Want To Be
Noticed, Heard? This Can Help.
We’ve all heard the complaint – and even see the
data to back it
up – that the public and policymakers really don’t
know all the good that foundations do (or are trying
to). To communications consultant Susan P arker,
the reason foundations (and nonprofits) aren’t
better known can be traced to seven mistakes.
Parker, who is the founder of
Clear Thinking Communications,
says among the mistakes foundations make are: being
afraid to “toot" their horn, failing to talk more
about what’s working as well as what didn’t, and
being reluctant to stand out in the crowd. For each
mistake that Parker identifies, she offers a
correction.
Click
here for a copy
of Is Your Good Work Going
Unnoticed?
How to Create
Messages that Matter
In her new book,
Message Matters: Succeeding at the Crossroads of
Mission and Market
(Fieldstone
Alliance 2007), Rebecca K. Leet, an expert on
 strategic
communications, provides foundations and nonprofits
a simple, yet powerful way of developing messages
that get people to listen to what they say and take
the action they want. In an interview with Ms. Leet,
she talks about "strategic" messages that get heard
and why they work.
Click
here to
read the interview with Rebecca Leet.
Study Provides
Guidance on Increasing Press Coverage
If you want to know how to increase press coverage
of your foundation, the best place to start is by
studying how the press is covering what you do—as
well as others like you.
That’s what the The Health Foundation of Greater
Cincinnati did recently when it commissioned an
informal study of how newspapers cover
health-related grantmaking in markets similar in
size to Cincinnati. In addition to revealing what
kinds of stories about foundations are most likely
to make it into print, the study provided some
guidance on what can be done to both increase the
frequency of coverage, and more important, encourage
more in-depth reporting.
Click here for
more.
Looking for the Latest Reports on Philanthropy?
Try the
Foundation Center's PubHUB Service
Staying on top of the
latest publications about philanthropy is a lot
easier these days thanks to the Foundation Center's
PubHub—a
free, online repository of foundation-sponsored
reports. Currently PubHub provides access to nearly
1,700 reports covering the full scope of
philanthropic activity in the United States. PubHub
showcases publications and reports that foundations
generate and makes these documents widely accessible
to nonprofits, grantmakers, and anyone with an
interest in the field of philanthropy.
In addition to PubHub’s
searchable storehouse of annotated links, its
recently expanded taxonomy makes searching easier
and more accurate than ever. You may search by
keyword or browse by subject (e.g., arts, education,
environment), publication year, and/or organization.
New reports and issue briefs are added every day,
and if you go to PubHub you can sign up for free, daily email
alerts
about newly posted publications.
How to Write a
Marketing RFP that Gets the Best Consultant or Firm
to Deliver Everything You Need -- On Time and on
Budget
By Nancy Schwartz
President, Nancy Schwartz & Company
Reprinted by permission from:
Getting
Attention: Helping Nonprofits Succeed Through
Effective Marketing
As the head of a long-time marketing firm serving
nonprofits and foundations, I've probably reviewed
over 500 RFPs in my time, all from nonprofits and
foundations seeking marketing services. And I can
tell you, no more than 50 of them are effectively
designed to motivate responses that are
comprehensive and accurate.
Accuracy of course is key. Because if your RFP
doesn't cover everything you're looking for -- in
the way you want it -- delivered, budget and
timeframe are bound to be off. Trash in, trash out
as they say. So put some time and effort into your
RFP.
Click here for some quick tips for
writing a marketing services RFP that'll get
high-quality service providers to respond eagerly,
thoroughly and accurately.
How to
Successfully Navigate Communications Challenges
Want to know the
best approaches, messages and vehicles for reaching
all your key audiences? Then
download
the award winning
Communications Toolkit
from
Cause Communications.
The toolkit will show you how to navigate your way
through myriad communications efforts—from branding
your organization and developing your communications
plan to choosing the right approach for measuring
your results.
Time for a New Website or
Upgrade?
Here's Some
Helpful Advice Before You Get Started
Is your web site
starting to show signs of aging? Is it becoming
harder to manage and update? Are you having
difficulty staying on top of traffic to your site,
including number of visitors and what information
they’re getting? Do you find that it’s lacking
features and interactive tools you’ve seen on other
sites that you wish yours had? Does your website no
longer accurately reflect the work of your
organization or how you want others to perceive it?
If you answered “yes” to any of those questions,
it’s probably time to redesign your organization’s
web site.
But before you get
started,
download and
read this helpful guide prepared by Carrie Boron,
Deputy Communication Director and Operations
Manager,
Study Circles Resource Center.
Expect the Unexpected
What To Do When A
Reporter Calls
Communications people spend a lot of time on the
phone calling and pitching press on stories they
want them to cover. But news coverage is a two-way
street. Reporters are just as likely to call you
about something they're working on, and frequently
without advance warning.
