the Communications Network blog

Foundations in Blogistan

Guest Post:  Mitch Hurst, vice president, Interactive Solutions, Scofield Company, in Chicago, and board member, Communications Network.  This post originally appeared on his blog, With or Without You

Google "foundation blogs" and at the top of your search will turn up a blog post at Tactical Philanthropy circa  April 2007 wondering why more foundations don't have blogs. This hopefully has more to do with some crack search engine optimization at Tactical Philanthropy than it does with the state of the foundation blogosphere  circa July 2009.

A colleague asked me last week what I thought were some interesting uses of blogging by foundations. Those listed below reflect examples of why a foundation might think about launching and maintaining a blog:

Socialedge: Leadership. The Skoll Foundation's group blog about social entrepreneurship is THE online community for discussion about that issue. A great example of how a blog can be used to further the grantmaking interests of a foundation.

Knightblog: Audience. Journalists were some of the earliest adopters of social media, and the Knight Foundation's blog, focused primarily on the foundation's journalism program, allows it to connect with journalists online [Knight is very active on Twitter as well].

Health Care Reform Galaxy: Hot topic. The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation's blog about health care reform allows it to be part of the conversation about an extremely timely topic that will be featured prominently in the news for the foreseeable future.

Diana Sieger's Blog: Personal. The President of the Grand Rapids Community Foundation maintains a blog that communicates about the work of the foundation and its work in the community in a very personal way.

Mott Foundation Newslog: Simplicity. The Mott Foundation maintains a rolling list of links to recent articles and other online resources that relate directly to the work of the foundation and its grantees. It's a simple but effective way for Mott to keep its audience informed about the foundation's issues.

Now that Mitch has raised the question, let's help him answer it. If you work for a foundation, does it have a blog?  Let us know by taking our instant poll.

Here's a Question I Can't Wait To Answer (Or Should You)

A lot of the work we do in the Communications Network often involves talking with other communications professionals at foundations and nonprofits about how to use communications well.

Every once in a while, though, I’m reminded – usually via a question from a foundation colleague – that another important audience for our messages are people who hold program positions.  The question I usually hear is “What can I tell my program colleagues about why they should care about communications?”

Over the years I’ve learned that a good way to answer that question is to start by rephrasing it and to ask, instead, “Why should anyone who works for a foundation care about communications?”

And rather than leave the question hanging – since it’s rhetorical anyway – here are my three answers:

--Communications are important because they help create connections between foundations and the people they need to reach in order to accomplish their jobs, achieve their goals and further their missions.

--Communications help put a human face on foundation work. Showing how lives are being touched – even changed – through the work foundations do directly or support their grantees to do helps people understand that this work isn’t just about grantmaking, but making a difference.

--Communications can help extend the work of a foundation beyond the places where it makes individual grants. For example, when program and communications staff work together to figure out what lessons have been learned and then develop a plan to share those lessons, they can advance overall knowledge about the effectiveness of particular approaches to tackling/solving problems that others are working on as well.

Those are my three answers. They’re not absolute or the only ones.  And while they might answer the question for some, hopefully they raise other questions that lead to even more discussion.

That said, how would you answer the question?

--Bruce Trachtenberg

Photo of two hearts beating as one by by Lydia Honeypot on Flickr.com used with gratitude under a Creative Commons license. Click for terms.

Have Something to Say? Tweet About It

Guest Post: Buffy Beaudoin-Schwartz, Communications Director, Association of Baltimore Area Grantmakers

Like many in the foundation world, we are constantly trying to ensure that we are up on the “latest” technology.  This, of course, means that we are spending time trying to learn what the “latest” is … and determine the cost, ease of use, and most importantly, the value it brings to our daily efforts to  connect work with mission.

For us – being a membership association of 140 foundations and corporate giving programs ranging in size, staff, resources and capacity – our challenges are different than a stand-alone foundation or nonprofit. But our experiences are relevant to both kinds of organizations, as well as other Regional Association of Grantmakers.  For example, after much discussion we decided not to enter the blogosphere a few years ago.  While we read blogs and recognize their overall value, we decided that it wasn’t in our best interest to develop or re-package information that we felt was readily available through our website.   On the other hand, we did recently decide to jump on the Twitter bandwagon. (You can find us at @ABAGrantmakers)

While we are not using Twitter to communicate with our members (although a few are Twittering), we are using Twitter to communicate ABOUT the good work of our members, thus advancing ABAG’s mission of promoting philanthropy. And, we are on Twitter in order to be part of the national philanthropic dialogue taking place via Twitter, all day – every day.

Specifically we’re using it to:

• Promote philanthropy by spreading the word far and wide about the good work of our member foundations
• Reach key audiences with messages about the impact of philanthropy in a new way
• Inform members of the media with quick, ongoing philanthropy stories, stats and trend information
• Support partners by highlighting their information and resources
• Engage members by following them, inviting them to share information, and tweeting about their good work.  For example, we are regularly tweeting OSI-Baltimore’s weekly Blog “Audacious Ideas” and frequently re-tweeting the Baltimore Community Foundation’s tweets. Let others know about publications and other information available on our website.
• Read, process, and manage philanthropy stories faster and more proactively – which translates to other opportunities to package the information (website, eNews, member outreach, etc.)
• Quickly share and obtain information, ideas and best practices with other philanthropists and practitioners
• Take part in, and perhaps help to shape the ongoing regional/national dialogue about philanthropy
• Develop an individual style and voice within the ongoing 140 or less character tweets

For those looking for some guidance, here’s our recommendations for how to make the best use of Twitter and incorporate its use in your overall communications strategy:

• Develop a one-page rationale for the use of Twitter – the goals, expected outcomes and implementation steps
• Create categories of the types of tweets that are appropriate for your organization and why. For example: we use the following categories: ABAG specific, ABAG Members, ABAG Partners, Regional Philanthropy, National Philanthropy
• Map your daily/weekly/monthly tweets in advance as much as possible – identify opportunities based on seasons, holidays, upcoming events, ongoing national news, etc.
• Ensure that you are representing your identified categories each week
• Ensure your board knows that you are using Twitter and why
• Work with staff members to obtain tweets that support your mission and rationale for use
• Reach out to members/partners/others to invite information submission for tweets
• Be clear about who you are following and why in order to obtain the best and most relevant ongoing information
• Identify an evaluation plan that works for you.  For example:  ABAG is monitoring the time involved, the process, the number of followers, the types of followers, the number of link views (via Hootsuite), and the number of re-tweets, as a start.  We will assess all of this against the goals and outcomes we’ve identified.
• Add a Twitter tagline on your email, website and other communication vehicles:  For example: Follow ABAG on Twitter! http://twitter.com/ABAGrantmakers can be found on our staff email signatures, each external philanthropy eNewsletter,  internal communications to members, and on ABAG’s website

We don’t know yet exactly where our use of Twitter to promote philanthropy will take us, but we do know that this “latest” trend in technology is an opportunity that we don’t want to miss.

Do I Really Have to Convince You?

Guest Post: Michael Hamill Remaley, Director of Communications, Russel Sage Foundation

As Russell Sage Foundation’s director of communications and leader of our independent book publishing unit’s publicity efforts, I occasionally have difficult conversations with our authors attempting to delicately reduce their expectations about the mass appeal of their books.  Our  authors are usually renowned in their specific fields of social science research, but their books are sometimes so dense with analysis and academic language that, realistically, their primary potential audience is the academic market.  So a recent conversation I had with a scholar trying to convince him that his book DOES have great mass appeal was an odd one for me. 

Social Commitments in a Depersonalized World examines interpersonal and group ties and proposes a new theory of social commitments, showing that three elements are essential for creating and sustaining alignments between individuals and groups – whether online, on the job or in communities:

• multiple interactions

• group activities

• ESPECIALLY: emotional attachment
  

The book is based on thorough social science research, but is written in a very accessible language that can be enjoyed by a broad audience. 

This new book significantly advances our understanding of what it takes to form social commitments in the modern, depersonalized world that we live in, with major implications for communications professionals in all sectors. 

But when I talked about marketing efforts with the book’s lead editor Edward J. Lawler (his co-editors are Shane R. Thye  and Jeongkoo Yoon), I had to convince him that the book could have major appeal way beyond the academic, social science world.  

Here’s why I told him the book has great appeal: As individuals’ ties to community organizations and the companies they work for weaken, many analysts worry that the fabric of our society is deteriorating. But there is a great deal of conversation occurring in the popular culture countering this idea saying that new social networks, especially those forming online, create important and possibly even stronger social bonds than those of the past.

