog, its promotional materials, its social medial presence, and its biennial conference for foundation CEOs and trustees. Additionally, the Director will be responsible for securing national, regional, and niche press coverage, as well as for supporting the President in his role as the organization’s leading spokesperson. Reporting directly to the President and serving as a member of the senior team, the Director will work closely and collaboratively with the Vice President for Assessment Tools and Vice President for Research, as well as oversee a staff of two.
 
Responsibilities:

• Develop, plan and implement communications strategies that promote CEP’s assessment tools and research, as well as position CEP as a thought leader in the philanthropic community. Ensuring the highest standards of communications across the organization and maintain CEP’s brand identity and unique positioning.
• Write and edit all marketing collateral, email newsletter content, website/blog content, press releases, and annual appeals. Compose speeches, op-ed pieces and other written assignments in collaboration with CEP President
• Actively pursue coverage in the trade and mainstream media, developing and maintaining press relationships; engage President or other staff in press opportunities as appropriate
• Plan and produce CEP’s biennial conference and other event programming aiming at foundation CEOs, trustees, and senior executives
• Manage relationships with external vendors, including designers, writers, programmers, and production firms
• Develop marketing and communications budget
• Provide leadership and management to the communications staff of two. Oversee the team’s capacity to provide public relations, design and communications support to CEP departments, including the Development, Research, and Assessment teams

  Qualifications:

•  At least 8 years of communications, marketing or public relations experience, preferably in an entrepreneurial, nonprofit or foundation environment; familiarity with philanthropy a plus
• Outstanding writing and editing skills
• Sharp news sense and experience securing press coverage at national, regional, and niche media levels
• Ability to lead staff, make decisions and prioritize competing requests in a fast-moving, results-oriented organization
• Excellent interpersonal skills and ability to transfer good communications skills to colleagues who do not specialize in communications
• Willingness to play a range of roles from adviser to strategist to implementer
• Ability to manage multiple projects effectively, as well as manage consultants and meet deadlines
• Personal committment to CEP’s mission
• Proficient in Windows MS Office suite, and social media tools. Familiarity with Sage or other CRM system, CMS Made Simple or other CMS program, Constant Contact or other e-newsletter tools; design skills a plus
• Bachelor’s degree or equivalent; advanced degree preferable

How to Apply:
Click here to apply online on CEP’s website. You will be required to upload a resume and thoughtful cover letter, outlining how your skills and experience meet the qualifications of the position and stating how you heard about this opportunity, in Word format and addressed to Phil Buchanan. Applications will be reviewed on a rolling basis.

Organization:
The MPA Monitoring Enterprise (Monitoring Enterprise) is a program of the California Ocean Science Trust (OST), a non-profit organization established pursuant to the Coastal Ocean Resources Stewardship Act of 2000 to provide scientific guidance to the state on ocean policy issues.

The Monitoring Enterprise was created in 2007 to lead the design and implementation of scientifically rigorous, impartial and cost-effective monitoring of the network of marine protected areas established in California under the Marine Life Protection Act. Working at the boundary between science and management, we are pioneering scientific and practical assessments of the changing condition of ocean ecosystems and the performance of MPA networks, and developing innovative approaches for sharing monitoring results so that decision-makers and stakeholders have timely, credible information for making sound decisions. We work closely with the California Department of Fish and Game and the California Ocean Protection Council, and engage scientists and stakeholders to ensure monitoring is based on the best available science, reflects public interests and meets management needs.

Position Description:
The Ocean Science Trust is creating a new organizational role to strengthen our growing team and the MPA Monitoring Enterprise. We are looking for a skilled and energetic Communications Manager to join our team. Reporting to the Monitoring Enterprise Program Director, the position will be part of a cross-functional and multi-disciplinary team composed of OST staff and contractors to ensure rigorous and unbiased science is integrated into coastal and ocean policy and management. The position provides an exciting opportunity to improve understanding and assessment of the nation’s first statewide MPA network.

The Communications Manager will work with the Program Director to develop and employ new communication tools and approaches that reflect management needs and public priorities, strengthen understanding of MPA monitoring approaches and findings, and advance the role of science in effective stewardship and management of our oceans.

The Communications Manager will develop and implement a dynamic communications strategy for the Monitoring Enterprise that advances the program mission and programmatic goals. The Communications Manager will work with the Monitoring Enterprise team, partners and contractors to develop and employ new communication tools and approaches that reflect management needs and public priorities, strengthen understanding of MPA monitoring approaches and findings, and advance the role of science in effective stewardship and management of our oceans.

Duties:

• Plan, organize and oversee communications and messaging activities for the Monitoring Enterprise, including anticipating communications needs and responding strategically to communications opportunities
• Develop and implement an annual communications plan, including a calendar of print, visual and electronic communications in accordance with programmatic and organizational communications goals
• Oversee the development, writing, editing, production and distribution of Monitoring Enterprise communications products, including e-updates, newsletters, web content and factsheets, working closely with Monitoring Enterprise science and information management staff and multiple contractors and partners
• Working with staff and external consultants, develop and implement strategies to engage decision- makers, stakeholders, scientists and the public in monitoring design and data reporting, employing tools and approaches that clearly convey complex scientific and technical information to broad and diverse audiences
• Work with Monitoring Enterprise collaborators and partners, including scientists and stakeholders, to supplement our internal communications efforts
• Collaborate with the program team so that programmatic and communications decisions are streamlined and complementary
•  Develop and implement a mechanism to annually measure the impact of communications investments Qualifications

Qualifications:

• Superb writing, editing and oral presentation skills
• Strong interpersonal skills to professionally and effectively represent the organization before a variety of diverse audiences and in a wide range of circumstances.
• Outcome-driven with sound project management skills. • Strong team player. Able to take on diverse tasks and play both supporting and leading roles as needed to achieve organizational goals.
• Flexible thinker.
• Excellent analytical, problem solving and strategic planning skills. • Strong ability to prioritize multiple tasks, including ‘big picture’ and detailed issues, and remain flexible when faced with short or changing timelines.
• Commitment to the mission and goals of the California Ocean Science Trust.
• Authorized to work in the U.S.

Knowledge and experience:

• Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in related field (e.g., English, journalism, public relations, marketing, communications) and 3-5 years relevant experience.
• Prior experience working in a related field (e.g., marine science, ocean conservation, resource management) or non-profit/government experience strongly preferred
• Experience in building and working with social media and social networks, as well as web content, design and web based publications preferred.

Salary:
Starting salary will be commensurate with experience and is expected to be in the range of $45,000 – $65,000. Benefits include medical, dental, and vision insurance and a generous retirement plan.

How to Apply:
Qualified applicants should email the following to hr@calost.org, using a subject line of Communications Manager: current curriculum vitae, and an application that includes 1) an explanation of your interest in the position and how it fits with your long-term career goals; 2) a brief (1-2 page) statement of your qualifications and experience relative to the qualifications listed above, highlighting your most relevant skills and experience, and; 3) a brief (1 page, maximum) statement of what you believe will be the most challenging aspects of this position. Review of the applications is planned to begin on April 9, 2012, however applications will be accepted until the position is filled.

Organization:
Established in 1925, The Kalamazoo Community Foundation is one of the oldest and most successful community foundations in the country. With assets of more than $300 million, we each year invest more than $15 million in the community in the form of grants to nonprofit organizations. About 40 percent of our assets are unrestricted, which provide resources to support nonprofits addressing immediate community needs, as well as those looking for long-term solutions to persistent challenges. We offer a competitive benefits package, team-oriented, performance excellence atmosphere, and opportunities to collaborate with people from cultural backgrounds other than your own. We believe the strength of our organization depends on our commitment to value, respect and embracing diversity. We believe diversity encompasses, but is not limited to, ethnicity, race, age, gender identity, sexual orientation, economic circumstance, physical and mental abilities and characteristics, and philosophy. We are an equal opportunity employer and are on the journey to become an anti-racist organization.

Position Description:
The Kalamazoo Community Foundation is currently seeking candidates for Director of Marketing Communications.  This position will be responsible for overseeing the Marketing Communications functional area and for the development and implementation of the Community Foundation’s marketing communications and public relations strategies. In this leadership role, the incumbent will report to the President/CEO and will serve as a key member of the Executive Team.

Responsibilities

• Supports the mission and vision of the Kalamazoo Community Foundation.
• Oversees the Community Foundation’s Marketing Communications functional area, and the development and implementation of the Community Foundation’s marketing communications strategies.
• Marketing Communications
• Develops, enhances, implements and evaluates the Community Foundation’s marketing communications plan.
• Develops, enhances, implements and evaluates all functional area-specific marketing communications strategies and tactics.
• Develops, enhances and ensures the implementation of internal communications initiatives.
• Prepares, manages and monitors the Marketing Communications budget.
• Determines the editorial calendar and content of publications and electronic communications (e.g. Annual Report, newsletters, e-newsletters, etc.).
• Writes speeches and presentations for the organization as needed.
• Conducts other activities as assigned by the President/CEO.
• Public Relations
• Executes and manages reputation-building activities.
• Proactively develops and maintains relationships with media.
• Develops, enhances, implements and evaluates a public relations strategy and performs crisis management public relations duties.
• Ensures proactive media placement and other activities on local, regional and national levels.
•  Oversees the preparation of media releases.
•  Supervision
• Supervises Marketing Communications staff. In so doing, assigns, plans and reviews work; establishes priorities; instructs and trains employees; supervises projects; oversees the creation of Individual Development Plans; conducts performance reviews and corrective action or job counseling; and participates in hiring and terminations.
• Leadership
• Develops alliances with community partners to further organizational objectives and priorities.
• Serves as organizational spokesperson.
• Identifies and participates in local, regional and national efforts that contribute to the advancement of the Community Foundation.
• Conducts other activities as assigned by the President/CEO.
• Participates as a member of the Executive Team.

Knowledge, Skills & Abilities:
Requires Masters Degree or an equivalent combination of training and relevant work experience plus 6-8 years of related experience.

 How to Apply:

Qualified candidates should send their resume, no later than April 25, 2012 to hr@kalfound.org.  When submitting your resume, please also include where you learned of this open position.

Organization:
The Fuel Freedom Foundation is a new non-profit organization based in Irvine, California, whose mission is to promote the development of cheaper, cleaner, American-made transportation fuels.

Position Description:
Reporting to the Foundation President, the Director of Communications will be responsible for creating and implementing a powerful, multi-dimensional communications strategy for the organization.

Qualifications:
The ideal candidate will have leadership experience in journalism, public relations, public affairs, marketing, or advertising, a track record as a proactive creator of original initiatives, and the ability to work effectively as part of a team.

How to Apply:
Interested applicants should send a cover letter and resume to rgm@magnusonandcompany.com.

Organization:
The Wallace Foundation, an independent national philanthropy with assets of $1.3 billion, traces its origins back more than half a century to DeWitt and Lila Acheson Wallace, founders of The Reader’s Digest Association. Ranked by assets, we are among the 50 largest private foundations in the United States.

Our vision is that children, particularly those living in distressed urban areas, have access to good schools and a variety of enrichment programs in and outside of school that prepare them to be contributing members of their communities. We seek to fill important knowledge gaps in our areas of interest by developing and testing promising ideas on the ground, studying the results, researching related issues, and sharing what we’ve learned broadly to help improve children’s lives.

The foundation currently works in five areas:

• strengthening school leadership to improve student achievement,
• expanding time for learning during the school year and over the summer,
• enhancing after-school opportunities,
• fostering arts education for children and teens, and
• developing audiences for the arts.

At The Wallace Foundation, we work in teams that assemble the mix of expertise and perspectives we need to design and carry out initiatives according to our approach. This means that staff members from units throughout the foundation – research, program, and communications, to name a few – regularly work together in a cross-foundation effort rather than individually in their own department. Therefore, we seek employees who are both highly skilled in their professions and able to work collaboratively with others. Wallace employees need to be able to think analytically and communicate clearly. We value the flexibility to adapt to change, a desire to learn, and the ability to work productively both on one’s own and with colleagues inside and outside the foundation.

Position Description:
The Communications Officer is a key contributor to the success of The Wallace Foundation’s initiatives, specifically in helping Wallace achieve its goal of catalyzing broad impact in the fields in which we work. The Officer has three primary responsibilities:  1) contribute to strategy design, helping ensure a communications perspective is fully integrated into our initiatives, 2) manage grants to and contracts with our communication partners to implement our strategies, and 3) lead the planning for and manage conferences, briefings, and webinars. Because Wallace’s communications strategy is aimed at encouraging use of effective ideas and practices developed by the foundation and its partners, the Communications Officer is expected to acquire deep knowledge of lessons learned from both our grantees and research. The Communications Officer reports to the Director of Communications.

The Communications Officer will focus primarily on the Foundation’s initiatives in Learning and Enrichment: summer learning, longer school day and year, and after-school citywide systems building, serving as a member of the cross-disciplinary team. The Officer may also assist in other initiative areas as requested, and contribute to foundation-wide communication planning.

Responsibilities
Working as a member of the Learning and Enrichment teams, contribute to strategy design for the initiative ensuring a communications perspective is fully integrated into the initiative. Strategies will build on the foundation’s knowledge base and sustain its reputation for credibility, while employing best practices, both Wallace’s and industry-wide, to most effectively reach key audiences.