What do you do when the
phone rings? In a
recent issue of his "Free Range Thinking,"
communications expert Andy Goodman presents seven
simple steps to turn these unexpected moments into
"golden opportunities" for spreading the good word
about your organization.
Download the article
How an Effective Approach to
Evaluation Can Help Tie A Foundation's
Communications Program to Its Mission
Foundations
that only see evaluation as something that helps
determine the success or failure of a program or
initiative are overlooking other ways a more
strategic approach to evaluation can help staff of
grantmaking organizations -- including communicators
-- achieve their organization's philanthropic
mission. Foundations that approach evaluation as an
ongoing inquiry, rather than a discreet activity at
the end of a project, can generate useful
information and knowledge that, among other things,
can help answer questions that more and more
external audiences are asking these days, such as:
What is the foundation trying to accomplish...and
Why does it believe that this approach has the
greatest chance of success?
According to a recent paper on that topic (which can
be
downloaded free of charge
from the Foundation Center), Patricia
Patrizi, principal of Patrizi Associates, urges
grantmakers to rethink the role of evaluation within
their organizations in order to create more
accumulated knowledge, more purposeful evaluation,
and better information for better decisions. In
Patrizi’s view, evaluation should be an ongoing,
collective responsibility "at every stage of
grantmaking . . . at the center of everything we
do."
Tips On How To Place An Op-Ed
Among its useful advice on how to establish good
media relations, the Communications Consortium Media
Center’s (CMCC) website offers valuable guidance on
placing op-eds with newspapers around the country.
In addition to tips (Op-eds
should be timely, lively and present strong
arguments…
Figure out what you want to say and who can say it…and
Make it short and
timely),
you’ll find a list
of the top 100+
newspapers in the United States by circulation, with
contact information and submission guidelines.
To go to the CMCC website,
click here.
 How
To Determine If Your Communications are Working
How do you
know whether your communications campaign is working?
While assessing a return on your communications
investment isn't as straightforward as counting the
number of people served by a food bank or the number of
women who walk through the doors of a prenatal clinic
every year, according to a new guide from Fenton
Communications, you can measure results.
Proving Your Worth provides 10 ways to help
determine the effectiveness of your communications
activities.
>>Click
to download the guide.
Pay Attention to What This Blog Has to Say
Looking for marketing ideas, tactics, and tips that can help your organization get more attention? Check out the appropriately named Getting Attention, a blog and e-newsletter by Nancy E. Schwartz, focused on nonprofit communications. Founder of Nancy Schwartz & Co., she blogs on everything from nonprofit web analysis and online fundraising, to tips on establishing an organization’s own blog, as well as offering critiques on the latest nonprofit national ad campaigns. Schwartz also generously provides links to other interesting sites where communication strategies are examined and discussed.
>>Click to read Getting Attention.
AMERICAN OPPORTUNITY:
Communications Toolkit FroM
the Opportunity
Agenda, Spin Project
The Opportunity Agenda
and
The SPIN Project
have produced American Opportunity: A
Communications Toolkit. Intended to help leaders and
organizations strengthen their communications in
ways that build broader and more lasting support for
social justice in the United States, the toolkit
introduces the Opportunity Frame—a communications
approach designed to greatly expand the constituency
for positive social change. The kit also includes
case studies of campaigns that have successfully
used elements of the Opportunity Frame and concrete
tools to help organizations working for social
change apply this approach to their own work.
>>Click
here to
download.
How to Press Your Point More Effectively
A guide from Fenton Communications offers several tips on how to make your website more helpful to the news media. A Room with a Viewpoint: How to Create an Online Press Center That Reporters Return to Again and Again features a list of “must-haves” for your online media center – from contact information and FAQs to a list of people from your organization, along with their bios, who are available to answer questions or be interviewed.
To download the guide,
click
here.
READ
BEFORE YOUR NEXT PRESENTATION
Would you like to
deliver more engaging, informative, and persuasive
presentations? Do you supervise colleagues who must
give presentations on a regular basis? If you have
wasted enough time with bad presentations – on
either side of the podium – then, this book: Why
Bad Presentations
Happen to Good Causes, is for you.
Based on
unprecedented research across the public
interest sector, and incorporating the advice of
twenty highly regarded public speaking experts,
this helpful handbook will show you how to avoid
the most commonly made mistakes (“The Fatal
Five”), structure your information in ways that
help audiences absorb it, use PowerPoint more
effectively, and deliver your talks with greater
confidence.
Written by frequent Communications Network
presenter Andy Goodman, Why Bad
Presentations Happen to Good Causes is
available free-of-charge to any full-time
employee at a nonprofit, foundation, government
agency or educational institution.
>>Click
here to order. But hurry,
supplies are limited.
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