Lawler, Thye, and Yoon discuss the problems of long-term social attachments becoming more fragile in a volatile economy where people increasingly form transactional associations not based on collective interest but on what will yield the most personal advantage in a society shaped by market logic. But, they assert, while person-to-group bonds may have become harder to sustain, they continue to play a vital role in maintaining healthy interactions in larger social groups from companies to communities. 

Social Commitments in a Depersonalized World shows how: 

• Affiliations—particularly those that involve a profound emotional component—can transcend merely instrumental or transactional ties and can even transform these impersonal bonds into deeply personal ones.

• Recurring collaboration with others to achieve common goals—along with shared responsibilities and equally valued importance within a group—promote positive and enduring feelings that enlarge a person’s experience of the group and the significance of their place within it.

• Employees in organizations with strong person-to-group ties experience a more unified, collective identity. They tend to work more cost effectively, meet company expectations, and better regulate their own productivity and behavior.

It seems obvious to me that this research and has important implications for multiple sectors.  With cultures pulling apart and crashing together like tectonic plates, much depends on our ability to work collectively across racial, cultural, and political divides. The new theory in Social Commitments in a Depersonalized World provides a way of thinking about how groups form and what it takes to sustain them in the modern world.  And while the book is a serious academic treatment of the issues, it is an easy-reading 198 pages that a non-Ph.D. can understand and enjoy.

Apropos of the topic, I posted a note about the book on my Facebook page and friends from all over the map asked where they can get the book.  So I’m feeling pretty confident that I was right about the book’s potential mass appeal (either that or my friends on Facebook are smarter than I generally give them credit!).  It may not make it to the top of the New York Times best-seller list, but I am confident that it will be quite popular among those who want to better understand what it takes to build group identification in our modern world – which is a whole lot of people. 

Click here for more information on the book, including purchasing information.

What Gives With NBC's New Show: The Philanthropist?

I haven't decided yet if I'm going to watch the new NBC show, The Philanthropist, that has its premiere Wednesday night, June 24. It's billed as the story of a wealthy playboy who suddenly develops a social conscience and decides to start giving his money away.  Even though it has yet to air, a lot already has been written on the blogs, in the press, and among Twitterers about whether this is a good show, a  dumb idea, or too soon to judge.  (Other than the reviewers and a handful of others who've screened the first episode in advance), it's really anybody's guess, and especially how people in philanthropy will react and respond to the tv portrayal about the trials and tribulations of giving away money.

Regardless of how it develops -- whether the show becomes a surprise hit, burns out after just a few showings, or simply helps fill a hole in NBC's summer schedule (in place of reruns) -- there is something worth noting about the fact that the people who decide what should be on television have suddenly determined that the subject of philanthropy (admittedly as seen through a Hollywood lens) is worth putting on during primetime.  Even discounting -- from what I've read anyway -- that little on the show reflects how real philanthropy is practiced, we still can't ignore the fact that popular culture is making a statement that philanthropy -- and its underlying values, as well as the motivation that drives people to give -- are worth spotlighting, even in a fictional way. 

At least that's how a reviewer for Slant magazine sees it:

NBC has found the diamond in the rough it's been searching for: a show with limitless potential, exploring all that humanity has to offer with a slight bent of thrill-seeking action and social responsibility. The Philanthropist proves compassionate and insightful, never didactic, and heartily entrenching. Clearly, this level of entertainment will stick out in a summer filled with schlock. Let's just hope it finds the enlightened, NPR-listening audience it needs to survive.

I have only one small issue with that comment. If the show is truly all that the reviewer claims, then I hope more than an "NPR-listening" audience will take note. Why not what constitutes a mass audience for tv these days?  And maybe then there will be an even bigger, more interested audience for the rest of the story about philanthropy.

--Bruce Trachtenberg

Don’t Forget the Ethnic Media

Guest Post: Elizabeth R. Miller, Senior Program Associate, The Overbrook Foundation

Earlier this month I attended New America Media’s 2nd Annual National Ethnic Media Expo & Awards Conference  in Atlanta. On the second day, I listened as Sergio Bendixen, president of Bendixen & Associates, and one of the preeminent experts in Hispanic public opinion research, shared findings from a survey showing an explosive growth in the number of consumers of ethnic media. According to Bendixen, over the last four years, ethnic media have picked up 8 million new readers, viewers and listeners. 
 
What’s significant about this? Mostly it means that ethnic media (defined primarily as African-American, Hispanic and Asian-American) now reach nearly 57 million people in the United States -- more than one-quarter of the adult population. What’s particularly surprising is that this major increase in audience numbers is occurring just as mainstream media, especially metropolitan dailies, are struggling to keep their readers, viewers and listeners.

The challenge facing mainstream media (and by extension people who work in communications, too) is how to continue to reach people without knowing with certainty how they get their information these days. Is it from print and broadcast outlets? Or the web?  What about iPhones and Blackberries, just to name a few options?  As a result more and more traditional news providers are doing the best they can to both hold on to their "old ways" while also trying to make the new technologies work for them.
 
Perhaps because they’re enjoying such a phenomenal growth for their “traditional” products, there seems to be less of a rush among ethnic news media organizations to the internet, Web 2.0, social media, and other experimental production and distribution channels and business models. Yet, these conversations are taking place, and ethnic media – like their mainstream counterparts -- are asking whether to adopt Twitter, and make iPhone applications and text messaging platforms as part of their offerings.  But even without them, ethnic media are proving that by providing quality in-depth news and reporting, they still can successfully reach large audiences.
 
As a result, people in foundations who see ethnic audiences as key to their work should not overlook the reach of these newspapers, and television and radio stations. As an example, Bendixen also pointed in his talk that Asian-Americans prefer Asian language media because of what they consider to be a lack of in-depth reporting in more mainstream news outlets about their home countries.  Similarly, ethnic media appear to have an inherent trust in and appreciation for their readers, listeners and viewers, something I would guess is declining for growing numbers of mainstream media outlets.
 
Another reason foundations should pay more attention to ethnic media is that they, like the sector they serve, are largely progressive, and are helping foster public discourse in a way that’s almost become foreign to the mainstream news media. Thus, if we fail to recognize the importance of America’s growing ethnic media sector, we similarly will miss an opportunity to engage a crucial -- and also fast growing -- sector of the American public.

Elizabeth R. Miller is a Senior Program Associate at The Overbrook Foundation, whose mission is to improve the lives of people by supporting projects that protect human and civil rights, advance the self-sufficiency and well being of individuals and their communities, and conserve the natural environment.

Photo of chinatown newsstand by by Shirazness on Flickr.com used with gratitude under a Creative Commons license. Click for terms.

When Democracy Gets Personal

Guest Post:  Larry "Bud" Meyer, president of Meyer Communications LLC, chair, Communications Network

If you’re a political junkie (like I am), you may be familiar with the annual PdF (Personal Democracy Forum) conference, described as the largest and best-known annual gathering on the intersection of politics and technology.

I’m attending my first PdF as one of 20 Google Fellows. Convenor Andel Koester says there’s more than a bit of competition involved in the selection of the 20 fellows attending the conference. It’s good to see the Communications Network among the 20 eclectic individuals and organizations selected, including the co-creator of The Great Schlep.  

A while back I got an email saying: If you’re a political junkie and think you’re Google Fellow material, make the case. I cited: a) how I cofounded the Political Junkies at the Kennedy School 20 years ago, mostly for fun, but we managed to invite Tip O’Neill to the astonishment of the school; b) working on a lot of digital media projects as the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation’s chief communications strategist before retirement in February; and c) how I might bring some national perspective via my association as chair of the Communications Network.

Being a Google Fellow apparently means attending the conference free of charge (we’ll take it, thankyouverymuch), with the opportunity to meet over a meal with the other Fellows to exchange ideas, etc.

The PdF lineup of speakers taps some of the same brains we’ll be seeing and hearing this October at the Communications Network’s fall conference (i.e., Clay Shirky and Frank Rich). The issues and communications tactics to be discussed are at the forefront of much of our work in the digital age. Elizabeth Edwards, Craig Newmark, Jeff Jarvis, Stephen Clift and danah boyd (her spelling) are in the mix, too.

I’ll let you know how they do.

Got something you want me to ask ‘em?

Somehow, It All Adds Up

Personally and professionally, I'm rarely at a loss for words.  In fact, since becoming a regular user of Twitter, the 140-character limit on the size of a Tweet leaves me with lots of spare words at the ready.

But when my friend Mitch Nauffts asked the other day, So what have you learned about social networks and networking?, I found myself speechless. I realized then that I've become so immersed in social networking -- as a user, creator, booster and true believer -- that I've yet to take the time to analyze and sum up what I'm learning about this still evolving way of being connected to all sorts of people and institutions via the internet. 