• Manage grants and contracts with communications partners, e.g., professional associations such as the National League of Cities or National Summer Learning Association:
• Build in key messages from Wallace research and innovation sites in partners’ print and electronic communications, conferences, and webinars
• Collaboratively develop plans and manage against deliverables
• Foster positive and candid relationships with partners
• Conduct analyses and share lessons with foundation colleagues to advance the work
• Lead planning, organization and execution of conferences, briefings, webinars, and workshops in Learning and Enrichment; specifically the after-school citywide systems conference targeted for early 2013
• Manage Wallace’s print advertising campaign working with the Foundation’s advertising agency

Qualifications:

• Bachelor’s degree
• Five plus years of experience in a communications, public relations, public affairs, journalism or policy analyst role in non-profit or for-profit, commitment to evidence-based communications
• Capacity to work productively and contribute in a cross-disciplinary team structure
• Excellent writing skills
• Excellent analytical and interpersonal skills to identify issues and solve problems working with colleagues
• Excellent project management skills and ability to multi-task in a fast-paced environment
• Ability to bring together and build relationships with and among external parties such as grantees, vendors and partners
• Commitment to accountability and transparency
• Strong plus: experience developing and managing briefings, webinars, conferences and workshops.
• Plusses: some familiarity with the nonprofit field and education sector; familiarity working with social media

 How to Apply:

Interested candidates should send their resume, cover note and writing samples to HR@wallacefoundation.org. Please note “Communications Officer” as the subject in your email.

Salary is commensurate with experience. Our benefits include health, dental, life and disability insurance, a 403(b) retirement plan and paid time off.

The Wallace Foundation is an Equal Opportunity Employer, committed to maintaining a diverse workplace where differing perspectives are a source of strength.

One of the things that those of us who use social media most appreciate is its capacity to track how people are engaging with ideas and causes we are advancing.  But according to Lisa Witter, Chief Change Officer at Fenton, engaging with content goes beyond just seeing something that’s been posted or published online.

As Lisa makes clear in this brief video, engagement only starts after someone sees what we have to say. What do they do next? Do they share it?  Do they comment on it?  Do they respond to a call to action? In other words, how far do they climb up the engagement ladder?

Our job as communicators is to set clear goals and to track the steps our audiences take toward them, continually refining what works.  Watch the video for an overview about what to measure, how and when.

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

For more on this topic, check out Fenton’s guide, “See, Say, Feel, Do: Social Media Metrics That Matter.”

Just over a year ago, I switched from the corporate to the nonprofit sector to take a job as a communications officer of the Connecticut Health Foundation (CT Health).  Because we don’t sell products and compare revenue from quarter to quarter or year to year, we had to come up with another set of measures for tracking the return on the foundation’s investment investment in social media.  In our case, we want to know how the foundation’s use of social media — as part of our overall communications strategy — helps us achieve our mission to improve the health status of people in Connecticut.

Our work focuses on ensuring access to affordable and quality health care and we target these four areas:

• children’s mental health
• health policy/advocacy
• children’s oral health
• and racial and ethnic health disparities.

In pursuing our mission to ensure that every citizen, no matter what their needs, can thrive and stay healthy, we use a combination of strategic grant-making, research and policy briefs and communications.

Social media allows us to increase our impact in each of our priority areas by strengthening relationships with our partners, heightening visibility for our work and giving us a mechanism for feedback on our work.

What We Measure
Right now we have a dashboard that answers three questions:

• Are we gaining visibility for our work?
• What is our audience reading?
• Are we engaging with our audience?

I’d like to call out the second bullet specifically. We use Google Analytics to understand which blog content as well as website pages are the most popular with our audiences. Popular blog content has more than informed our social media content strategy – it’s also given us insight into what policy information people are looking for. At some point in the near future we’d love to have this inform our grant-making strategy as well.

Looking at traffic to other sections of the website lets us know if people are looking at promoted programs. For example, at the time of this writing, we were recruiting for our CT Health Leadership Fellows program. We wanted to see an increase to traffic at that part of our site (and we did). Thanks to the Visitors Flow (here’s the best article I’ve read on this to date) we’re able to see how people go through the pages to understand the program.

While we technically do not have competitors, we’re also interested in how we stack up compared to other foundations of our size. I use compete.com to get a ballpark figure on select foundations’ website views, and manually look at other foundations’ Facebook stats as well. So far, CT Health is doing well (not to brag).

What We’ve Learned
Here’s my laundry list:

• Our most popular content on our blog falls into the broad buckets of: health policy, racial and ethnic health disparities, and how-to’s for our grantees.
• Facebook is really hard, and getting harder, for engagement.
• Participating in the monthly #hcsmct (that’s health care social media Connecticut) tweetchats and tweetups has definitely boosted engagement and visibility.

While we use social media differently than what I was used to in my for-profit job, one thing it shares with that world is a focus on results — not dollars and cents — but proof that our work as a foundation is helping people in Connecticut live healthy lives.  And to make it work for us, we need to know:

• What we want to achieve
• What we want to measure
• Who our audiences are
• How to get there.

This is how CT Health measures the success of its social media efforts. How about you?

Jenn Whinnem is a Communications Officer at the Connecticut Health Foundation where she blogs, shoots and edits video, tweets and wrestles social media technology. Find her at @jennwhinnem or @cthealth. This post is modified from a version that appeared earlier on Spin Sucks.

But simply posting video on your site doesn’t guarantee anyone will watch it. We’re exposed to so much video every day that viewers no longer have the time or patience for the bad stuff. If your video’s not good, your audience turns away, and all the time and money you spent shooting and promoting it is gone. Sometimes in just seconds.

During a recent Communications Network webinar, host Andy Goodman, spoke with Steve Stockman, author of “How to Shoot Video That Doesn’t Suck.” Stockman presented 10 critical elements of video production that you can begin applying to your organization’s video today.

As Stockman explains, it all comes down to re-thinking your approach to video, the audience who will watch it, and how you can produce video that actually gets watched.

Click below to watch a replay of the webinar:

(During the webinar, Stockman cites several videos worth watching — to learn what works and doesn’t. The list of videos and links are below).

• Where in the Hell is Matt
• Corning
• Bounty Paper Towel Gang
• Philip DeFranco 
• Every Presentation Ever 
• Oxfam Goats Who Do Good
• How to Shoot Video that Doesn’t Suck trailer
• Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation
• Heal the Bay (“The Majestic Plastic Bag”)
• Humane Society (“The Face of Dogfighting”)

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While the fall elections are many months away, there’s no time like the present for nonprofits and their foundation supporters to begin planning issue campaigns for 2013 when the focus returns to policy matters.  The first decisions: determining what’s achievable and assessing who and what stands in the way to success. That’s some of the advice from Erin Campbell Boltz, senior vice president at Spitfire Strategies, and John Passacantando, former executive director of Greenpeace USA, who share their list of campaign to-dos.

1. Set your sights on a clear goal.

Erin: This is where all campaign planning should start – what do you want to achieve in 2013? What does that measurable success look like? Take the time to write down your goal and map out a plan. The Just Enough Planning Guide, funded by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, outlines a framework for creating a campaign strategy, starting with a measurable goal.

John: Drop the dogma. Get a real assessment of your opponent, yourself and your landscape. Creating a shared understanding across a campaign – from your lead strategists to the staff pushing out messages on social media – can keep you from going off course.

2. Know exactly who you need to move.

John: Who actually has the power to move your effort and to whom do they listen?

Erin: Yes, definitely. Create a list of decision makers, existing champions and the champions you need to recruit to win. Map who you have relationships with and access to (or don’t). Too often groups spend time trying to reach too many people, rather than targeting the right number of people needed to make progress.

John: Right, we’re talking campaign wins here, not broader movement propaganda. Occupy Wall Street feels righteous, but without a clear goal and someone specific to move, it remains in the realm of broad movement rhetoric. No real targets, no real campaign victories.

3. Arm yourself to face the opposition.

Erin: Determine if your message is winning – or if your opposition is dominating the conversation. Understanding the opposition informs the messages, messengers and stories needed to build a powerful campaign.

John: The fight against the Keystone XL pipeline had some of the finest organizing we’ve seen in a generation. It drove a rather unsexy story about the approval of a pipeline into the center of a media and political storm. But when the messaging went from, “If the pipeline is approved, it’s essentially game over for the planet,” to various revelations about alternative pipelines, rail lines, and plays by refiners, the thread was lost. Elite media became more skeptical. In other words, we didn’t know our opposition well enough and we didn’t know ourselves. We waded into a fight with some huge misperceptions about a business we were trying to impact.

4. Be realistic and play to your strengths.

Erin: Build a campaign plan around your strengths to have the most impact. Do you have strong media contacts, a deep grassroots and grasstops network or powerful messengers?

John: Greenpeace goes after campaigns where the organization’s creativity and style are most needed. We could be very public in calling out our targets – but that isn’t the bailiwick of every group. Know your strengths and leverage those.

5. Don’t go it alone – engage the right campaign partners.

Erin: Form a collaboration of the willing. You can’t do your planning on the time table of the most reluctant partner. This leads to frustration and stalls campaigns. Don’t force partners to the table. Instead, work with those that want to be there to advance a common goal.

John: Do this early on so you can pool resources, balance assets and develop the trust that you will need to work collaboratively.

6. Wrangle coalitions with a strong campaign manager.

John: When working as a coalition, appointing a campaign manager is critical, whether it’s someone from one of the allied organizations or an outside person tasked with that coordinating role.

Erin: The campaign manager oversees the big picture to make sure policy, media and grassroots staff are talking to each other and leveraging each other’s work.

John: It is also important for the campaign manager to manage regular communication. If you’re working on a relatively near-term goal, this often means weekly calls, and then daily check-ins when things are close to decision points.

7. Empower a core decision-making team.

Erin: Campaigns require quick decisions that often can’t be negotiated with a large group. Empower a core group of decision makers to react to changing circumstances quickly. Spitfire recently worked with Child Nutrition Initiative on its campaign to improve the nutritional quality of school lunches. Despite the number of different groups involved in the effort, and each with their own priorities–from combating childhood hunger to promoting farm-to-school programs–they all agreed to make nutritional school lunches their common focus. Because the small group of decision makers was clear on their mandate, the campaign could react quickly to fast-moving changes in Congress and impact the legislative process in real time.

John: I’ve seen too many “collaborative” efforts where the most aggressive campaigning is internal. That’s destructive.

Erin: If you’re dealing with a multi-organization coalition for a campaign effort, this recent post from in the Stanford Social Innovation Review has some excellent suggestions for organizing structures, based on approaches that have worked for different types of alliances.

Wayne Gretzky famously said that a great hockey player skates to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been. These are instructive words for philanthropic foundations and other groups confronting fundamental and rapid shifts in the communication landscape. Two disruptive forces are reshaping the terrain on which our public dialogue takes place: digital communication technology and the unraveling of traditional journalism. This is of enormous consequence for social sector organizations whose effectiveness relies in part on a functioning, well-informed public debate on issues such as health, education, the economy, global development and the environment.

Foundations and the groups they fund have long played an important part in informing, framing and participating in the public conversation on their issues of concern. Their strategies include research and information dissemination, public communication activities and campaigns, and funding media. An example of the centrality of these efforts: there are thousands of organizations whose sole purpose is research and dissemination to inform the public policy dialogue and process. One of the oldest American foundations, the Carnegie Corporation of New York, made “diffusion of knowledge and understanding” its philanthropic mission a century ago. So these activities and their importance are nothing new. The need for them is greater than ever before as traditional sources of public information disappear and policy challenges become more complex. What’s new and changing is the communication environment in which this all takes place. It looks less familiar with each passing day — decentralized, networked, mobile, interactive. In a word, digital. Whether this new public dialogue thrives—with social organizations’ knowledge as a meaningful part of it—will depend on whether the sector can recalibrate its communication practices, heed Wayne Gretzky, and skate to where the digital puck is moving.

This is unsettling for foundations and others that have operated in a communication system in place for generations. That system—with sources, media and audiences neatly in line—has come apart. With commercial pressures on journalism intensifying, the topics that the philanthropic sector strives to keep at the forefront of public consciousness could be among the first to be cast aside. The lack of a familiar last-mile institution of journalism presents a substantial challenge to organizations that have historically relied on that function and are still structured to navigate the old landscape.

That challenge is accompanied by enormous opportunity. Unlike in past eras, social sector organizations are now in direct control of a mass communication medium, more powerful than any that preceded it, with global reach, unique capabilities and expanding potential to engage and inform. An intimidating prospect for those not accustomed to “being the media,” but a golden opportunity nonetheless.

Whether viewed as a challenge or an opportunity, the social sector must adopt new psychology, create new organizational structures, develop new strategies, invite new skills and take a fresh look at how resources are allocated toward informing citizens and policymakers on critical public issues.

These new realities are what animate the mission of the Center for Digital Information. CDI was created to help the social sector rethink its methods of producing and communicating information, specifically by supplementing its traditional output of reports, white papers and journal articles with newer interactive digital products. My objective, however, goes beyond replacing PDF documents with something new. I hope by demonstrating new ways of communicating information and how to achieve them that CDI can help the sector tackle the more important task of developing new digital age structures and processes.

CDI is placing these issues center stage at “Philanthropy and the Digital Public Dialogue,” a roundtable on Monday, April 30 as part of the Council on Foundations annual conference in Los Angeles. Communication scholars, internet experts and foundation executives will look at the trends in digital media, their adoption and use and the changing contours of our communication environment. The group will discuss where the puck is headed and what structural and operational changes are required for philanthropic institutions to become better, faster, more nimble skaters in an increasingly digital public arena.

The discussion group includes Geoffrey Cowan, President, Annenberg Foundation Trust at Sunnylands; Ernest James Wilson III, Dean, Annenberg School for Communication & Journalism, University of Southern California; Michael Delli Carpini, Dean, Annenberg School for Communication, University of Pennsylvania; Lee Rainie, Director, Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project; Lucy Bernholz, Managing Director, Arabella Advisors; Marta Tellado, Vice President, Communications, Ford Foundation; Debra Jacobs, President and CEO, The Patterson Foundation; Matt James, President and CEO, The Center for the Next Generation; Michael Smith, Senior Vice President, Social Innovation, The Case Foundation; Mayur Patel, Vice President, Strategy and Assessment, Knight Foundation; and Mary Lou Fulton, Senior Program Manager, The California Endowment.

Join us in person if you’ll be at the Council on Foundations conference. If you can’t make it to Los Angeles, watch the live webcast on Monday, April 30 at 12:30pm PDT/3:30 ET. You can follow along and participate on Twitter using the hashtag #cdicof.

Full details are at digitalinfo.org/cof.

Jeff Stanger is the founding director of the Center for Digital Information.

As dean of the Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism at the University of Southern California, Dr. Earnest J. Wilson III is on the front line of changes wrought by the digital revolution.  That’s why The Communications Network tapped his expertise three years ago for its report:  “Come On In. The Water’s Fine. An Exploration of Web 2.0 Technology and Its Emerging Impact on Foundation Communications.”

Then, as now, Wilson believes the key to effectively navigating these changes is what he calls the capacity for “sustained innovation.” For foundation communication departments — forced daily to grapple with ever-shifting modes of communication — this capacity isn’t just nice to have.  It’s imperative.  “In such an environment,” Wilson writes in the Spring 2012 issue of strategy+business magazine, “creativity needn’t wait for the unpredictable ‘aha’ moment. It is continually nurtured.”

In the five-minute interview that follows, Wilson makes clear that such changes must come from the top of the organization.  But he also says they require a new type of partnership between leaders of foundations, those in “what used to be called public relations or public affairs,” as well as program officers and grantees.  For organizations committed to sustainable innovation, “…communications can’t be something that is done off in a corner.”

If you are looking for credible advice about how to not only survive the rapid pace of change but to thrive, you will want to tune in to this interview.  Wilson’s prescription in a nutshell? Remember that “…God gave us two ears and one mouth for a reason.”

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

Are there challenges in communicating about the Arts?
The biggest challenge is making sure you are on top of your game when it comes to issues of copyright protection and fair use – especially in this era when it’s so easy to hit the “share” button.

Does your foundation create an annual communications plan?
We do have a communications plan, but I wouldn’t say it’s annual. It’s more like an overarching framework that we update with a calendar of tactics. Our framework defines, from a communications perspective, who we are and what we think is important. Because organizationally we value flexibility and the ability to quickly respond to opportunities, any plan we pull together at the beginning of the year might look very different at year’s end. That said, I definitely need to update our communications framework, since the current one really describes how we want to listen and share using social media – and that’s so 2009.

When you were 13 years old, what did you want to be when you grew up?
Educated and employed. I grew up in a coal mining camp in Southern West Virginia, so I didn’t know too much about the options I might have.

A recent communications success you are particularly proud of?
We run the “Pick.Click.Give.” campaign, which encourages Alaskans to divert some of their annual permanent fund dividend to one or more of about 400 nonprofits that appear on a vetted list. This year we will probably see about $2.2 million in pledges made through that campaign, and while that may seem like a small number, it represents about 4.5% of Alaskans choosing to make at least one contribution to a nonprofit. And we know that most donors are supporting a nonprofit for the very first time with their “Pick.Click.Give.” pledge, so we really are creating new philanthropy.

Your hardest to reach target audience?
I think the constituency that we’ve had the most difficulty reaching are artists from recent immigrant communities. It’s a challenge to communicate that artists themselves (yes, you, the person) are eligible for grants (yes, money, to you) so that they can continue to make art for the rest of us to enjoy.

Your undergraduate major?
I enrolled as an electrical engineering student. But on my first day of college, as they were calling freshmen out of the auditorium by major, animal science came up in the alphabet before electrical engineering, and that sounded good, too. So I became an animal science major just by walking out of the room at the right time. Later, the Beat writers convinced me to go into journalism. That’s where I landed.

You’ve posed questions to the Communications Network listserv. Have you been satisfied with the results?
People on the listserv have been very generous in sharing ideas, tips, and experiences. I’ve asked questions ranging from digital archiving to crowd sourcing, and there’s always someone who has been able to help.

About how much of your communications focuses on reaching audiences through new media?
I would guess we spend 60 percent of our effort on new media, and our blog is probably the most effective way of sharing stories and news. The blog is cross-posted on Facebook and Twitter – but otherwise we try to keep those tools distinct in content and voice. We are experimenting more with online advertising – mainly through Facebook, Google search and display, and some display ads on our primary news sites. And we are trying to figure out how to produce more simple video content using the staff resources that we have.

Does Rasmuson evaluate communications?
We use formal market surveys, email surveys, analysis of data like applications submitted, participation rates, media mentions, comments, retweets, etc., as determined by the goals set for the communications efforts. We engaged the Center for Effective Philanthropy last year to survey grantees and were pleased that grantees value our investment in social networks, and that we can do a better job communicating staff transitions when they occur. We also think anecdotal feedback is very important. A communications goal is to make the Foundation more approachable, and that’s very hard to measure. But when someone makes a comment to a staff or board member that points to the quality of our mutual relationship, it can be pretty validating.

Favorite communications tool more foundation folks should be using?
Delicious – bookmarking can be used to support a variety of communications efforts. One of our communications goals is to advocate for the nonprofit sector. We use Delicious to gather mentions of our grantees, then make it available both in its native form and through our Twitter stream. Through bookmarking we create a real-time news ticker-like system about the sector. I’d like to explore how bookmarking can be used in some of our board and internal communications programs as well.

Your favorite underappreciated journalist?
I really admire Amanda Coyne who writes about my new home state of Alaska, and Ken Ward who writes about my old home state of West Virginia.

You attended the 2012 SXSW. What’s the most notable thing you learned that you will apply to your work?
My biggest takeaway was a better understanding of the philosophy of the open web and how significantly our world is already changing. Now I have lots of questions about what it might really mean to network intelligence, how it will change how we do business, how it will change the nonprofits we depend upon to do the hard work of social good.

Your biggest complaint about how your issues get covered in the media?
I think nonprofits are covered as “charities” too often. Not as the economic, social and policy engines that they are.

Has Rasmuson ever publicly talked about a failure in its grantmaking?
Sure. I think the effect of talking about failure is to reinforce philanthropy’s role in innovation. Transparency also contributes to our goal of making the Foundation more approachable.

Last nonfiction book you read?
I’m reading three at the moment: the Steve Jobs biography, Donald Tapscott’s “Macrowikinomics,” and Eli Pariser’s “The Filter Bubble.” I think they mix well together, and for me it’s about change, innovation, and being confident in your ideas.

Last time you learned something important from a communications colleague?
Marie Deatherage from Meyer Memorial Trust and I recently discussed a project that we are considering here. She was very generous in sharing how the Trust experimented in the same area – and we will be borrowing liberally from them.

Another foundation whose communication work you admire?
Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Their commitment to building the communications capacity of their grantees is something I greatly value. In some ways, I am a product of their philosophy. I received technical support as a grantee, and it gave me a great professional boost.

One aspect of your personal life that has the greatest impact on your professional life?
Because I grew up in a coal camp, I have a real interest in labor issues, worker’s rights, and environmental justice. It’s a perspective you just carry around with you.

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.

On that list were the following:

• Make learning your goal: The mission is to help you and others improve.
• Get the facts.
• Be clear on your audience(s).
• Be clear on the message.
• Take ownership. (“Mistakes were made…”)
• Understand the risks.
• Name names with great care.
• Be respectful.
• Explain what people should do with the lessons you have learned.
• Tell a story!

Oliphant, who back then was with the Heinz Endowments, and who now is president of the Pittsburgh Foundation, hasn’t succeeded at winning as many converts to his cause over the years as he’d like. Still, he’s not giving up on trying. Just recently, Oliphant spoke at The Jewish Funders Network International Conference in Tel Aviv. In his talk, he outlines the reasons foundations still fear to talk about failure and updates his list for overcoming that reluctance. You won’t go wrong for watching.

After viewing the video the other day, I had to ask Oliphant what keeps him so committed to what some might consider a sisyphean quest. “The truth is, I’ve tried to leave it behind, because who wants to be known as the failure guy?” he said, laughing. “But people keep asking me about it. I guess failure doesn’t have many spokespeople.”

–Bruce Trachtenberg

Guest Post: Cedric Brown, Chief Executive Officer of Mitchell Kapor Foundation

Over the past decade and a half, I’ve worked at three foundations:  the first, the Edna McConnell Clark Foundation, had a communications team of three people (and I was very fortunate to work for the amazing Joanne Edgar there, one of the founders of this Network).  The second, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, has a communications department that averaged about 40 people during my time there, and is well-known in the philanthropic sector because of how Frank Karel, the former vice president of communications at RWJF, built a communications department which was fully integrated with program and evaluation and other organizational functions.   The third, my current job, is at the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, where I work on a team of four people.  Including me.

So going from small to big to small again has led a number of people to ask me:  how’s it going?  Can you talk about the differences between a robustly staffed and well-resourced communications department and one that puts more emphasis on DIY?  And of course, I get asked:  which one’s better?

I haven’t really wanted to take on these questions before now.  But two things prompted me to write this piece:  one, there was quite a bit of feedback from last year’s Network conference about how the discussions seemed to be dominated by big, private foundations with lots of communications resources, so these conversations therefore felt less relevant for smaller foundations with smaller teams.  I get that sentiment:  if you’re a one-person communications team at a small local community foundation and you’re kind of expected to do everything yourself, hearing a big foundation moan about the difficulties of managing consultants can come off as a little…I don’t know, insensitive?  Out-to-lunch?   So I do want the Network to be a mirror for large and small communications shops.  And two, I wanted to spend some time in the job I’ve got now before I started down the possibly foolish path of comparisons.  But here are the major points I would observe about big versus small communications departments:

Big communications departments and big communications budgets usually mean that you can take on big communications challenges.  At RWJF, I was able to develop and manage a comm unications operation that was mack-daddy in scale and ambition, and that was just on one of the issues RWJF works on, quality and disparities in health care.  It was fun to be able to think that big.  On some days, it felt like a nightmare to manage, but I was lucky enough to hire armies of talented consultants to help out.  And RWJF offered other resources to grantees having to do with building their communications skills and supporting their efforts to reach out to policy-makers.  On any given day, it felt like a pretty rich array of resources.

On the other hand, small communications teams means DIY on strategy AND execution, and that’s not a bad thing.  Seriously, given the numerous communications firms and consultants I worked with while I was at RWJF, I sometimes wondered if I still had the skills to write a communications plan, message platform, op-ed, etc.  And since coming to Packard, I’ve had to do all that, alongside my very talented team members, and I find myself….enjoying that piece of it.  I’ve always liked the doing as well as the managing, and I think it actually helps the managing if you also remember how to do.

The size of a foundation’s communications department is usually a decent indicator of how committed the organization is to communications, especially as a critical element of social change.   It means that the organization understands the myriad ways a communications team can add value to a foundation’s work—internally, externally, and as a part of the grantmaking/programming.  A small communications team can mean, well, this foundation hasn’t really figured out communications yet.  Or, even worse, it doesn’t care.

On the other hand, small communications teams can be sometimes be nimble and opportunistic in ways that large communications teams can’t.  Because large organizations usually come with a lot more process and policies than small ones do. My team and I have a lot of latitude to come up with ideas and run with them here.  We are not being slotted into a vision of how we must interact with all sorts of different communications functions, because we’re the ones creating that vision.

In big or small communications departments, it’s possible to have the communications team play a central role in organizational and program-related strategies.  But in small communications departments, there is clearly less bandwidth for the team to do everything—internal and external communications for the organization, brand management, web site, media relations, policy-maker outreach, social media, and add program-specific work on top of all that.

But in general, size of the communications department doesn’t matter as much as the organization itself, and what it does.  I could work within a very large or very small communications team quite happily, as long as I liked the organization itself, the people I work with, and I cared passionately about the issues at hand.  And that, to me, is the best thing about being a communications professional in philanthropy—so far with my three foundation jobs, those things have come true.