Not all is a loss, though.  What I might lack in lessons, I have more than made up in observations.  Social networking is engaging, and it can be incredibly informative. Some of the user produced content -- from blogs to Tweets to comments on website content -- is quite good and thoughtful, other so-so.  The process of keeping up with the information that flows freely and furiously can be very time-consuming, and sometimes the amount of time spent reading and responding borders on addictive. 

And again, while those aren't lessons, just observations, they do serve as the basis for asking the larger questions about where social networking is leading, how it's making us better (if it is) and how it's helping us do a better job of communicating (if it is).  That said, for someone like me who talks, thinks, and writes about how technology affects our work as communicators -- more so, how we ought to use it to connect with people we need to reach, inform, and influence -- I'm probably learning more than I realize.  It's just that I'm too busy keeping up with the information that's coming in as well as what I'm sending out, that I don't have time to stop and figure it all out.

That's not such a bad thing either, not if you are someone who learns by doing.  For example, less than 2 years ago, I didn't even know how to create a Facebook account. This weekend I was among the 550 people per second signing up for a customized Facebook domain name.  A year ago when I saw someone Tweeting, I asked myself what could anyone possibly say in 140 characters, who would care, and who would pay attention?  On Saturday afternoon, I saw a Tweet from a colleague that linked to the first videos and pictures being uploaded to blogs, YouTube, and Flickr of Iranians taking to the streets to protest the presidential election.

Maybe I have learned more than I realize, and maybe just one lesson is enough. Social networking is about making connections, building relationships, finding new allies, and being part of a community of people who care.  And it's not just online connections, but building relationships that carry into the real world.  It's about taking what I read, at the suggestion of others, and applying the relevant material to my work and life.  It's about looking for opportunities to offer the same help and guidance to someone else. 

The real takeaways for me, though, about why social networking is important were spelled out in this set of Tweets from Mitch who started me thinking about it's adding up to.  He said:

"I think connections made through social networking are 'stickier' and more persistent than those created by e-mail blasts and Web site visits."

 "I know personally all my 'friends' on Facebook...and many of the folks I interact with on Twitter and FriendFeed."

“I’m pretty sure I could get many of those folks to do something 'actionable' –- provide an intro, a reference, etc. -- if I asked."

"Social media is powerful precisely because it enables extended networks based on one-to-one relationships."

Truer words were never Tweeted.

--Bruce Trachtenberg

Photo of Generalized microblogging network by Tarmo Toikkanen on Flickr.com used with gratitude under a Creative Commons license. Click for terms.

We Asked: "What's Being Done for Children?" 100-Plus Voices Answered

Guest Post:  Julee Newberger, Online Communications Associate, Annie E. Casey Foundation

One of the great things about Web 2.0 and social networking is how they let those outside foundations speak to people inside them and in some cases, beyond.

That was certainly our experience at the Annie E. Casey Foundation based on the many thoughtful, emotional, and sometimes inspiring responses to our 100Days/100Voices campaign, which we launched to highlight what the Obama administration is doing for children.

The idea for the campaign began back in April when everyone was talking about Obama’s first 100 days in office, but few were talking about what this major milestone meant for kids and families. Because our foundation's mission is to improve outcomes for vulnerable kids and families, we decided to take advantage of all the attention being paid to the President by asking concerned citizens to talk about the most important thing that the Obama administration has done for children and families during this period, what should be next on the agenda, and why the issue is important.

We invited concerned citizens speak up and tell us – in 100 words or less, or with a video clip lasting no more than two minutes.

Over the course of the campaign, we collected over 100 submissions including photos and videos from 25 states, the District of Columbia, and Canada. In addition, the campaign resulted in an all-time high of visits to our website during a single month.

To hear from as many different "voices" as possible we made an effort to seek out and include submissions with diverse viewpoints. While some participants wrote about a renewed sense of hope for the future, others – including Dan Holler of the conservative Heritage Foundation – raised concerns about the long-term effects of spending taxes to rescue the economy. Some expressed appreciation for specific legislation signed during the first 100 days, and others called for better policies in education and health care to support children and families.  

At the same time, to make this a campaign that others who care about children's issues could take part in, we:

• Created a 100Days/100Voices “badge” (or graphic) linking back to the foundation's campaign page on its website. We also provided instructions for using the badge on a blog, e-newsletter, or web page.  
   
  
• Made it possible for people to join the campaign through Facebook, LinkedIn, and other social networking sites.
  

• Provided diirections for uploading a video to YouTube and sharing with the embed code so that we could link to it directly from our campaign page.

• Produced an icon that allowed Twitter users to automatically submit a tweet from their accounts: “I just shared 100 words on what the admin. has done for kids and families.  Add yours at http://tinyurl.com/aecf100 #100Days."

In addition to the very positive public response to and engagement in 100 Days/100 Voices, the campaign and its recommendations for policies that strengthen families received coverage in the Chronicle of Philanthropy, the Maryland Daily Record, Youth Today, in a guest blog on the Huffington Post and in several issue-related blogs such as Air-it-Out with George, Barista Kids, and Turn Maine Blue.

For more on 100 Days/100 Voices, and to see more of the submissions, click here.

A Brand New Idea

Communications Network member Eric Henderson, who oversees communications for Living Cities, a national initiative to increase the vitality of cities and urban neighborhoods, lets his former life in the advertising business show through in an intriguing article appearing on Adage.com. Henderson suggests that consumer brands (and the companies behind them) have the power, not just to help raise money for good causes – i.e. buy this product we’ll donate to your favorite charity – but to serve as engines for driving real social change. 

Eric writes:

Traditionally, corporate charitable efforts have been stereotyped by the cutting of ribbons and photo-ops with facsimile checks  The vulnerability here lies in the strength of that stereotype. It still lives. And consumers are smart enough to accept the real check that lies behind the facsimile but still suspect a company as an interloper.…However, from there, let’s extend our thinking to consider a different way to be involved, i.e. through a philanthropic lens.  For our purpose here, philanthropy is, yes, “doing good,” but at the level of social change in large and complex systems …turning a bigger wheel to stop problems before they start.

Now, a facsimile check for a few thousand at a ribbon cutting can take up a second life as leverage to raise many times that amount and be dedicated to a longer-term problem-solving. The leading foundations and non-profits are long skilled at this model of leverage.  Living Cities, itself a collaboration of 21 of the world’s largest foundations and financial institutions has used investments of $500 million to create over $16 billion in tangible community systems and assets. That is leverage.  The current environment should wake us up quickly to the fact that the types of problems we face can’t really be met with less than the force of intelligent collaboration of organizations across multiple sectors.

On the flip side, Eric asks “What’s in it for the brand?”  His response:

Doing right for the brand in this case means recognizing the business value of engaging consumers on genuine terms that are also recognized as such...Be (and be seen as) committed, long-term players in the cities and neighborhoods where you do business.

[Advertising] agencies have traveled this ground for a long time now, being frequently called on to add a community component to major campaigns. I am proposing in broad stroke that agencies make this part of the offering more explicit and much stronger through collaboration and dedicating the same thought work to this component, even treating philanthropic touches in some instances as another media channel measurable by familiar numbers: goodwill contribution, awareness, reach, frequency, purchase intent, and whatever else makes your funnel. You won’t find a fit for every client or project, but it should at least be considered in the set.

You can read the full article here.

--Bruce Trachtenberg

If We Could Only Have A Glimpse At Tomorrow's Headlines Today

Philanthropy New York held a panel discussion in New York City last week with the catchy title, Internet to Newspapers: Drop Dead. The panel featured Steve Coll, President of New America Foundation, and a staff writer at The New Yorker magazine; Nicholas Lemann, Dean and Henry R. Luce Professor at the Graduate School of Journalism at Columbia University; and Victor Pickard, Senior Research Fellow at the media reform organization, Free Press. Vincent Stehle, Program Director, Surdna Foundation, moderated the discussion.

Between the title of the session and the panelists, I had no doubt this would be a deep, thoughtful conversation, and maybe one that would help move the conversation from hand-wringing about the future of newspapers to a discussion of solutions. 

My reasons for attending were both personal (see later for explanation) and professional.  My professional reasons for attending mostly had to do with the fact that even though much of the work that professional communicators in philanthropy do these days is far less dependent than it used to be on getting stories placed and issues editorialized in papers -- now that there are more opportunities to connect directly with audiences (web sites, blogging, videos, etc.) -- we still wince when we read about another paper being shuttered. And at the same time, while this is an issue whose outcome we're probably not likely to have much influence on ourselves, as professional communicators we do care (or should) about what that outcome is (since it will ultimately affect how we do our jobs).

Needless to say there was lots of good talk during the session about the threats to our democracy if we don't have a vibrant and independent press and the means, will and capacity to support investigative journalism, in particular. One of the best lines: "If hospitals were to suddenly start disappearing, we'd be deeply concerned about the future of our public health. But why don't we hear the same about the threat to the health of our democracy from vanishing newspapers."  Overall, the panelists and audience did a very good of demonstrating their concern for the future of newspapers, reminding us of the need for public officials to be held to account for their decisions, and the importance of an informed citizenry.  

But after having had a chance to reflect on the panel for a few days, what struck me most about the conversation is how hard it is for most of us to let go of the past.  It seems to me that just framing the matter as Internet to Newspapers Drop Dead -- catchy or not -- in itself is making the statement that the threats on the horizon are greater than the opportunities that are also available.  Of course, it's impossible to predict what might eventually replace newspapers, if they do disappear (or not), and how that will affect our lives.  In fact, what brought me to that realization was a challenge from Nicholas Lemann to one audience member.  He said "go for a week without reading the newspaper and see what you miss."  The problem with questions like that is that they presume that once newspapers are gone so are news gathering and reporting and the skilled professionals who do that work. That just doesn't seem possible.

Don't get me wrong, I love newspapers, and for a very special reason.  I had the privilege to work as a reporter at a daily newspaper while going to college, it was like getting two educations at once.  My newspaper days set the stage for the rest of my career, and I wouldn't be doing what I do today without that experience.  To this day I'm so hooked on starting my morning with the paper that I get angry and ready to begin dialing and complaining to customer service when it's even a few minutes late.  But that's because it's what I'm used to.  It seems like we could make far more progress toward figuring out the future of news if we just accept the fact that things are changing and will continue to change, and there's no harm in investing in, supporting, and experimenting with new ways to report and deliver news, information and commentary.  Who knows, we might still end up with some form of traditional newspapers and the range of electronic supplements that, more or less, are still in their infancy.

There's no shame, too, in admitting how much we all are benefiting from -- and maybe even enjoying -- the seemingly never ending explosion of information that comes to us in ways we couldn't have anticipated years ago (especially those of us who reacted in horror when our manual typewriters were replaced with electrics).  Even foundations have found great many uses from the new communications technologies to share information, connect with audiences and further the impact of their work in ways that were unimaginable years ago.  As we noted in a report by David Brotherton and Cynthia Scheiderer (Come on In. The Water's Fine) that the Communications Network published last year on how foundations are -- or should be -- taking advantage of the new technologies:

People are becoming less and less dependent on traditional media for their news and information. They are turning to other credible places and sources. There is no reason foundations cannot be part of that mix and use that development to their advantage. But to do so requires that foundations play by the new rules and model their offerings after those organizations and entities that are attracting growing and engaged audiences. 

To be clear, I'm neither predicting nor suggesting an end to the news business as we know it.  But as I read the various articles written about the future of the news business, follow the conversations on the blogs, and hear what's being discussed at panels, I am reminded that it's how you start the conversation that can have a great impact on all that follows.

So, from now on I pledge not to ask what we need to do to save newspapers.  I'm going to ask instead how -- over time, and with as minimum disruption as possible -- can we preserve what's working about how news is covered and reported and how can we continue to modify, supplement, expand what we have so we end up with something even better than we have now.

Postscript: In a piece in the Sunday, May 24 New York Times, David Carr wrote about a makeover for Newsweek magazine, which he describes as coming "at a time when current events are produced and digested on a cycle that is measured with an egg timer, not a calendar."   In his concluding line, Carr offers this prescient thought:

The big talents and ambitious journalists that remain at Newsweek should probably spend less time reimagining the magazine and more time imagining a future when the physical product does not exist.

--Bruce Trachtenberg

Photo of Reporter's Notebook by gruntzooki on Flickr.com used with gratitude under a Creative Commons license. Click for terms.

Soon To Be Gone, But Not Forgotten

Not long ago I wondered out loud what it would be like to be the communications director for a foundation planning to spend down.  I asked:

What would your final annual report say? How would you describe your foundation's  accomplishments? Would you have the evidence to back up your claims? Or would those achievements rest on a pile of anecdotes destined to fade over time? Could you tell a story rich with lessons? Would your foundation be remembered for the impact it created and in a way that positively highlighted what philanthropy can accomplish when done well?"

Little did I know that my mind experiment was being played out in real time with a clock ticking in the background at the Beldon Fund.  In a few days, after having spent $120 million over 10 years, the  foundation is shutting its doors. And, to its credit, the foundation has gone to great lengths to make sure that although it soon will be gone, neither it nor its work will be forgotten.  In fact, as part of its legacy, Beldon has created a website filled with what are described as lessons and practical information meant to be of use to other philanthropists, philanthropic advisors, foundations, and nonprofit advocacy organizations.

Some of the material on the Beldon site is information that should be useful to  other foundations considering spending down, including how that process "affects financial strategy, staffing, operations and grantmaking programs."  And, to ensure people benefit from lessons Beldon learned from its program work, the rest of the content comprises case stories and evaluations of the foundation's efforts to help the nonprofits it supported successfully advocate for sound environmental policies.

It's worth noting that Beldon has never had an in-house communications department. Instead -- and before it was too late -- it hired Thea Lurie, an independent communications consultant, to help the foundation capture its story and develop a strategy for communicating it to specific audiences it wants to influence. "We were too close the work to tell the story ourselves," says Anita Nager, executive director of the Beldon Fund. "Thea helped us draw out the themes and principles that characterized our grantmaking and then illustrated these themes with case stories and practical lessons."

One of those lessons, Nager adds, is that a foundation in the process spending down "doesn't have a lot of time to recover" from errors. Thus Nager hopes that the information Beldon is leaving behind will "make the spend out process understandable and less daunting" to foundations either contemplating or committed doing the same and also to "demonstrate the potent combination of spend out and advocacy grantmaking." 

I guess we can't say to Beldon we'll miss you, since, in a way, it will be gone and still here at the same time.  See for yourself.

--Bruce Trachtenberg

Want To Make Sure Your Research Gets Used -- Here Are Some Great Tips

In a post a few weeks ago, I wrote how the nonprofit sector was increasingly relying on new forms of digital distribution to "put valuable knowledge in the hands of more people who can learn from, act on, even build on it." In writing that post, I neglected to mention IssueLab, which serves as a terrific distribution platform for all sorts of useful nonprofit research.

Not only do I want to use this opportunity to make up for that omission, I also want to point out a terrific piece on the site's blog, written by Luise Barnikel, Marketing Associate, about how to make your "research more valuable."

Among the suggestions:

Make your research usable, and re-usable -- specifically choose "copyright options that also allow your audience to use the information in a wide variety of ways and even build upon it to create original research."  For example, a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5 License.

Leave Them Asking for More -- Give some thought to the abstract so that it says just enough - somewhere between making it a "cliffhanger and information overload" so people will want to read the full document.

Get the facts out there -- Use all the available online venues to call attention to the report. In particular "extract short phrases, quotes, and statistics" to create micro-blog posts or Twitter Tweets, and include a link back to the full document. 

Great stuff...and hopefully this brief summary left you ready for more.

--Bruce Trachtenberg
 

What If You Hold A Conference And Everybody Comes?

When we started registration for the Communications Network Fall 2009 Conference in late April, my fingers were crossed. Even though these are tough times for many, I was hopeful that we would eventually hit our attendance target. 

That fear was completely unfounded.  In fact, I'm struggling to find the right word to describe what happened, because none really explains the phenomenal response. In just 21 days, we sold out. And we've since started putting names on a waiting list.

We haven't had a chance to ask what's triggered such an incredible response. Whatever it is, it's gratifying. But it also means we have to deliver the best ever conference. And that's our goal. 

In addition to our two fabulous keynote speakers, New York Times columnist Frank Rich and internet  and social media guru, Clay Shirky, we are putting together a terrific lineup of sessions. They'll provide lots of useful information about making the best use of web 2.0 and social media tools, how to communicate for impact (especially in these tough times), what it takes to influence policy, and what happens when you create successful collaborations between communications and program staff.

While we're not taking new registrations, we do have a waiting list. And if you want to be on it, send an email letting me know.

In the meantime, keep watching this blog and our website for conference updates, posts about sessions, conversations with presenters, and other topics we can start talking about even before we meet in New York City in October.

Oh I'm sure it was just a coincidence, but it certainly seems ironic that the title of Clay Shirky's recent book is Here Comes Everybody.