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

As Susan Herr pointed out in her recent post, at this year’s South By Southwest Interactive (SXSW), there was no shortage of ideas about how to make online experiences better and more engaging or how to make the world a more “social place.”  As I observed from searching among the thousands of panels, hundreds of side sessions and dozens of plenaries, many of the presentations and conversations at SWSX also offer important guidance to non-profits and foundations about how to effectively use social media to have the greatest impact.

Here are just three tools and approaches, on display at and used during SWSX, that are worth a closer look at and some experimenting with if your organization wants to maximize its potential through the use of social media:

Digital StoryTelling. This may seem obvious to those of you who have attended storytelling workshops and are incorporating them into your work – but stories really do matter. Stories are a common human way of conveying information. Our brains work better on stories, too—or so the hard sciences tell us. A good story will trigger both emotion and cognition. But the world is growing cluttered with stories and the speed by which social media moves make it harder to find them and remember them. A number of new tools are now out there to help organizations find, organize and publish stories but only one, Storify, makes publishing a story using existing content on the web really easy. Using Storify, you can grab content from Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Flickr and the web and turn it into stories to share. Dozens of stories about what happened and what organizations learned at SXSW are up on Storify and being shared broadly. Click here to see how the ACLU captured SXSW using tweets (and I did one, too). Here’s one on a panel focused on the relationship and impact of celebrity and non-profits. Tools like Storify help us organize all the information, make it easy to find and maximize our interactions with our audiences.

Google+ Works for Non-Profits. For many organizations, Google+ was met with an almost louder thud than Jumo. Don’t write it off or so says the former Chief Evangelist for Apple, Guy Kawasaki says. As Guy writes in his new e-book “What the Plus! Google+ for the rest of us”, Google+ is important for a number of reasons but especially for organizations because it allows you post longer content (100,000 characters v. 160,000 for Facebook or 140 for Twitter); it reaches hard to reach audiences, especially young men; and is easier to find, and network, people based on their passions and personal interests. Using it also helps with search engine optimization as “Google owns [search] and it can divert people to Google+ anytime it wants. For example, when Google put an arrow on its search page pointing to the button to click to join Google+, hundreds of thousands of people joined.”

Visual Storytelling is Better.  Sunni Brown, a visual facilitator, led one of the best conversations at SXSW on the need to “shut up and draw” — or using visuals to help us all better tell our story. Jessica Hagy, one of her co-panelists, summed the reasons to use visuals best: simplify a complex problem, workaround obstacles or misunderstandings, to remember something, when tensions are high and because you can.  By combining strong stories with visuals we can make things more vivid and memorable — and breakthrough all the clutter more easily.

This is just a small sampling of the people and resources from this year’s SXSW. To learn more, check out the hashtag #sxsw or check out my lists on Twitter @table81/sxswlists.

Katherine Miller is Managing Director of Hattaway Communications

In a recent opinion piece in the Chronicle of Philanthropy, Pablo Eisenberg lamented the decision by The New York Times to eliminate its philanthropy/nonprofit beat:

What is surprising about this turn of events is that it comes at a time when nonprofits have been heralded as an increasingly important force that can offset the negative impact of dwindling government funds, both federal and state. The number of nonprofit organizations has grown enormously in the past two decades, as has the number of foundations, which now tops 76,000. With its workers representing 11 percent of the work force and 5.4 percent of the economy, it seems like nonprofits warrant additional journalistic attention, not less.

Eisenberg’s exception is rooted in the idea that influential traditional media still have a prominent role in holding the nonprofit sector accountable — especially as watchdogs that sniff out abuse. And on that point he’s less than charitable to the sector, noting: “The number of financial abuses and other illegal activities at nonprofits appears to be growing more prevalent and more brazen. Inappropriate expenditures, self-dealing, fraud, conflicts of interest, excessive compensation, and other practices that violate the law have become all too common.”

I don’t want to debate Eisenberg about which should take prominence in how nonprofits are covered — the good most do or the misdeeds that ensnare others. It’s a simple fact that the sector has never gotten its due when it comes to recognition of its sheer size and contribution to society and the economy. And maybe it never will. To me, though, it’s not a matter of whether nonprofits are covered as a beat, but rather whether they are covered for the different ways they are working to improve people’s lives and build a better, more equitable world.

Having spent a small chunk of my career in a job that included media outreach duties on behalf of philanthropy, it seems to me there’s more value in pushing coverage of nonprofits through other beats, making even more reporters and editors aware of the significant role nonprofits play in the issues that affect their reading public. That said, the media is often skeptical of those who seem to be seeking coverage more for raising funds than seeking to advance a cause. We certainly saw that suggested as motive behind the Invisible Children’s campaign via the viral Kony video.

I also don’t want to debate the merits of the Kony campaign. However, I will say that nonprofits are connected by their charitable missions and the mutual challenge of raising funds to achieve those missions. But this matters less to the outside world than it does to those inside the circle.If only I had a buck for every time I’ve heard some version of the phrase, “we need to communicate about the collective impact of the nonprofit sector.” It is important to communicate the value that tax-exempt status provides, particularly as it relates to legislative affairs. But the best way to communicate “value” is for individual nonprofits to share their stories in a way that the news media and their audiences want to experience them.

Killing the nonprofit beat at The New York Times may be a sign that the sector is losing respect and influence. It’s more likely a recognition that distinctions between sectors matter a lot less than they used to.

Study the hundreds of panels convened this year at SXSW Interactive – the world’s largest annual gathering of tech enthusiasts — and you won’t find many specifically focused upon nonprofits and philanthropy.  But what you will find — from the manna that the more than 20,000 geeks who came to Austin to collectively nosh on — are communications trends worth noting because they are likely to eventually trickle down to foundations.

No doubt, many of  the “big ideas” that surfaced this year will not stand the test of time.   But what pervaded the standing-room only workshops, and hopefully will endure, was widespread commitment to harnessing emerging communications technologies in the service of transparency, accountability and engagement for the public good.  Overarching these altruistic notions?  Recognition your only prayer for getting through in this saturated information marketplace is a laser-like a commitment to strategy.

Rushing from venue to venue (and clocking approximately five miles by foot each day) I was able to taste only a fraction of what the Festival offered.  I did, however, find much of direct relevance to the work of philanthropy.  Here are a couple of nuggets worth sharing…

Forget viral content.  Pursue the anti-viral.   

Although foundation communicators rarely expect scenarios in which content they produce will earn millions of hits, most retain the notion there is a connection between the quality of a given video and the number of folks drawn to view it.  In a workshop entitled “Viral is a Dirty Word: Strategic Video Success,” I began to understand how such thinking can – by focusing on spurious indicators – profoundly diminish the strategic value of video as a communications tool.

From the session description:

Viral. No word in the interactive marketing lexicon derails strategic thinking quite as effectively. Everyone wants their video to go viral, but the fantasy of millions of people discovering a video for free (without media, PR and search strategies) leads to disappointment and disillusion. Few videos ever go viral, and fewer actually need to. Good interactive video strategies don’t just rely upon massive numbers of views.

As Jeremy Sanchez, CEO of Global Strategies said, “If you get a million hits folks are laughing at you because there aren’t a million people who care about what you do.”

Antiviral thinking points to production video snippets, crafted for consumption by small but strategic audiences.   Gone is the idea of a highly produced summary video that will reach multiple audiences and gain large numbers of views.  What the panelists made clear was that work is far from done once even the right videos are created.  Tagging, targeting, analyzing and refining video content –based upon well-defined metrics – lie at the heart of this antiviral thinking.

What the panelists made clear was that video worth producing has a job to do.  In almost every case, it’s about more than getting a view.

Storytelling Beyond Words

SXSW curates numerous panels especially relevant to the work of foundation communicators under the category of “journalism and on-line content.” The session description for “Storytelling Beyond Words: New Forms of Journalism,” for instance, described a challenge with which many foundation communicators will be familiar:

We are in the midst of a digital revolution, and yet journalistic storytelling remains trapped in the Stone Age. We have all sorts of digital tools at our disposal — video, social media, interactive graphics, etc. — and still our stories are boring.

At this session, panelist Aron Pilhofer, who serves as head of interactive news for the New York Times, described pushing his colleagues to consider the question “What does a story want to be?” Just because we have always defaulted to the written word doesn’t mean we always should.

As an example, Jim Brady described incorporating snippets of a live video feed within a washingtonpost.com story entitled “Pearls Before Breakfast,” produced during his tenure there as executive editor.  “Pearls” tells the story of how subway riders reacted, or rather didn’t react, when violin virtuoso Joshua Bell played “anonymously” in a Washington DC subway.

While Brady could have assigned a video team to interview riders about Bell’s performance, with gorgeous footage of him playing, the story was communicated much more powerfully via grainy, hidden-cam footage.   And rather than using one video summary, Brady’s team integrated short takes from the feed alongside copy that described what was happening at that point.

Obviously, these news organizations have access to resources that that dwarf most if not all foundation communication budgets. But the question – What does a story want to be? – comes from and goes directly to strategy.

In fact, none of the panelists would give credence to the notion that innovation was dependent upon resources.  They said, instead, that storytelling innovation thrives when storytellers are fluent across multiple forms. Asked by an audience member hiring for USA Today where they find such folk, Pilhofer replied that it has never been through his HR department. He said the folks he needs to drive innovation at the Times would never think of going in to journalism.  He looks for those “…whose MacBooks are covered with stickers.”

If you want to find those folks, or even just the ideas on which they thrive, mark your calendar for SXSW 2013.

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

I was recently on a series of panels for grantmakers and grantees. Among the topics were Funding Progressive Groups: Managing the Risk and Advocacy in the Digital Age. The conversations were part of a series of sessions presented by the Alliance for Justice.

The stated focus of the sessions was on what to do when the bright lights of the media, the social media, the public, political opponents, and even government are upon you or your grantees. However, at each session there was an appetite to discuss how to prepare an organization internally before these crises arise.

Focusing first internally allows you to develop a plan and to prepare your internal audience. After all, its your leaders, boards, and key grantees that will serve as your ambassadors during a crisis…and they need tools and direction.

You can help them in four straightforward ways.

First, name the risks. In doing so, you will build the tolerance of your Board and Organization. By identifying the obvious and non-obvious risks, you will help individuals on your team realize that the uncertainty or unease they feel may be unfounded. Name the things that you fear. Then set out to plan for them.

Second, know your capacity. It will help your Board and leadership to understand that they already have the communications and operations capacity to address the issues that arise. You are part of this network for a reason. You provide communications counsel and capacity. You are a resource, and likely a well-trained one. Make sure your leaders know that you are here and stand ready for anything. That way, when they need you most, you both are ready to get to work.

Third, make a plan. On a napkin, on a google doc, or even in a formal 50 page plan. Write it down. When you match your capacity against the risks you have identified, you can then set forth to take the necessary steps to control prepare your team internally and manage the message externally. With a plan in place, your Board and executive team may feel more prepared to speak out during a situation which in the past they may have avoided – and provide credibility or a voice of reason during a media firestorm. If you build internal knowledge and capacity, then you are building confident, informed and engaged messengers.

Finally, by informing your internal stakeholders on potential risks, you help create a culture of transparency. You will win when you are absolutely unafraid to see your grantees, your funding areas and even your biggest challenges brought to wider attention. There is nothing to fear from public scrutiny if you are prepared and ready to turn the visibility into an opportunity for broader buy-in. A culture of transparency has an added benefit of giving you the opportunity to address an issue before it balloons to become even larger and more problematic.

A friend of ours, Ana-Marie Jones, is a prophet of “Fear Free Communications.” Her philosophy is to always assume a forward-leaning, positive framework in every external communication. In doing so, you promote buy-in and engagement. We would encourage that your internal conversations and crisis communications planning reflect that philosophy to help ensure better outcomes from real and perceived crises.

So for your Spring Cleaning exercise…

• Start by broaching one uncomfortable subject with your internal stakeholders.
• Ask them to “pose the question they fear they might get asked”
• Write it down and begin to consider you think could happen and match that against the resources you already have (People, tools, & allies).
• Share this mini-plan for one crisis scenario in an open and transparent way with your internal team & key stakeholders.
• Rinse, lather, repeat.

That’s our list.  What’s on yours?

Dan Cohen is the Principal and Founder of Full Court Press Communications.

Hardest to reach target audience?
In our Youth and California Democracy programs, it is increasingly important to spotlight our initiatives with policymakers and those are relationships that take time to develop and cultivate.

What percentage of your communications is based in new media?
About 25 percent and growing. We’ve had the most success with Twitter, where we have built our network of followers considerably over the past couple of years as several Irvine staff members (including our CEO Jim Canales, @jcanales) have used Twitter to follow trends within the philanthropic world and build their own networks. My own Twitter handle is @RayDelgado1.

When you were 13 years old, what did you want to be when you grew up?
Peter Jennings.

Most memorable take-away from the 2011 Communications Network conference?
I went to a session featuring Doug Hattaway from Hattaway Communications and it prompted some good ideas about how we may need to consider some marketing support for a particular cluster of our grantees.

A recent communications success you are particularly proud of?
The roll-out of our new arts strategy. We produced a two-minute videographic that showcased our goals for the new strategy in a visually compelling way. We hosted a webinar for our Arts program grantees and other interested arts insiders to provide additional information about our strategy in a manner that encouraged a conversation. That conversation has continued on through many venues such as conferences, blogs and on Twitter.

Does Irvine do an annual communications plan?
Yes. It is rooted in our own institutional goals as laid out by our President and CEO and is closely linked to the annual plans created by our program areas. Additionally, it incorporates a number of institutional communications activities, plus new initiatives we may want to explore.

What was your undergraduate major?
I started out in broadcast journalism at the University of Southern California. But then – true story – one of my professors told me that I had a face for radio. I switched to print journalism. Another big factor in that decision was the realization that I could tell better stories within the longer format that print affords. And I’m glad I made the switch.

Most interesting grantee story you’ve helped tell recently?
Last year I wrote a story about Cornerstone Theater, a theater company based in Los Angeles that picks a community and sends a playwright and others to the community to develop a play that tells the many different and culturally diverse stories of that community. The company then spends several weeks there and employs locals as actors and company laborers and stages several productions of the resulting play for the community.

Does Irvine evaluate communications?
Yes, as part of our overall Annual Performance Report for the Foundation, we include a chapter on the impact of our various communications activities.

The last big improvement to your website?
We just overhauled a portion of the site to create a new News and Insights section.

A favorite communications tool more foundation folks should be using?
Listening. We have been exploring many new ways to listen to our audiences, through social media, by encouraging program officers to participate in online discussions on blogs or others’ websites and by hosting webinars on our site and encouraging people to comment on our activities through discussion modules.

Your favorite non-professional, non-general news blog?
I’m obsessed with Zite, an app on my iPad that serves as a news aggregator based on what it thinks I’d like to read. More often than not, it’s right. It pulls content from many different websites and blogs and packages it all up for me.

Prior to joining Irvine, you were an editor for the Stanford U. News Service.  What do you think of the trend of more foundations becoming news producers themselves?
I think it’s an exciting trend. As much as we can help lend our voice and spotlight important issues that are going on within the fields in which we operate, the more effective our grantees will be in doing their work.

Irvine speaks frequently about its own failures. What effect has that had?
We believe that it is equally important to share the failures as the successes so that our grantees and the broader fields may learn from our work. One example that is cited quite often is our report about a midcourse correction we did on a major initiative back in 2007, which was a very public dissection of a significant investment and was closely watched by other foundations who wanted to see how the report was received. You can read about it here.

A big event you’ve got coming up everyone should know about?
Do I have to choose just one? Our CEO Jim Canales is the chair of the upcoming Council on Foundations Annual Conference  (April 29-May 1) in Los Angeles and has been hard at work designing a conference that will be anything but the norm—this is L.A. after all!

One aspect of your personal life that most impacts your professional life?
I’m a social animal. I love people, I love being around people, I love bringing people together. And I genuinely like my coworkers and want to get to know them and laugh with them around the office so that it’s a more pleasant place to be for all of us. It also makes working through the problems that pop up that much more manageable because you have a mutual respect and admiration for the other person.

The last great policy-oriented/big-picture book that made an impression on you?
It wasn’t a book, it was a presentation from a regional transportation guy that I saw just last week. He advocated for $7 per gallon gas in the United States and explained that expensive gas prices will be the only thing that jars our region, our state and our country to implement massive improvements to our transportation systems to discourage suburban blight and get people out of their cars while doing something good for the environment.

Do you have a novel deep down inside you?
Probably not, but I think I have a few screenplays inside my head. I love great writing on television and in the movies and I often find myself rewriting some of the dialogue I hear, knowing I could have done it better!

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.

Guest Post: Tony Proscio

In a blog entry in the  New York Times last week about architecture criticism, I came across this familiar-sounding complaint:

“[F]ar too often the experience of reading architectural writing feels about as pleasurable as tooth extraction. To wit (with all apologies to the author, who will remain unidentified):

ANALYSIS: a territorial and social fragmentation, a typical “no-man’s land” undergoing the urban exodus, the settlement of the old and inactive persons, the absence of public place in the body scale substituted by the car.

PROBLEMATIC: How to attract a new living to facilitate the social and urban mixity?

We can’t entirely blame the perpetrator of this crime, for it is this style of writing that is rewarded within academia. Indecipherability signifies superior intelligence. (The field of architecture is not alone in this …) And while I’m not suggesting we hew toward the lowest common denominator, architects and those who write about them are doing themselves a disservice by insisting on the impenetrability of discourse.”

Philanthropy may be an especially bad place for phony elitism — but obviously we’re not alone. From the sound of that quote, we may not even be the worst.

Quick, everybody: Where’s the first place we can work “mixity” into a foundation report?

That’s what BlueCross BlueShield of North Carolina Foundation hopes to learn from watching how people engage with a new website called “inpired.”

Launched in late January, the site features text and video stories about nine of the foundations grantees — a handful of the many organizations it supports to help improve the health of North Carolinians, especially those living in low-income communities.

It’s not enough, though, just to get people to visit the site and read about the nonprofits and the work they’re doing. Instead, the foundation wants people to share these stories with their friends and colleagues in order “to inspire others” that they can help make life better for everyone throughout the state, says Kathy Higgins, BCBSNC Foundation president.

As incentive, the foundation has set aside up to $100,000 which it will divide among the organizations featured on the website to support their ongoing work.  Each time a story is shared on Twitter, Facebook or emailed, one dollar will go to this effort.

“As a grantmaker that works with organizations doing inspiring things, we’re exposed to these stories everyday,” says Amon Marstiller, communications manager. “But I expect a lot of people around the state don’t know about what’s going on in their own backyards.”

In past years, the foundation has published NPR-style grantee stories on its website or sent them around on CDs, but this time Marstiller said it wanted to go an extra step by enlisting the community in helping spread the word about the good work being done in North Carolina.

(Click above for “inspired” story about Greene County Health Care & North Carolina Dental Health Fund)

“We think by getting more exposure for organizations having impact in their communities, they’ll benefit as more people learn about what they’re doing.”

Visit the site and see if BCBSNC Foundation’s story-telling experiment also inspires you to think about different ways to tell and share your organization’s stories.

Bruce Trachtenberg is executive director of the Communications Network

As president of the Foundation Center, an organization that collects more data on organized philanthropy than any other group, Brad Smith is uniquely positioned to spot trends emerging in the sector.  As I learned when we sat down together recently in New York, foremost on his mind is the need for foundations–more than ever before–to keep repeating their messages, especially in our digital age where the competition to be heard and understood is fierce.

Here are some of the highlights from our conversation, featured in the five-minute video below:

With freedom comes obligation to communicate.  Brad’s starting point is that foundations have an obligation to communicate because of what he describes as their “immense privilege and freedom” to “take risks” in tackling some of some of the most challenging problems the world over. But he also says it’s a mistake to think foundations need to communicate out of “fear” that if they don’t tell their stories, the lack of understanding about what they do and why they do it will leave them vulnerable to threat of legislation that will take away some of their freedoms or special tax status.  He thinks it’s better that foundations communicate out of a desire to share their aspirations to build a better world and how they’re working to make that happen.

Reinvent humility. Having practiced philanthropy in countries ruled by military dictatorships and serving 10 years as Vice President responsible for the Ford Foundation’s Peace and Social Justice program, Brad is well aware of that some foundation leaders may be reticent to share stories of impact.  He attributed this, in part, to a very old ethos about humility that comes from Andrew Carnegie and religious traditions upon which philanthropy is built in our culture.  It’s “…the idea that you let your good works speak for themselves.”  At the level of program staff, this also plays out around the idea that it is grantees who do “the work” so they have no ground upon which to knowledgeably contribute to understanding of that work.  Tweaking this ethos may not be enough to take philanthropy to the next level.  Instead, he suggested no less than reinventing our conception of humility in the digital age.

Harvest wisdom from information.   Noting the exponential increase of data being collected by foundations as part of their on-line grant application and reporting processes, Brad told me that the next decade will see demands escalate understanding how that information can be mined to achieve greater levels of social impact. I’ve long wondered if foundations were pressured to actually do something with all the data they request from grantees, would they ask for so much?  If Brad’s correct, that consideration will be coming to the fore sooner rather than later.

Watch the video and share your thoughts.

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

An interesting communications project you are engaged in right now?
Planning and implementation of a new communication strategy to connect with new audiences (younger and super engaged Grand Rapidians). If successful, we’ll be better positioned in a relationship with the super-engaged people when they’re of the age and financial position to establish funds.

When you were 13 years old, what did you want to be when you grew up?
A wildlife manager. I was seriously into Girl Scouting. I’m still handy with a jackknife.

Is the foundation into new media?

About 30 percent of our time is spent on new media. Our website is our workhorse, our communication strategy is focused on sending traffic to it. We use Facebook and Twitter to do that.

Do you do an annual communications plan?
I love a good communication plan, write one every year and follow it as best we can. Keeps my adult ADD in check.

Your undergraduate major?
Journalism. I wanted to switch to English in my senior year, but my parents who were paying the tuition bill put the kibosh on that idea.

You write about running, road racing and interesting local events in The Rapidian. How did that come about?
My writing for The Rapidian is my only volunteer work at present. Because it is a Community Foundation funded project, we want to see it succeed. My contribution of content, along with our marketing, helps do that. Mostly I do it for fun.

Do you evaluate foundation communications effectiveness?
We evaluate via donor response, both in donations and traffic created for our development counterparts. We also evaluate web analytics and social media traffic to determine message reach and reaction.

Last significant improvement you made to your website?
The mobile version of our website was the last big thing, it wasn’t that big of a deal (easy and inexpensive) but the payoff has been impressive.

Your favorite underappreciated journalist?
Wade Goodwyn from NPR. He does some of the best and most compelling reporting on America’s worst stories. His Texas regional beat seems to drop mayhem in his lap and he covers it with calm and dignity And he has a wonderful voice.

Your site’s multimedia section has lots of video and podcasts created in partnership with local public media. How has that enhanced GRCF’s communications work?
All that new media stuff keeps me out of trouble.

What is your favorite communications tool that you think more foundation folks should be taking advantage of?
I’m a big fan Google Analytics, the depth of information is amazing.

When was the last time you learned something important from a communications colleague?
Our PR Specialist Amanda St. Pierre is one of my best teachers. Even though I’m the “boss” she’s always out discovering new stuff and we’re implementing it.

Your favorite non-professional, non-general news blog?
Kristen Tennant’s Halfway to Normal. She writes thoughtfully and carefully about belief, culture and love.

Has your foundation ever publicly talked about a failure?
We folded on an education reform leadership initiative a few years ago, the model for reform we had in mind just wasn’t working. A few good things came from it and some still exist—so all wasn’t lost. We’ve always said we like to innovate and experiment—that has the inherent risk of failure.

Does your foundation blog?
Our president, Diana Sieger, has had a blog on our website for more than five years. It gives her a voice and a platform to talk about a wide variety of issues, most of which are related to the Foundation or the community. It makes her more visible and accessible.

The last policy-oriented/big-picture book you read?
The Worst Hard Time by Timothy Egan. We need changes in public policy to slow environmental degradation and until we have the political will to change, we’ll see more catastrophes.

Another foundation whose communications work you admire?
Baltimore, Winnipeg, Denver and Maine Community Foundations all seem to have it together with message, materials and audience knowledge. The Knight Foundation rocks, but because I’m a grantee I’m prone to say that. I love what Arcus does, too.

Do you have a novel deep down inside you?
Not a novel, but I’m nearly done writing a creative nonfiction book (memoir of sorts). I expect to wrap it up by summer.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Minna Jung is communications director at the David and Lucile Packard Foundation and a director of the Communications Network

Those of us involved in social change issues can’t help being driven by the belief that, because the work we do is important, it’s just a matter of making sure we communicate thoughtfully and repeatedly. If we do that, we presume, people will hear what we’re saying and respond accordingly.

Unfortunately it’s never that easy or simple.  Instead, there’s a real danger, as well as missed opportunities, in assuming your target audiences are always hearing what you’re saying.  If that’s the case, what’s a communicator to do?

The first step, according to Doug Hattaway, president of Hattaway Communications, is to analyze how the news media is covering particular issues to see which messages are getting the most attention and how that topic is being discussed on social media channels such as Twitter.  By knowing which key words, memorable metaphors and other language are already getting the most attention, foundations and nonprofits working on similar issues or causes will know which ones they should use to help drive the conversation in ways that reflect their points of view.

Hattaway, whose firms conducts a monthly analysis to see which messages are breaking through from major players in policy debates, offers an example of how the process works and its results can be applied in “Winning Words: Economy and Jobs.” The analysis. which the firm did pro-bono for the Democratic leadership in Congress, was intended to help them sharpen their message about creating jobs. For this particular research, the firm looked at a variety of national news outlets that reach policymakers and opinion leaders at the national level, as well as the news-consuming public. They also included an analysis of the conversation that took place on Twitter during the same time.

Based on content analysis methods developed by the Harvard Institute for Quantitative Social Science, the team uses several news databases to gather articles and broadcast transcripts, then analyzes each to identify words, phrases and themes that break through most often. Quotes from Twitter offer the opportunity to analyze a more direct, concise form of communication conveyed by Congressional leaders, and which messages are being retweeted by influential social media users, including political activists and journalists.