--Bruce Trachtenberg

Photo from TwOsE of yellow crowd from Flickr.com. Used with gratitude under a Creative Commons license. Click for terms.

Making The Case For Making The Case

I had the privilege last week of leading a session at the Council on Foundations annual conference on the topic When Program and Communications are Integrated, Good Things Happen for Foundations.  It was heartening to see that our session attracted  communications professionals as well as those who hold program and executive management positions at foundations. Those individuals responsible for grantmaking or overall foundation management were as engaged in the discussion and as supportive of the ideas being bandied about as their communications colleagues.

Credit for making a convincing case that grantmaking alone won’t get the job done and that communications can play a key role too in advancing a foundation’s goals goes to the session's two presenters: Julio Marcial, a program director at the California Wellness Foundation, and Marc Fest, vice president of communications, John S. and James L. Knight Foundation

During his presentation, Marcial described how a modest, five-figure investment seeded a successful campaign, spearheaded by the United Coalition East Prevention Project, to pressure Los Angeles city and school officials to come to the aid of nearly 1,000 children and youth living on the streets or in temporary shelter.  Foundation support enabled Franklin Arburtha, 14-years-old at the time, to bring attention to a video, We're Not Bad Kids (later excerpted on CNN and the Today Show), that he shot to document what life was like for young people who call LA’s skid row their home.  In addition, Arburtha and 10 of his friends, with help from a Loyola Marymount University researcher, conducted a survey that further revealed the plight of these neglected youth.  In the face of public outcry and extensive media coverage that followed the release of the video and survey, the Los Angeles city council and school district hired additional counselors to work with the homeless youth, beefed up security at local playgrounds to prevent them from falling prey to drug dealers and sexual predators, and took other steps to protect their welfare.

Marc Fest talked about how actively engaging people outside foundations-what he called “tapping the global brain”–can help inform, further, and strengthen the work that grantmakers do. He discussed how Knight Foundation’s use of social media-creating and managing online communities, encouraging and assisting staff to blog, and maintaining a presence on Twitter-helps connect the foundation with people who have ideas worth funding, keeps program staff informed of developments in their field, builds allies and supporters for the foundation's work, and creates ready audiences for what it is learning. 

As an example of how Knight taps into external networks, he told how the foundation used Twitter to solicit input for upcoming testimony that Knight Foundation President Alberto Ibarguen was planning for a Congressional hearing on the future of news. The foundation "tweeted":

@knightfdn Pres Alberto @ibarguen : 'I've been asked to testify before a Senate committee on #futureofnews. What would you say?' 

To close the loop, that Tweet was followed one more after the hearing:

@knightfdn: Read @ibarguen's speech and comment: http://is.gd/xiJG

It's nice to see good things happen for foundations from the convergence of communications and program efforts. But then, again, the real beneficiaries aren't the foundations, are they?  It's the people and causes they're supporting.

--Bruce Trachtenberg

What Did You Say?

Rather than give them short shrift by summarizing two items I had published elsewhere today, I'll point you to to them so you can read them in full.  One is an op-ed in the current Chronicle of Philanthropy about how communications can help foundations do more with less.  The other is a post on a blog the Council of Foundations started for this week's annual conference. It contains some thoughts about why the American public might be more interested -- and receptive -- these days than in years past to learning about how foundations are contributing to solutions all across the country.

Comments, please.

--Bruce Trachtenberg

What's Ours Is Yours, Really!

Like the rest of society, the philanthropic sector is increasingly moving away from producing and  distributing intellectual property the old-fashioned way, and is becoming ever more reliant on creating digital versions of its formerly printed products, as well as in video and audio form -- all of which makes these products extremely easy to share.  The goal is to put valuable knowledge in the hands of more people who can learn from, act on, even build on it.  And unless they're being sold or distributed as commercial products -- they're generally made available for anyone to copy, pass on, and sometimes modify.  Rarely does anyone charge for them, other than, perhaps, to pay for production and shipping costs for the few who still insist on hard copy versions.  Our sector certainly welcomes this development and sees it as a great leap forward. 

I was reminded of the benefits we, in the not-for-profit sector, have when it comes to making our materials widely available and encouraging wider sharing and adaption, and not having to worry about profiting.  Some in the private sector actually view technology that makes it easy to share other people's "intellectual" property, as a threat. That's one of the arguments of the book, Digital Barbarism, written by Mark Helprin, according to a review of it ("Hands Off, It's Mine), in the May 1 Wall Street Journal.

Reviewer Jeremy Phillips writes that Helprin worries that the growing ease with which people can share and sometimes modify other people's work, and distribute it widely, puts copyright protections at risk.  Helprin, according to Phillips, argues that without sufficient protection--i.e., the right to profit from your ideas--people might lose the incentive to create new work. Phillips says Helprin goes even further to sound the alarm that our culture is being threatened by "the degredation of concentration, the triumph of the image over the word, the rise of multitasking, the surge of plagiarism."

In response, Phillips writes, "...any writer depends on people still taking time to read. A greater access to words, one hopes, will lean to more reading--if often on a screen instead of a printed page."

Like I said, it's great that we can be freed of those profit "incentives" and concentrate instead of building audiences for what we have to say -- and doing everything we can to make it easy for people to access this work and put it to good use.

--Bruce Trachtenberg

Lessons For Us From The First 100 Days Of The Obama Administration

Guest Post:  Dan Cohen

What can we outsiders learn about communications from Obama's first 100 days.  Here are three:

First, Obama has actively sought out his audience.  As examples, witness appearances on ESPN to complete an NCAA Tournament bracket and the Tonight Show to reach middle America.  With audiences so amazingly fractured and incredibly loyal to their favorite outlets, these days you have to deliver your messages directly, meet people where they are on the issues, and speak a language they understand.  At the same, Obama continues, as he did during the campaign, to physically make trips – such as to Missouri, California and elsewhere– or via the internet for his digital town hall.

Second, unlike President Bush, Obama and his team understand that stagecraft and substance go hand in hand.  Most communications fail when these two aren’t in sync.  This administration uses live events to meaningfully engage target audiences or to unveil substantial policies. Meanwhile, on-line efforts have been used to unveil new relevant policies or engage the on-line/digitally engaged citizen.

Third, keep it interesting but keep bringing it home.  The administration has succeeded in keeping focused on the economy, but not beating the drum to the point of deafness.  They recognize that they can’t talk about the same issue every day.  They’ve done economy on Monday, health care on Tuesday, NCAA brackets the next.  And then return back to the economy.  It’s a lesson for all of us talking to the same folks over and over.

So, for communicators, the lessons could be:

1.      Find your audience. Go to them (stakeholders, grantees, policymakers).  Speak to them in words they understand and with a recognition of their issues

2.      Look smart and be smart – don’t skimp on style or substance whether in-person or on-line

3.      Refresh your message to remain relevant – but keep coming home to the ones that matter strategically.

Photo from Barack Obama of Obama 2008 Presidential Campaign from Flickr.com. Used with gratitude under a Creative Commons license. Click for terms.

Talking About It Can Help Break Bad Foundation Habits

Tip of the hat to James Irvine President James E. Canales for writing in an op-ed in this week’s Chronicle of Philanthropy that foundations should communicate more openly and engage more people in their work as part of an effort to “end bad habits” that limit their effectiveness. Canales says the current economic slump, and how it's forcing foundations to take a close look about how they operate, also offers unprecedented opportunities to "remind ourselves that how we do our work can be just as important as what we choose to do."

Among the habits that foundations need to break, says Canales, are those that give rise to "insularity, complacency, and arrogance." and which ultimately hamper their ability to work with and engage others outside their walls.

Among the remedies he offers, Canales urges foundations to embrace new communications "innovations that have swept society over the past decade."  For example, he says the "emergence of blogs" offers people a "means to engage in thoughtful and spirited public conversations about philanthropic strategies and choices.”

He goes on to say:

Each of us should give thought to how we might harness the power of technology, or other less sophisticated tools, to invite outside views into our decisions, to communicate openly about our work, to clarify what led to our conclusions, and to share what we have learned. In so doing, we will naturally find ways to engage other key players in the process. In the end, not only will we demonstrate our commitment to open and inclusive processes, but it is very likely that we will do a better job of achieving our social missions.

We can only hope his op-ed gets a lot of attention and generates thoughtful discussion among people inside and outside foundations.  Not only will this help break bad habits, it could give rise to better, more productive behavior.

__________________________________________

Also, for more on how foundations can take advantage of new communications technologies, read our report: Come On In. The Water's Fine. An Exploration of Web 2.0 Technology and its Emerging Impact on Foundation Communications

--Bruce Trachtenberg

Be Careful What You Wish For

Guest Post: Grant Oliphant

A few weeks back I taped a “newsmakers” feature for our local cable provider. They scatter these spots throughout the day and rerun them numerous times, so it seemed like a good way to promote the Pittsburgh Promise, a city-wide scholarship program we are supporting.

For a while I received more positive comments about that one interview than I had for any other media appearance I had ever done. And then, the other day, the coup de grace: an administrative assistant in our office received a call from an older woman who didn’t identify herself.

“Is this where that Grant guy works?” the woman demanded.

“Yes,” said our staffer cautiously.

“Does he know he’s on my TV every half hour?’

“I’m not sure, ma’am. We don’t really control that.”

At which point the caller said, “Well, is there any way to get him offa there?”

It just goes to show: Even when the news is good, never, ever let this media stuff go to your head.

Photo of /lalala from striatic on Flickr.com. Used with gratitude under a Creative Commons license. Click for terms,

The Tweet Sound of an Important Announcement

Guest Post: Edith Asibey

After more than a year of revisiting its programs and strategies in relative silence, earlier this week the Ford Foundation announced a significant overhaul.  The changes include streamlining the foundation’s areas of focus; committing to eight social justice issues; introducing a new set of strategies, and strengthening its investments in impact and evaluation.  

While it did a great job keeping this reorganization work to itself, the foundation more than made up for its silence via a well-executed and multi-pronged announcement effort that increased the foundation’s visibility in both traditional and social media. 

Ford President Luis Ubiñas communicated the changes via email to over 20,000 “friends” of the foundation, including its grantees.  A special section of its revamped website provides background about the changes, and discusses some of their implications.  But what really got attention was a New York Times article by Stephanie Strom announcing the overhaul.  Within the first 24 hours of publication, the foundation’s website traffic nearly tripled. 

The Times’ story—surely a good placement for Ford and for Ubiñas—focused more on the change process than on the significance of its plans for the foundation or for philanthropy at large.  We are, after all, talking about the second largest foundation in the country.  The story didn’t quite address the reasons for the changes; what the foundation expects to happen as a result; how it will monitor and measure its progress; or how it will engage with its constituencies moving forward. But these are all things one can look forward to…and based on the attention the announcement received, it’s likely a lot of people will be watching. 

On the morning the Times’ story ran, at least 60 original Twitter messages –- Tweets -- re-reported the news. Some of these Twitterers have over 1,000 followers; some have many more. Steve Case—chairman of the Case Foundation, who tweeted about the story, has almost 10,000 followers. Additionally, any of these followers could have ‘re-tweeted’ or forwarded the message to their own networks. This means that tens of thousands more heard the news without Ford having to do anything more to reach them. 

Most of the ‘tweets’ were variations of these messages, with a link to the Times’ story: 

New Leader Overhauls Ford Foundation

NYT article on changes being made by new head of Ford Foundation

Only a couple of tweets included some kind of reflection about the substance of the foundation’s changes: 

Glad to see that Ford Foundation has "Social Justice Philanthropy" as one of its new program areas. 

A Google blog search also indicated that most posts were basically rehashing the Times’ story. 

While it was encouraging to see so much interest in this story about a single foundation, and instructive to watch how quickly messages can spread via social networks, it was somewhat disappointing that most of the messaging was just people forwarding on what they read in the Times.  That seemed like a missed opportunity for more engagement and discussions about philanthropic strategy. 

To its credit, Ford’s revamped website offers interesting information about the substance of the changes, and hopefully many of the people who heard about the announcement have gone or will go to the website to learn more about the foundation’s plans.  Perhaps, over time, Ford will share information on how many people visit the special section and how many visitors submit questions to the foundation via a “talk to us” feature on the website. I’m hopeful, too, that the foundation will make regular progress reports and discuss the challenges it experiences as it implements its new plans. 

No doubt, many would consider this a successful announcement with good traction. Yet I also hope that the attention the foundation received lays the groundwork for a more engaging and broader conversation about the “eight significant social justice issues” the foundation is focusing on.  

Maybe I should start tweeting about that to get people talking. 

Disclaimer: the author of this post is an independent consultant.  In that capacity, she has consulted in the past to the Ford Foundation. However, she has not been involved with the strategic changes discussed in this post or with this week’s announcement by the Foundation.

When the Word Fits, Use It (But Don’t Misuse It)

For those of you who enjoy words (and that probably applies to anyone who visits a blog devoted to effective communications) I encourage you to click here and listen to a wonderful radio commentary by linguist Geoff Nunberg.  During his segment on the NPR program Fresh Air, Nunberg talks about how the Bernard Madoff scandal has left people scrambling to find just the right word to properly express their moral indignation, as well as to heap scorn on the "scoundrel" himself.  But as he explains, the most favored word -- sociopath -- in earlier years was actually used to “exonerate badness by reframing it as illness.” Today, he says, sociopath has become “a loose term of abuse for anybody you want to claim is unfettered by the pangs of conscience.”

I don’t know about you, but that seems wrong to me.

--Bruce Trachtenberg

Will Work For Meaning

Several years ago I attended a presentation of a case study the Harvard Business School had just  completed on the Edna McConnell Clark Foundation, my employer from 2000-2005.  The case study focused on the foundation’s transition, beginning in the late 1990s, to a new kind of grantmaking.  Instead of issuing requests for proposals, the foundation would identify a handful of potential grantees in the youth services field, conduct due diligence on the most promising ones, and then decide which would receive a package of support to help take their programs to scale to serve larger numbers of people.

The case study laid out the challenges the foundation’s then new leadership faced in moving to this new grantmaking approach, from getting the green light from the board to winning support from staff who were used to the ways they had always done things in the past.  It was neither a smooth, quick, nor easy process, and ultimately the foundation decided, over a period of several years, to completely remake itself, including bringing in almost an entirely new staff and (gracefully) ending all of its past work.

In a question-and-answer session that followed the presentation of the case study, Michael Bailin, president of the Edna McConnell Clark Foundation at the time, got into an interesting exchange with one of the Harvard students.  Describing herself as someone who had gone to business school specifically to learn about how businesses innovate to grow, earn more, and trump their competitors, she asked what could “possibly attract” her to work in what appeared to her as a “tradition-bound” sector where change was the exception rather than the rule?

Bailin paused for a moment and then said, “We need people like you to come to work for us and to help us create a culture of innovation.”

One thing that went unsaid that day, and which I found myself recalling this weekend as I read Frank Rich’s Sunday New York Times column, was whether foundation work could have offered enough rewards to attract such bright, inventive, and, yes, ambitious minds.  In other words, could doing good work be satisfying enough? 

After reading Rich’s column, I’m more convinced than ever that would have been a tough sell.  Back when we were at Harvard for the case study presentation, the “bubble decade” was in full force and, as Rich notes in his column, “making money as an end in itself boomed as a calling among students at elite universities like Harvard, siphoning off gifted undergraduates who might otherwise have been scientists, teachers, doctors, entrepreneurs, artists or inventors.” He cites statistics that show that of Harvard’s class of 2007, “58 percent of the men and 43 percent of the women entering the work force took jobs in the finance and consulting industries.”  He adds that graduates from schools such as Duke and the University of Pennsylvania, also in large numbers, made similar career choices.

Now that the market has crashed, and jobs on Wall Street are vanishing, will this usher in a return to people examining career choices, not just for the opportunity to make money, but to be engaged in meaningful work?  Not everyone is convinced.  For instance, Rich quotes Howard Gardner, a professor of education at Harvard and founder of the GoodWork Project, whose goal is to identify and promote “work that is excellent in quality, socially responsible, and meaningful to its practitioners.” Gardner told Rich that “he believes that many students may still be operating on the assumption that the world of finance will just pick up where it left off in a few years.”

Maybe so.  But perhaps there’s a role philanthropy can play to help put our bankrupt culture behind us.  Admittedly, philanthropy already is doing about all that it can to cope with the damage from the crash, and it might not be the time to ask foundations to take on one more task.  But, actually, this is one is a no-brainer, and it won’t cause anyone to break a sweat.  Instead, what if along with the efforts foundations already do to showcase their work and accomplishments, more start doing what some already are, and shine a light on the people who do the work, let them talk about what they are attempting to accomplish, and have them describe the meaning and satisfaction they get from doing good?

It’s a given that those who work for foundations and the nonprofits they support take to heart that their work is about doing good. But do they do and say enough to make others aware that this work is an attractive career choice?  Do foundations, in particular, do enough to communicate what it’s like to work inside these organizations and why this is something worth choosing rather than just the pursuit of money? In the process, foundations can help the nation recover what’s been lost – not trillions of dollars of evaporated wealth, but values that have gone missing, including the notion that there’s a place for ethical and meaningful work in our society.