Hattaway says that kind of analysis could also help a foundation or advocacy organization get a better handle on creating more impactful messages. Such an analysis would begin by exploring clients’ goals, audiences and objectives. The goal would be to look specifically at the audiences that influence policymaking on that particular issue. The findings would be then used to design a plan to examine news coverage in media outlets that reach those audiences.

Using policy issues around public education reform as an example, he said the media to be examined might include mainstream national news outlets that reach policymakers, specialty media read by education thought leaders, and social media outlets that reach policy advocates or even parents. “By better understanding how journalists and bloggers are covering an issue, and how the social media echo chamber is pushing the debate, we can develop a clear map of the issue’s coverage and make concrete recommendations based on what is actually driving news media coverage and social media conversations,” said Hattaway.

But what if a foundation and their grantees are working on issues that don’t receive anywhere near that kind of media attention?  Would this kind of media monitoring and analysis work for them?

“As long as the issue is being discussed in some public forums, a content analysis can be useful,” Hattaway said. “In today’s highly fragmented media environment, there are outlets for just about every issue. It’s all about getting an objective read on the language that is actually driving coverage and conversation, so that you can figure out how to engage in the discussion—begin to frame it your way.”

Hattaway points out that “winning” isn’t always about coming out on top.  The process could also be useful for foundations and nonprofits that are simply interested in fostering productive public discussions that drive toward workable solutions.

“We call this product ‘winning words,’ but it’s not necessarily about beating the opposition in a debate,” said Hattaway. “It can also refer to winning hearts and minds to a cause. We conduct qualitative or quantitative research to understand what the audience is already thinking and feeling about a topic – and a content analysis of the media consumed shows you exactly what language is reaching them and shaping those perspectives. Changing hearts and minds begins with using the right language.”

No matter how a foundation or nonprofit chooses to use the insights produced by media content analysis, this kind of process could be a “winning” contribution to the development of more strategic communications. Done well, instead of assuming your target audiences are hearing what you want them to, media monitoring can systematically put those assumptions to the test.

____________________________________________________________________________________________

Michael Hamill Remaley, a regular contributor to the Communications Network blog, is a communications consultant and also director of Public Policy Communicators NYC.

But as I discovered over the course of working on ours, you can also find some joy in the process.

I’m not talking about the satisfaction of seeing the final fruits of everyone’s labor that goes into creating something new.  That comes at the end of process, and it is a moment for celebration — as well as relief.

Instead, and speaking for myself, I had a great deal of pleasure revisiting old content on the site, some which I haven’t seen in a while.

I have my share of favorites, and maybe you do, too. Some that come to mind for me is the time we put PowerPoint on trial, or asked the question, “Do annual reports still provide a useful purpose?”  I also enjoyed watching Tony Proscio stand his ground in this video during which he was asked what did it matter if foundations littered their writing and speaking with jargon?  It was inspiring to again watch Pittsburgh Foundation President Grant Oliphant wonder why more foundations don’t want to talk about failure.  Two other reports that I found worth another look are the Network’s guide to evaluating communications and one produced for Child Advocacy 360 that discovered you don’t always need hard facts to make your case, sometimes anecdotes told well in story form can make the case.

What about you?  What do you recall from past visits to our site that you might have physically — or even mentally — bookmarked to take a look again?  Or, what are you finding for the first time you like?

Leave a comment and let us know.

According to findings from the Communications Network’s 2011 State of Practice report, digital communications are on the rise in foundations.  As part of an effort to spotlight some different examples of how foundation communicators are making use of new technologies, we’re starting a series of video check-ins. 

In our first offering, Communications Network contributor Susan Herr chatted with Spencer Sherman, director of publishing and communications for the California HealthCare Foundation, whose foundation was one of the first to create an iPhone app.

In the following segment — one of three parts, Spencer explains that even though the foundation was an early adopter, mobile wasn’t so much as a new frontier as an extension of broader efforts to more deeply engage stakeholders through new social media tactics.

More Mobile, More Engagement from Communications Network on Vimeo.

In the second part of his interview, Spencer elaborates upon what he sees as the increasingly strong relationship between social engagement and mobile communications.  In a nutshell, people who engage in real-time through social media are also constantly checking in through their mobile devices.

This coincides with new research that during the past six months, average users are spending more time using mobile apps than accessing the web via desktop devices.   According to this report, it’s not that we are spending more time on our mobile devices but that we are checking in more often.

In this final segment, Spencer describes how he’s arming and supporting program staff to become more fully in engaged the foundation’s use of social media.  After admitting his early resistance to the prospect, this is one voice from the field that appears fully committed.

What has been your organization’s experiences using mobile, especially to increase your social media outreach. Any lessons or observations to share? Let us know.

–Bruce Trachtenberg

But what do you do after you’ve saturated all possible outlets? Even if you are luxuriating in the joy of a successful launch that has earned you a mountain of print and broadcast clips, how do you keep the momentum going so people keep paying attention to what you have to say?

A recent effort by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to promote its County Health Rankings, the foundation’s second annual report with the University of Wisconsin’s Population Health Institute on overall health of nearly every county in the nation, shows how a blend of media relations muscle, combined with a strong online marketing push, can help get the message out and keep it in the public eye long after it stops being news of the day.

On March 30, the foundation released its health rankings report with a major national push that, according to Joe Marx, senior communications officer, generated more than 700 original news articles, including local stories and hundreds of reprints in all 50 states, and reached a broadcast audience of 46 million.  Marx adds that this was nearly a 50 percent increase over the same announcement in 2010.  Coverage ranged from print stories in The Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times to more than 900 television and radio clips to blog hits in mainstream sites such as TIME Healthland, ABC News, NBC Newsand PBS NewsHour. Additionally, an Associated Press article by Lindsey Tanner ran in more than 200 news publications nationwide, including Forbesmagazine, The New York Times, The Washington Post, San Francisco Chronicle, MSNBC.com and The Huffington Post.

Marx points out that the articles contained key message points about the research findings. They included: “where we live, learn, work and play matters to our health” and “the Rankings provide an annual check-up to help communities see where they are doing well and where improvements can be made.”

Beyond the impressive media numbers, the extensive coverage helped by driving significant traffic to www.countyhealthrankings.org, the website where the findings are posted. In the first two weeks following the release, more than 245,000 visitors spent an average of 3:58 on the site.

But the story doesn’t stop there.  Marx adds that in 2011, the foundation’s online marketing efforts focused “on bringing in a steady stream of high quality visitors to the County Health Rankings website” after the launch period.

Through the end of July, paid marketing  — Google keywords, banner or Facebook ads, which were displayed 51 million times — were responsible for delivering over 32,000 visits to the site at an average cost of $1.55 each. More so, people who clicked on the ads promoting the health rankings, spent more time on the site (4:41 minutes) and viewed more pages (5.18) than the average visitor. Also impressive: roughly 90% were first-time visitors.  Says Marx, “what’s really important is that the traffic generated from paid marketing work, in tandem with our earned media efforts, is sort of a booster shot that helped us reach new and different audiences.”

Michael Berman, senior vice president, of The Strategy Group, which designed RWJF’s online marketing strategy, said, that the foundation’s experiences serves as a reminder that “no matter how good a job you do in promoting your work — and there’s no arguing that the RWJF team did a fantastic job getting lots of attention and fabulous coverage — there are still many people in the target audience who, for whatever reason, missed the story when it was released.   An online marketing effort can help  capture more of those people.  In this case, over four months, the paid marketing efforts produced tens of millions of impressions and significantly increased visits to the website.”

As RWJF’s results show, a successful media launch doesn’t have to end there. It can be the start of something bigger.

–Bruce Trachtenberg

Robertson Adams
Communications Associate/Webmaster
John S. and James L. Knight Foundation

David Adler 
Communications Officer
Robert Wood Johnson Foundation

Karen Ager
Director of Communications
Endowment For Health

Jennifer Amdur Spitz 
President
Amdur Spitz & Associates

Lucia Anderson 
Communications Officer
Lumina Foundation

Katya Andresen 
COO
Network for Good

Maria Archuleta 
Communications Officer
Open Society Foundations

Zamawa Arenas
Principal
ARGUS

Sarah Armour-Jones
Program Consultant
Grantmakers In Film + Electronic Media

Rebecca Arno
VP Communications
The Denver Foundation

Edith Asibey
Chief Communications Officer
The Atlantic Philanthropies

Brooke Bailey 
Director of Communications and Public Policy
Sisters of Charity Foundation of South Carolina

Victoria  Ballesteros 
Director of Communications
The Scan Foundation

Peter Barber
Senior Vice President
Lipman Hearne

Alex Barnum 
Communications Officer
The James Irvine Foundation

Liz Bartolomeo 
Communications Manager
Sunlight Foundation

Buffy Beaudoin-Schwartz 
Communications Director
Association of Baltimore Area Grantmakers

Suzanne Beranek
Communications Director: Policy and Philanthropy
The Colorado Health Foundation

Athan Bezaitis 
Communications Specialist
The Scan Foundation

Genevieve Biggs 
Communications Manager
Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation

Stephanie J. Bluma
SVP/Management Supervisor
Powell Tate

Larry Blumenthal
Web and Social Media Strategist
Open Road Advisors

Sally Bock 
Senior Vice President
Pyramid Communications

Mark Bogosian
Communications and Grants Officer
Foundation for Child Development

Carrie Boron
Knowledge Management Coordinator
Everyday Democracy

Scarlett Bouder
Vice President
Advocacy & Communication Solutions, LLC

Roye Bourke
Senior Communications Manager
Annie E. Casey Foundation

Mike Boyer
VP Strategic Communications
Humanity United

Dan Brady
Communications Manager
Forum of Regional Associations of Grantmakers

Laura Brahm
Senior Content Strategist
Open Society Foundations

Linda Braund 
Communications Manager
The Heinz Endowments

David Brotherton 
President
Brotherton Strategies

Crystal Brown
Vice President, PreK-12 Education
Widmeyer Communications

Eric Brown 
Communications Director
The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation

Kelly Brown
Director
D5 Coalition

Susan Buckles 
Public Relations Specialist
Northwest Area Foundation

Sylvia Burgos Toftness 
Communications Lead
Northwest Area Foundation

Josie Burke 
Director of Communications
El Pomar Foundation

Andy Burness
President
Burness Communications

Katie Butterfield 
Communication Executive
The Atlantic Philanthropies

Hilary Byerly    
Communications Manager
Global Greengrants Fund

Alex Cain
Program Associate
Sea Change Foundation

Elizabeth Cahill     
Senior Web Strategist
The Atlantic Philanthropies

Diane Camper 
Communications Officer
Public Welfare Foundation

Elizabeth  Campos 
Communications Specialist
First 5 Fresno County

Breanna Cardwell 
Communications Associate
The California Wellness Foundation

Lynn Carolan 
Communications Specialist
Winter Park Health Foundation

Brian Case
Director of Communications
National Philanthropic Trust

Denis Chicola 
Senior Communications Officer
Evelyn and Walter Haas Jr. Fund

Justin  Christy
Communications Team Coordinator
Bush Foundation

Albert Chung 
Director of Communications Operations
Edna McConnell Clark Foundation

David Clayton  
VP Strategic Communications
Neimand Collaborative

Andrew Cohen
Managing Director
Forum One Communications

Dan Cohen 
Principal
Full Court Press

Mary Command 
Consultant
Williams Group

Jean Cohoon
Senior Communications Officer
The Rhode island Foundation

C. Scott Cooper
Director Of Engagement And Communication
Bush Foundation

Kathleen Courrier
Vice President for Communication
Urban Institute

Jim Coutre
Vice President
The Philanthropic Initiative

Allison Cowherd 
Communications Associate
Sisters of Charity Foundation of South Carolina

Jenny Coyle 
Communications Specialist
Energy Foundation

Adam Coyne 
VP Communications
Mathematica  Policy Research

Maureen Cozine
Communications Director
New York State Health Foundation

Rose Crews  
Office Manager & Communications Associate
Pottstown Area Health & Wellness Foundation

Robert Crum 
Owner
Prose For Nonprofits

Emily Culbertson 
Principal
Emily Culbertson Consulting

Sabrina D’Agosta 
Senior Communications Officer
The Colorado Trust

Victor d’Allant
Founder/CEO
Dallant Networks

Alyse D’Amico  
Special Assistant to the President/Director Of Development
The Center for Effective Philanthropy

Melissa Daar 
Director of Communications and Public Affairs
Stuart Foundation

Ketayoun Darvich-Kodjouri 
Vice President
Spitfire Strategies

Kristen Davis
Senior Manager, Corporate Communications
Amgen

Ray Delgado 
Communications Officer
James Irvine Foundation

Eunice Delumen
Program Operations Manager
The David and Lucile Packard Foundation

Dru DeSantis 
Partner
DeSantis Breindel Inc.