If there ever were a time to make the case for this kind of work,so people start thinking about this as a meaningful career pursuit when hiring picks up again, it’s now.

--Bruce Trachtenberg

One More Word On The Topic, And Not A Moment Too Soon Or Too Late

Not surprisingly - and deservedly so in the view of many - the recent report from the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy (NCRP), “Philanthropy at its Best,” triggered a number of negative articles, editorials, commentaries, and blog postings. Many writers have taken issue with how NCRP virtually mandates that foundations make at least 50 percent of their grants “to benefit lower-income communities, communities of color and other marginalized groups.” Probably the most notable were comments from Hewlett Foundation President Paul Brest, whose four-part series in the Huffington Post took apart the recommendations line by line.

But wait there's more.

One recent commentator who finds both flaws and positive elements in the report, Albert Ruesga, also has used its publication to, among other things, recognize the communications opportunity inherent in any effort to make grantmaking more effective. In fact, Ruesga broke a nearly year-long silence to resume his much-loved and equally missed blog, White Courtesy Telephone, and weigh in on the report.

Ruesga maintains that at their heart, NCRP’s recommendations are “a plea for greater effectiveness in grantmaking.”  And to Ruesga, effective grantmaking requires that foundations be both more transparent about their work and willing to be held to account.

To that end, Ruesga asks out of: 

100 foundations [chosen] at random with assets of $250 million or more, dedicated to eradicating some social ill or other… let’s determine how many:
-- Have clearly articulated, reasonable, measurable goals for their grantmaking and publish these on their websites, inviting public comment.  And here I don’t mean copout goals like “we aim to improve public education in Anytown.”  If I sit down and provide one Anytown student 15 minutes of mentoring in algebra I will have succeeded in meeting that goal.  I will also meet the goal if I simply aim to mentor the student in question.
-- Have clearly articulated strategies for obtaining their goals, tied to compelling theories of change, and moreover publish the rationales for how they arrived at these strategies on their websites, inviting public comment.  Research indicates that this number will be vanishingly small if only because so few grantmakers develop strategies, or take the important step of exposing them to public scrutiny.
-- Measure their effectiveness against stated goals and report these results to the public.

Ruesga is right on the money arguing for more foundation openness and increased public engagement.  Foundations -- and all of us -- can only be better for it.

--Bruce Trachtenberg

A Listing I'd Like To See For a TV Documentary We Should Want To See

(Thanks to the Foundation Center and the Philanthropy News Digest blog, PhilanTopic, for cross-posting this item on its site.)

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I had a dream the other night that I opened my newspaper to the television listings page and saw this description: 

Great Giving: The Quest to Make a Difference--We all know the role government plays in providing for the public's needs.  But how much do Americans really know about private money -- whether from individuals or foundations -- which is given away to help individuals, families, and communities, and also solve larger root problems we face as a society?  Who are the people who have given, what has motivated them, and what have they accomplished?  Those are among the many questions explored in this 90-minute documentary film that focuses on the history, legacy, limitations, and future potential of philanthropy, a force for good that continues to shape our nation and, by extension, the world. 

I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised by the dream. Recently I’d been chatting with Gail Freedman, a filmmaker and friend, who has been on a quest the past several years to make just such a documentary, and which PBS is committed to airing nationally. While Freedman began work on Great Giving several years ago – and its form and focus have evolved and sharpened -- she is convinced that the film is even more relevant today than when she first conceived of the idea. The question, though, is whether she'll be able to complete the project because of fund-raising challenges she faces. But more on that later.

Freedman is among those who can readily cite facts and figures about the lack of public knowledge about philanthropy.  Yet she believes that deeper understanding of how philanthropy works, and doesn’t, could lead to lead to greater progress through greater  public engagement – especially in times like these, when we face unprecedented challenges.  But by and large, philanthropy still operates “beneath the public’s radar" and other than within insider circles themselves, "there is no forum for a broader discussion and broader comprehension of its potential."

Using the power of storytelling, Freedman’s project is meant to remedy some of those gaps in knowledge and engagement in several ways. First, the film itself will go beyond the rather thin and scattershot coverage of philanthropy we’re all used to. Instead, she intends to present "several in-depth, case studies of philanthropic passion, innovation, and in one case, hubris, that are representative of the diversity, scope, significance, and potential hazards of giving.” These stories, she adds, are “meant to “illuminate larger truths about our history – and by inference, about our present and our future.”  In its current incarnation, Freedman’s film has a narrative arc rooted in the past, but keenly relevant and resonant in the present.  She quotes Winston Churchill: “The farther backward you can look, the farther forward you can see.” 

She’s chosen to “mix things up” and combine stories about iconic figures whose names have become synonymous with giving alongside others who are relatively little known and less understood, but equally important (from Julius Rosenwald to Madam C.J. Walker to George Pullman – Pullman being a textbook case of philanthropy gone wrong).  Freedman hopes the film will convey both what philanthropy really can do to make a difference in the nation and the world, and what it can’t do – i.e., the limitations of private giving for public purposes.

Next she has plans for a range of public outreach to complement the televised film. These involve the Internet, special edition DVDs, print materials, etc., as well as an extensive program of screenings and special events all over the country.  Curricular materials may also be developed for use in schools (K-12), colleges, universities, and by NGOs, in America and around the world.

"My goal," says Freedman "is to produce a film and create opportunities for a range of complementary activities that can help galvanize public discussion, debate and awareness around this essential 'third sector' that is so crucial to our society and culture, and yet surprisingly little understood.  I know that a television film alone cannot change things, of course--but a television event can be a public catalyst for new perceptions and action."

Freedman is an award-winning independent filmmaker who has produced, directed and written a wide variety of projects for independent distribution, as well as PBS, network television, cable and syndication; and she also creates educational and non-profit work.  In fact, the commissioned films she makes for foundations and non-profits have given her an added “insider’s” view and have enriched her insights.  Her most recent production was Generation Rx, a documentary for MSNBC that aired in early March 2009, about the current epidemic of prescription drug abuse.

Ironically, and as noted, the one thing that’s holding Freedman back from finishing the project and getting it on air is money.  Completion funding has been hard to come by, even though she only needs about $300,000 – a relatively small sum for such a large project. Gifts and grants so far have come from a mix of corporate, individual, and foundation donors; but in reality, only a handful of foundations have stepped forward.

So right now, that's her dilemma.  She has a lot of terrific material already “in the can,” and she knows how to spin a great yarn and engage the public -- but she needs help.  There’s no argument that such a project could foster greater awareness of philanthropy in America and help spark a long overdue national conversation about its value and importance to our society and the world.

She’s giving it all she can. Maybe you can help too.  It's not just in her interest that this project should get finished, but ours, too. If you are interested in discussing her project, email Freedman.

--Bruce Trachtenberg

Maybe This Time The Spotlight Will Shine Longer than 15 Minutes

Obviously an event meant to make foundations look good and to raise their profile among lawmakers – i.e. the annual Foundations on the Hill – is bound to put a momentary gloss on philanthropy.  But based on how the Chronicle of Philanthropy is reporting on the event, this past week’s trip by grantmakers to meet and greet their representatives in Washington, D.C., might mean the sector is in for more than just 15 minutes of fame. 

According to the Chronicle, among the auspicious outcomes from the visit were comments like this one from an aide to Rep. Jim McDermott, a Democrat from Washington state.  He reportedly said that "Americans don’t fully understand the amount of good that philanthropic dollars do in their neighborhoods and cities." The article also quotes Christopher (Kit) J. Gillem, program director at the M.J. Murdock Charitable Trust, a foundation based in Vancouver, Wash. Gillem told the Chronicle he detected more interest this year and added that lawmakers were asking "how can we help you?"

Perhaps, though, the questions that more and more lawmakers should be asking - instead of “how can we help you?” - is “what are you doing that can help us, and by extension, the American people? And now that you've got our attention and interest, how can we learn more?”

After all, foundations, more or less, are in the solutions business. Their primary work is to invest in and support promising solutions to problems that have been afflicting this country a lot longer than ones resulting from the current economic downturn. And as foundation investments show promise, and as new ways of delivering services and attacking the problems emerge, one would hope Washington would welcome these solutions and find ways to help take them to scale either by funding them directly or in partnership with foundations as a part of a new, and long overdue, social betterment agenda.

After all, wasn’t the last election premised on a return to hope?  Hope so.