Liza deVilla Ameen
Communications Officer
Annenberg Foundation

Amrit Dhillon
Communications Officer
Center for the Study of Social Policy

Diane DiGiacomo 
Comunications Director
The Piton Foundation

Regina  Diverio 
Director of Communications and Donor Relations
Foundation for Morristown Medical Center

Peter Droege 
VP Communications
Daniels Fund

Mimi Drop 
Communications Director/Creative Director
Josephson Institute of Ethics

Joanne Edgar 
Independent Consultant
Gathering Stories for Social Change

Amy  Enright    
Deputy Press Secretary
Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

Yves Etheart
Manager of Member Services Special Initiatives
Philanthropy New York

Brian Eule 
Special Projects Officer to the President
The David and Lucile Packard Foundation

Marc Fest 
Vice President Communications
John S. and James L. Knight Foundation

Margaret Figley 
Communications Officer
New York State Health Foundation

Jack Fischer 
Communications Officer
The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation

Melissa Freye 
Director of Communications
Council of Michigan Foundations

Amy Frykman
Associate Director
Resource Media

Sallie Gaines 
Director Communications
Margaret A. Cargill Philanthropies

Patti Giglio 
Principal
PSG Communications LLC

Tieler Giles  
Communications Associate
The Community Foundation For Greater Atlanta

Andy Goodman 
Director
The Goodman Center

Monette Goodrich 
VP Communications & Public Affairs
Connecticut Health Foundation

Douglas  Gould 
President
Douglas Gould and Company

Mary Greene 
Consultant
Creative Change Mission

Suzana Grego 
Media Relations Chief
Ford Foundation

Talaya Grimes
Communications and Program Manager
Africa Grantmakers’ Affinity Group

Kevin Griffin-Moreno
Program Officer
Baltimore Community Foundation

Maryland Grier 
Senior Communications Officer
Connecticut Health Foundation

Kristen Grimm 
President
Spitfire Strategies

Bernita Hadley 
Communications Assistant
The Piton Foundation

Cheryl  Hammond 
Director of Communication
Nellie Mae Education Foundation

Tim Hanrahan 
Communications Director
McKnight Foundation

William Hanson    
Director of Communications & Technology
The Skillman Foundation

Christine Haran 
Director of Online Information
The Commonwealth Fund

Marilyn Harmacek
President
MHConsulting, Inc.

Ann-Marie Harrington 
President
Embolden

Erin Hart 
Senior Vice President
Fenton Communications

Chris Hartman
Online Editor
The NonProfit Quarterly

Doug Hattaway 
President
Hattaway Communications

Jeanne Haws
Chief Operating Officer
Wellspring Advisors

Lonnie Haynes
Communications Fellow
The Skillman Foundation

Lucas Held 
Director of Communications
Wallace Foundation

Terri Heyns
Communications Officer
CDC Foundation

Susan Herr 
President
PhilanthroMedia

Gwyn Hicks 
COO
Spitfire Strategies

Michelle Hillman 
Communications Officer
MetroWest Community Health Care Foundation

Yolanda Hippensteele
Associate Director
Media Democracy Fund

John Hodgins   
Senior Communications Associate
The Annie E. Casey Foundation

Carmen Holleman 
Associate Communications Officer
The Denver Foundation

Jennifer Humke 
Deputy Director Public Affairs
MacArthur Foundation

Mitchell Hurst 
Founder and Principal
MH Communications

Gina Ivey 
Communications Officer
Robert Wood Johnson Foundation

Adriana Jimenez 
Communication Coordinator
The Leona M. and Harry B. Helmsley Charitable Trust

Roxanne Joffe
Strategic Communications Leader
The Patterson Foundation

Michael Jones 
Senior Communications Manager
New Profit Inc.

Minna Jung 
Communications Director
The David and Lucile Packard Foundation

Roben Kantor
Communications Officer
Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Foundation

Erin Kelly 
Social Media Manager
Robert Wood Johnson Foundation

David Kennedy-Logan 
Communications Production Manager
McKnight Foundation

Lisa Keske 
Communications Project Specialist
Northwest Area Foundation

Elizabeth Kislik 
Communications Associate
The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation

Kristina Knight
Director of Community Relations
National Brain Tumor Society

Susan Knudten 
Senior Communications Officer
Rose Community Foundation

Katie Kraft    
Communications Associate
Patient Access Network Foundation

Joanne Krell 
Vice President of Communications
W.K. Kellogg Foundation

Stefan Lanfer 
Knowledge Officer
Barr Foundation

Cat Lazaroff
Associate Director
Resource Media

Dan LeDuc 
Senior Editor, Communications Officer
The Pew Charitable Trusts

Carmen Lee 
Communications Officer
The Heinz Endowments

Nancy Leonard 
Public Policy Officer
William Caspar Graustein Memorial Fund

Deena Leventer  
Communications Director
Yad Hanadiv – The Rothschild Foundation

Nick Lorenzen 
Communications Manager
Nellie Mae Education Foundation

Bruce Lowry 
Director Policy and Communications
Skoll Global Threats Fund

Marika Lynch
Communications Consultant
John S. and James L. Knight Foundation

Felicia Madsen 
Communications Officer
The David and Lucile Packard Foundation

Mary Mahon 
Senior Public Information Officer
The Commonwealth Fund

Amy Malick 
Director of Communications
Everyday Democracy

Fred  Mann 
Assistant Vice President of Communications
Robert Wood Johnson Foundation

Pattie Mansur 
Communications Director
REACH Healthcare Foundation

David Martin 
Public Policy Associate
William Caspar Graustein Memorial Fund

Paul Massey
Executive Vice President
Weber Shandwick

Christine Maulhardt 
Public Affairs Associate
Blue Shield of California Foundation

Toni May 
Director of Communications
Quantum Foundation

Patrick McCabe
Partner
GYMR Public Relations

Lori McClung   
President
Advocacy & Communication Solutions, LLC

Christie McElhinney 
V.P. of Communications & Public Affairs
The Colorado Trust

Michele  McEvoy 
Communications Associate
New York State Health Foundation

Dorrian  McGhee 
Communications Manager
The Skillman Foundation

Judy McGovern 
Associate Director of Communications
The Kresge Foundation

Gloria  Mengual 
Program Officer
Everyday Democracy

Megan Mermis 
Communications Specialist
The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation

Catherine Michel 
Senior Account Executive
Solomon McCown & Company Inc.

Elizabeth Miller
Communications Associate
John S. and James L. Knight Foundation

James V. Miller 
Senior Vice President
Managing Director Dentsu Communications

Katherine Miller 
Managing Director
Hattaway Communications

Holly Minch 
Principal
Lightbox Collaborative

Regan Gruber Moffitt 
Senior Associate for Public Policy
Winthrop Rockefeller Foundation

Daphne Moore 
Communications Director
Walton Family Foundation

David Morse 
Senior Fellow
Civic Ventures

Marc Moorghen 
Communications Manager
Conrad N. Hilton Foundation

Sally Mudd    
Deputy Director of Publishing And Communications
California HealthCare  Foundation

Lee Mullane 
Interim Director of Communications and Media Relations
The Annie E. Casey Foundation

Rich Neimand    
President/Creative Director
Neimand Collaborative

Julee Newberger 
Online Communications Associate
The Annie E. Casey Foundation

Julia Olivares 
Director of Communications & Marketing
New Hampshire Charitable Foundation

Kristen Oliveri 
Communications Manager
New Hampshire Charitable Foundation

Karen Ott 
Communications Associate
William Penn Foundation

Chris Palmedo 
Director of Public Affairs
Northwest Health Foundation

Susan Parker 
Owner
Clear Thinking Communications

Vanessa Parra 
Communications Manager
Humanity United

Krista Pawley 
Vice President Communications
The MasterCard Foundation

Charity Perkins 
Communications Director
The Duke Endowment

George Perlov 
Principal George
Perlov Consulting

Bev Pfeifer-Harms 
Director of Communications
Missouri Foundation For Health

Kenn Picardi
Board Member
Pottstown Area Health & Wellness Foundation

Gail Pinkham 
Director of Communications
Associated Grant Makers

Amy Plotch 
President
Amy Sutnick Plotch Communications

Leila Polintan 
Communications Manager
Grantmakers In Health

Dan Porras
Communications Officer
The Christensen Fund

David Powell 
Communications Director
Lumina Foundation

Chris Power 
Vice President for Communication
Kansas Health Foundation

Phuong Quach 
Public Information Coordinator
Blue Shield of California Foundation

Brooke Ramsey 
Technology & Communications Coordinator
IDP Foundation Inc.

Michal Regunberg 
Vice President
Solomon McCown & Company Inc

Pat Reilly 
Principal
PR & Company

MaryBeth Reilly-McGreen 
Senior Content Strategist
Embolden

Michael Hamill Remaley
Founder and President
Hamill Remaley breakthrough communications

Rebecca Reyes 
Communications Associate
Everyday Democracy

Melinda Richardson 
Executive Assistant
IDP Foundation Inc.

Debbie Robinson    
Senior Communications Officer
Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

Nate Rogers
Communications Manager
The Orfalea Foundations

Douglas Root 
Director of Communications
The Heinz Endowments

Vicki Rosenberg 
Vice President Education Communications & External Relations
Council of Michigan Foundations

Kristin Roth 
Communications Officer
Doris Duke Charitable Foundation

Debra Rubino 
Director Strategic Communications
Open Society Institute-Baltimore

Catherine Ryba 
Communications Officer
Mary Black Foundation

Suzanne Samuel 
Senior Communications Consultant
Kaiser Permanente Community Benefit

Laura Sanchez
Program Associate
Living Cities

Hershel Sarbin 
President
Child Advocacy 360 News Network Foundation

Jan Schaefer
Director of Communications
Newman’s Own Foundation

Stuart Schear    
President
Stuart Schear Communications

Vanessa Schnaidt 
Director of Communications
The Foundation Center

Ellen Schneider 
Executive Director
Active Voice

Gabriela Schneider 
Communications Director
Sunlight Foundation

Eric Schoenborn 
Online Community Manager
John S. and James L. Knight Foundation

Barry Scholl 
Senior Vice President for Communications and Publishing
The Commonwealth Fund

Macie Schriner
Communications Officer
Charles Stewart Mott Foundation

Toni Schuermann 
Christoph Merian Foundation

Nancy Schwartz
President/Publisher
Nancy Schwartz & Co./GettingAttention.org

Rick Schwartz 
Consultant
Rick Schwartz/Straighttalk

Jessica Schwartz 
Senior Communications Officer
The Wallace Foundation

Robert Shalett 
Director of Communications
Johnson Center For Philanthropy

Adam Shapiro
Vice President
Lipman Hearne

Philip Shaw
President
Golden Lasso

Cynthia Shaw 
Communications Director
The Kresge Foundation

Kelly Shearon 
Director Media and Web Strategy
New Profit Inc.

Dana Vickers Shelley
President
DVStrategies LLC

Danielle Shuckra 
Communications Associate
Nellie Mae Education Foundation

Debra Silimeo
Senior Vice President
Hager Sharp

Daniel Silverman 
Communications Director
The James Irvine Foundation

Camilla Simon
The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation
Environment Program Associate

Meredith Simonton
Director of Communications
Laura and John Arnold Foundation

Addison Smith 
Communications Officer
Wellspring Advisors

Lora Smith 
Communications Officer
Mary Reynolds Babcock Foundation

Helene Solomon 
CEO
Solomon McCown & Company Inc.

Tim  Songer 
President
Interactive Knowledge Inc.

Lisa Splitlog 
Senior Communications
Officer CDC Foundation

Carol Stabler 
Director of Communications
The Meadows Foundation

Cassandra Stalzer 
Communications Manager
Rasmuson Foundation

Jeff Stanger 
Director
Center For Digital Information

Margaret Swink 
Communications Director
Ploughshares Fund

Jennifer Sykes 
Communications Officer
Health Care Foundation of Greater Kansas City

Brenda Thomas
Office Manager
Proteus Fund

Brent Thompson 
Director Communications
William Penn Foundation

Melissa Thompson
Strategic Communications Manager
The Patterson Foundation

Kevin Thornton 
Sr. Communications Officer
Walton Family Foundation

Julia Thornton 
Communications Manager
Humanity United

Anne Tillery 
Partner
Pyramid Communications

Maya Trabin 
Communications Associate
Evelyn and Walter Haas Jr. Fund

Susan Trabucchi
Consultant

Bruce S. Trachtenberg 
Executive Director
Communications Network

Lisa Trahan 
Communications Director
St. David’s Foundation

David Trueblood
Vice President, Communications and Programming
The Center for Effective Philanthropy

Gayle Tuttle 
Strategic Community Program Manager
Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Carolina Foundation

Zoua  Vang 
Communications Director
First 5 Fresno County

Josefina Vasquez
Executive Director
Boston Women’s Fund

Liz Wainger 
President
Wainger Group LLC

Scott Ward 
Communications Committee
Takoma Foundation

Lori Warren  
Senior Director of Marketing & Communications
Jewish Community Federation

Wendy Wehr 
V.P. of Communications and Information Services
Minnesota Council On Foundations

Magnes Welsh 
President
Magnes Communications

Jenn Whinnem 
Communications Officer
Connecticut Health Foundation

Akilah Williams 
Communications Officer
Crown Family Philanthropies

Chris Williams 
Press Secretary
Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

Gayle  Williams 
Executive Director
Mary Reynolds Babcock Foundation

Monica Williams
Communications Director
Austin Community Foundation

Nathan  Williams
Communications Associate
Alfred P. Sloan Foundation

Lisa Witter 
Chief Strategy Officer
Fenton Communications

Chris Wolz
President and CEO
Forum One Communications

Lauren Woody 
Program Assistant
Barr Foundation

Bill Wright 
Vice President Outreach and Advocacy
America’s Promise Alliance

Ben Wyskida 
Communications Executive
The Atlantic Philanthropies

Danielle Yates
Manager of Marketing and Communications
Grantmakers For Effective Organizations

Katarina Yee 
Communications Associate
Rockefeller Brothers Fund

Ben Zeitlin 
Vice President
Westglen Communications

Some of my best friends are consultants.  (No, really.  I can name names!)  Which makes me hesitate a little bit before confessing the following:  getting pitched by consultants for business drives me absolutely batty.

Ever since I began my job as communications director at the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, in September 2010, I’ve been pitched almost daily for business.  Phone calls.  Endless emails.  Drop-by visits, even.   Everyone begging me for a meeting, or a phone call.  Graphic designers, communications/public relations firms, people who want to help me with media lists, with web sites, with our social media strategies, videographers, photographers—you name it, it feels like the whole consulting/PR world is beating a path to my door.

I find this endless pitching irritating. I find it especially irritating when someone won’t take no for an answer.  If I say to someone straight out, I’m not looking for this type of service right now, and I’m way too busy to meet with you,  so I will keep your name on file for future reference, many of them will ping right back to me and say, “Are you less busy now?  Can we meet now?”  With the subtext being, I know that if I could just get in the door and have a half hour of your time, you’d be so dazzled by the work that my company does, you’ll wonder how you ever existed without me.

Here’s the dilemma:  one, I have a soft spot for people who are trying to make a living.  I know that for many of these consultants and firms, they have no choice but to pitch.  How else are they to grow new business?  And then there’s the issue of fairness and openness:  foundations tend to play favorites.  The philanthropic sector is a networked sector.  We pass around recommendations to each other about which firms and consultants we like.  So it can feel like new firms and consultants hardly ever get a shot with us, even if it’s not true. But I really prefer dealing with the fairness issue by encouraging foundation staff, and grantees, to put out communications work for bid, with RFPs.  RFP processes are giant pains to execute (does anyone really feel like reading twenty proposals, and sometimes conducting in-person interviews?), and giant pains for firms and consultants to respond to, but I often find them worthwhile.

However:  I don’t want to paint all consultants and firms with the same brush.  Not every consultant and vendor is aggressive about pitching, and I’d be the first to admit that so much of the work foundations support would not be possible without consultants and vendors.  I’ve worked on big and small communications initiatives with lots of different types of consultants and vendors, and many times I’ve been humbled by and appreciative of what they’ve brought to the table.  In fact, I’m sponsoring a breakout session on this topic at the upcoming fall Network conference in Boston, so people can talk about the highs and the lows of working with consultants and firms.

I will say that I am puzzled by how much I’m getting pitched in this job as opposed to when I was at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation for almost ten years.  While I was at RWJF, I had more substantial communications budgets to directly manage—here at Packard, it’s a different, less centralized approach to strategic communications, so believe me, I’m not just hoarding resources that are just crying out for the hiring of consultants.  So maybe this is a case of mistaken identity—like, posting a classified ad that indicates you’re single when you’re not?

In any event, I’d love to hear from Network members—from foundations and consultants—about what you think about the pitch.  Does this just happen to me?  Is this just a reality of this job that I need to learn to live with, or do you have tips on how to better manage?  I’d love to hear your thoughts.

Minna Jung is communications director at the David and Lucile Packard Foundation and a director of the Communications Network

These examples and others are recounted in a new book by Tina Rosenberg, “Join the Club, How Peer Pressure Can Transform the World,” and our guest for a recent Communications Network webinar.

During her discussion with host Andy Goodman, Rosenberg, a Pulitzer-Prize winning journalist and New York Times blogger, discussed:

• How positive peer pressure can change people’s behavior and solve seemingly intractable problems.
• How peer power has met challenges ranging from intimate struggles with temptation to the grand dramas of global politics.
• How peer pressure has led villagers in India to vanquish infant mortality,turned D students into A students in college calculus, created social movements, turned gang members straight, and even fought terrorism.

What can peer pressure do for your organizations?

View the webinar and find out for yourself.

And for more about the power of peer pressure, visit Rosenberg’s website, jointheclub.org.

At least that’s how I felt the other day minutes into a Communications Network webinar with Tina Rosenberg, author of the book “Join the Club. How Peer Pressure Can Transform the World.”

Said Rosenberg:

If it were true that information changes people’s lives, all smoking would have ceased after 1964.

That’s one of the big themes in her book, and probably not something someone like me, who has lived his whole professional life focused on creating and sharing information products of all forms, was prepared to hear.

My qualms notwithstanding, her argument — and which eventually won me over — is that if you want to change behavior, or more importantly, advance social change, you can’t simply tell people what you think they need to know.  You have to convince them it’s in their best interest to change.

An effective way to do that is to arm people whom others trust, look up to, or simply don’t want to let down, with the information they need to convince their peers about why they need to change their behavior. In other words, peer pressure, which sometimes is blamed for fostering bad behavior, also can be a positive force for social change.

As she said:

Information has impact when it comes from people who are credible sources to us and the most credible sources are people like us. If a teacher tells a teenager to use condoms, that information goes in one ear and out the other.  But if the teenager hears from a friend who’s discovered it’s
much better to use condoms and tells him he should, he’ll pay attention.

Another example, and one that’s been around for centuries, is the military unit.

Armies have always run on the idea of unit cohesion.  Wars are usually fought by young men who are drafted and a lot of the time don’t understand what they are fighting for and don’t consider it their cause. Yet they’ll emerge from the safety of their foxholes into enemy fire. Why do they do that?  The answer is they do it because they don’t want to seem cowardly in the eyes of their buddies. If they seem brave to their buddies, if they support their buddies, they’ll look brave.  That’s really, really important. It’s more important than living.

Over the course of the webinar, Rosenberg, a Pulitzer-prize winning journalist and blogger for the New York Times, cited other examples of how peer pressure has functioned as a “social cure,” what she describes “as a way to solve problems that have proven resistant to previous attempts to solve them by using our connections to one another.”

They include getting teens to give up cigarettes by showing them that smoking isn’t quite the rebellious act they think it is. Or by ensuring borrowers pay off microcredit loans by making them aware of the shame they’ll bring to themselves and their community if they miss a payment.

As I said, initially it was off-putting to hear Rosenberg, a journalist, whose stock and trade also is information, reveal its limitation in advancing change. But she did make it clear that information is not without purpose. As she put it, “if you’re trying to convince people to change their behavior, information has to come from someone with whom they strongly identify.”

So then, what are the implications for people who do communications work for foundations, and whose primary “product” often is information?  Maybe it’s putting it into the hands of the right people and letting them run with it.

But, hey, that’s just me saying this.  Listen for yourself.

No pressure.

–Bruce Trachtenberg

“The only man who behaves sensibly is my tailor; he takes my measurements anew every time he sees me, while all the rest go on with their old measurements and expect me to fit them.” –George Bernard Shaw

There’s a lot of great news in the results from the latest Communications Network Survey of Foundation Communications Practices: As Bruce Trachtenberg and Michael Remaley write in their blog post about the survey, foundations are quickly embracing new technology, including social media; communications units are garnering more respect and inclusion; and communications strategy is no longer an afterthought for most organizations.

But there’s one area in which progress seems a bit slower: figuring out if any of the stuff we do is really having an impact.

It’s by no means all bad news. Three in four respondents said their organizations use at least some metrics to assess effectiveness. Almost everyone peeks at Web site traffic, media coverage and Twitter/Facebook profiles.

But “fewer than half” say they’re collecting survey data or measuring awareness of the foundation and its work, tracking publications requests, measuring grantee perceptions, or doing polling to determine the public’s awareness of the issues their foundations support.

At The Commonwealth Fund, we actually do all of these things, but that’s not the point of this post. I realized as I prepared to give a talk on this subject at last month’s European Foundation Center General Assembly, that evaluation is actually baked into the culture of our organization in a way that can be represented in a simple graphic, and which might be helpful to others.

In the chart below, many of you might recognize the pyramid on the left as a traditional model of organizational planning:

In this model, an organization’s “Hundred-Year Mission” is its raison d’etre; the vision (reassessed perhaps every five years)  –is the way the organization aims to achieve the mission; and the strategic plan is a two- to three-year execution map that gives birth to successive annual plans, and the staff’s daily work. (There are, of course, variations on this. I’ve heard of strategic plans being much longer, and visions changing much more often.)

One can think of how evaluation informs planning, in a sense, as almost an inverse of that pyramid. There are things we look at every day (site traffic, followers, media clips); every month (audience growth, traffic trends, publication views); quarterly, for our Board reporting; annually, to inform our plan for the coming year; and bi-annually to provide insight into where our audiences want us to go in terms of new products and formats. (For example this year we surveyed on app development, among other things.)

In this way, we’re continually revisiting and revalidating every level of the pyramid on the left, and we’re getting regular snapshots of the foundation, its work and its audience. And the information we gather really does guide our thinking. On a daily level, we might look at media coverage of a particular release and see where we need to do more outreach, or we might reassess our tweet schedule based on a number of factors. In the longer term, we might (and we do! ) use audience views to help us reconsider publication length and format, Web site design and frequency of e-mail communications, to name a few.

It’s all about the mission, of course. We all want to be providing our stakeholders with the information they need, when they need it, in the formats they want. And we all know (if we’re honest with ourselves) that the tailor’s old measurements are probably no good anymore – the belt needs a bit of loosening. Regular and varied evaluations of our efforts are the best way I know to guarantee a good fit.
_______________________________________________________________
Barry Scholl is senior vice president for Communications and Publishing at The Commonwealth Fund. For more on this topic, click here to read or download the Communications Network’s step-by-guide to evaluating foundation communications, “Are We There Yet?”

A more fundamental question, though, is do these programs work?

Among those asking that question was the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, and to find out the answer, last year it hired the Williams Group to assess various training programs that it has been offering its grantees over the years.

In this replay of a Communications Network webinar, we present an overview of what comprises thoughtul grantee training programs and also what the Hewlett Foundation learned from its assessment about how to make these programs effective.

The webinar features our host, Andy Goodman of the Goodman Center; Eric Brown, communications director, Hewlett Foundation; Gwyn Hicks, COO, and Dennis Poplin, vice president, both of Spitfre Strategies; and Mary Command, Principal, of the Williams Group.

Over the course of the webinar, you’ll learn about the key elements for effective grantee communications training — everything from how to pick the right candidates to what you need to do afterward to make sure what they learned in class sticks.We’ll also invite webinar participants to share experiences they’ve had and lessons learned from training programs they’ve conducted for grantees.

After you’ve viewed the webinar, you learn more about the study by visiting www.whatnonprofitssay.org, a website that also includes all the data from the grantees surveyed, case studies, interview text, and verbatim responses.

>>View Webinar

On her blog, Footnotes, Gabriela Fitz, co-founder and co-director of IssueLab, commented on the fact that nearly three-quarters (74%) of foundation communicators surveyed say they go through a process that produces a written communications plan, but that only about a third (36%) say that their communications plan really guides their daily work. 

Fitz says she didn’t find that to “bad news.”  Why?

Because the study goes on to report two related findings: organizations that do plan differ from those that don’t in that they are 1) more likely to recognize failure, and 2) more likely to have other organizational departments engaged in communications efforts. These two things alone make planning worth it, whether we consult those plans on a daily basis or not.

Clearly the finding about the role of planning in foundation communications work deserves more study and discussion.  It’s nice to know that the act of planning itself appears to have a useful effect. But the finding also begs another question, just how much more valuable could that activity be if, along with creating plans, more communicators referred to them regularly?

Conventional wisdom would suggest that a plan is like a roadmap and consulting it on a regular basis helps to both stay on course and see where you are going.

By coincidence as I was pondering this issue, I came across another shout-out for the merits of planning. It was from an unlikely source, but one that should appeal to any one who makes a living with words: the writer Jack London, who is best known for his book “Call of the Wild.”

In a recent Word Craft column for the Wall Street Journal, Joseph McAleer, talks about how in London’s semi-autographical 1909 novel, “Martin Eden,” the hero sees his future as a writer inextricably tied to his planning skills.

McAleer writes:

Martin doesn’t just bang at the typewriter; he knows he needs a plan, and that means education and study. “‘Reading the works of men who had arrived, he noted every result achieved by them, and worked out the tricks by which they had been achieved—the tricks of narrative, of exposition, of style, the points of view, the contrast, the epigrams; and of all of these he made lists for study.”

The successful writer needs to sort everything out before proceeding. “His was deliberate creative genius, and before he began a story or poem, the thing itself was already alive in his brain, with the end in sight and the means of realizing that end in his conscious possession. Otherwise the effort was doomed to failure.”

Wise words for anyone who wants to know where they’re going, and especially if they’re heading in the right direction.

–Bruce Trachtenberg