--Bruce Trachtenberg

Might Not Be the Kind of Reports Foundations Like to Write, But Certainly Worth Reading

There’s a lot to commend a recently released report from the Commonwealth Fund that presents a concise, well-written, and comprehensible overview of the market meltdown and its impact on private foundation giving.  Anyone looking for a good primer of what went wrong and how the crash will affect foundation operations and giving going forward will find the New Financial Realities: The Response of Private Foundations a good read.

Among other things, the report, written by John E. Craig, Jr., the foundation’s executive vice president and chief operating officer, provides a quick summary of the cause of the collapse, which Craig describes as “clear in hindsight as they were disregarded in the making.” 

Those signals included:
--Sustained increases in the U.S. money supply.
--Enormous credit expansion and indebtedness throughout the nation and world.
--Reluctance by the Federal Reserve to do anything to pierce the growing bubble.
--Weakening financial regulatory environment.
--Growth over the past 2 decades of “increasingly complicated financial instruments whose market value can be difficult to ascertain and whose risk can be easily misjudged.”
--Jump in risk-tasking “across all markets and investor groups.”

Of the possible rebound scenarios, Craig believes that the most likely is a return of between 5.7 to 10.4 percent over the next several years, providing we don’t suffer another sudden drop (that could see the S&P 500 plummet to 600 “or worse)."

Craig predicts that when the final tally is done, foundation losses between 2007 and 2008 will total $167 billion, or a 25 percent drop.

Craig estimates foundation giving between 2007 and 2009 will decline by about 6.5 percent, or nearly $3 billion. He writes that “at least in the short term, the effect of the market crash on giving will not be as great as it has been on foundation assets.” However, he adds that if the market doesn’t recover quickly, “the full impact of the crash will gradually come into play over the next several years.”

Talking about how his own foundation has been affected by the crash, Craig says that the Commonwealth Fund, which works to promote a high performing health care system in the nation, expects to reduce its spending by about 15 percent next year, another 10 percent the following year, and 8 percent in 2011-2012. However, he says the “Fund will make decisions on where to pare back spending based on strategic priorities, rather than simply applying across the board cuts.” 

It was especially heartening to read the value Commonwealth places on human assets, including communications. He writes, “The Fund regards its intramural professional staff as its most important asset, embodying intellectual capital that has taken years to develop.” Among the “signature” activities the foundation expects to maintain, says Craig,  "are its uniquely rich Websites (commonwealthfund.org and WhyNotTheBest.org)."

A hat tip for a thoughtful analysis, jargon-free discussion, and helpful context for how foundations are likely to fare in these uncertain times.

--Bruce Trachtenberg

Why Let The Facts Spoil Your Beliefs

In his New York Times column today, Nicholas D. Kristof offers some thoughts that should chill the hearts of any of us whose work involves trying to make convincing, cogent, and well-fashioned arguments that are meant to persuade people to think or behave differently. As he writes, “…there’s pretty good evidence that we generally don’t truly want good information — but rather information that confirms our prejudices. We may believe intellectually in the clash of opinions, but in practice we like to embed ourselves in the reassuring womb of an echo chamber."

Kristof says this problem is being exacerbated by the decline of the traditional news media, where, like it or not, we’re exposed to more than just the things we want to read or know about.  Instead, more of us rely on self-selected online sources that provide “news and opinions that we care most about.”

Kristof adds that "this self-selected 'news' acts as a narcotic, lulling us into a self-confident stupor through which we will perceive in blacks and whites a world that typically unfolds in grays."

If all that isn’t disturbing enough, also upsetting are findings from a study he cites.  The study found that when Republicans and Democrats were offered  “neutral” political research, respondents said what they most wanted were “intelligent arguments that strongly corroborated their pre-existing views.” At the same time, “there was little interest in encountering solid arguments that might undermine one’s own position.”

Kristof’s “solution,” if you can call it that, is less than perfect.  But it does make sense: “The only way forward,” he says “is for each of us to struggle on our own to work out intellectually with sparring partners whose views we deplore. Think of it as a daily mental workout analogous to a trip to the gym; if you don’t work up a sweat, it doesn’t count.”

Hey, I don’t know about you, but I agree with him.

--Bruce Trachtenberg

Photo from  sokabs on Flickr.com. Used with gratitude under a Creative Commons license. Click for terms.

Notable, Quotable, and Applaudable

For those of us who deal in words, and sometimes struggle over what to say so our messages are meaningful and, more so, “sticky,” we also can’t ignore the genius of the moment when an apparently unscripted phrase trumps all. 

Kudos to  Atlantic Philanthropies founder Charles Feeney. Commenting to the New York Times on Thursday about the foundation’s $125 million gift to the University of California San Francisco Medical Center – its largest – and coming during a period of rapidly declining foundation asset value, not to mention individual wealth, Feeney said:

 “Just think, if wealthy people had given away more of the money they had over the last decade, they wouldn’t have lost it.”

Perhaps, too, the comment is bittersweet, coming on the same day that Bernard Madoff, standing in a federal courtroom elsewhere in New York City, pled guilty for his crimes that cost people a collective $65 billion.

A lot of that money had been intended to be “given away,” not "lost."

--Bruce Trachtenberg

It's Later Than You Think

Reading a recent Urban Institute report by Francie Ostrower about donors that opt to limit the life of their foundations rather than establish them in perpetuity, I was surprised -- as apparently the report's author was -- by "how infrequently limited life foundations linked their longevity plans to their overall philanthropic mission, strategy, and impact." That observation called to mind two things. One, that for many foundations the oft-repeated quote "Nothing focuses the mind like imminent death" didn't apply. And the second was an exercise we once used to kick off a strategic planning session at a foundation I worked at in which everyone present had to answer the question: What if the foundation ceased to exist tomorrow? Who would miss us?

In light of the Madoff affair and the rapidly sinking stock market, one needs to be careful when talking about limited-life foundations, sunsetting, or spending down. That said, it can be helpful -- especially from a communications vantage point -- to think both retrospectively and prospectively about your foundation as if its time were limited. Imagine you were a communications director charged with coming up with the annual report to end all annual reports. What would it say? How would you describe your foundation's accomplishments? Would you have the evidence to back up your claims? Or would those achievements rest on a pile of anecdotes destined to fade over time? Could you tell a story rich with lessons? Would your foundation be remembered for the impact it created and in a way that positively highlighted what philanthropy can accomplish when done well?

If you work at a foundation, why wait for the final eclipse to grapple with these questions? They should be top of mind every day -– along with a host of others for which you should have ready (or regularly updated) answers should anyone ask what your organization has done, is doing, or hopes to accomplish.

Don't wait until it's too late.

--Bruce Trachtenberg

Photo of Black hole Sun from betelgeux on Flickr.com - used with gratitude under a Creative Commons license -- click for terms.

Clock Is Ticking For Fall 2009 Conference Submissions

Just a reminder...if any of you have session ideas for the Communications Network's Fall 2009 conference in NYC, you only have 2 more weeks to send in your proposals.  Below is a summary of what we're looking for and how you can contribute.

This year's conference, which will be held Oct. 14-16, at the Ford Foundation's landmark headquarters building in mid-town Manhattan, is being organized around four themes. If you would like to develop and sponsor a session that you think fits one of the proposed topic areas, please email the following information: your name and affiliation, session title and which area the session will fall under. Include a maximum 500-word description of your session and proposed format. Deadline for session submissions is March 23, 2009.

SESSION TRACKS:

• Communications ideas and lessons from the interactive front—There seem to be an insatiable appetite for all things related to new media, web sites, technology, etc., so we are interested in anything YOU can tell us to make others feel more cutting-edge and in the know. However, you’ve got to articulate a coherent theme and people always love interactive, show-and-tell.

• Tough times, strong voice: Making the case for strategic communications—In these challenging economic times, foundation budgets are shrinking and communications staff and budgets are sometimes viewed as expendable add-ons, rather than essential ingredients of any philanthropy’s effort to demonstrate impact. We are looking for the stories and the examples where the impact could not have happened without a sterling communications effort. And, we would like these case studies to be vividly described, with clear results that conference attendees can share with their home organizations and grantees and others.

• Integrating program and communications: Making the marriage work—To advance the practice and impact of strategic communications in philanthropy, we need more than communications professionals to “get it.” We need foundation leaders, program staff, and research staff to understand why and how communications can help achieve social change goals. We are looking for the best examples of how these relationships can work together. We will also take dysfunctional examples, if you’re willing to showcase your differences and undergo group therapy from the session attendees.

• Policy/advocacy: what is philanthropy’s role? Many foundations actively reach out to policy-makers in relation to specific initiatives they fund. What are the different ways we characterize philanthropy’s role in social change efforts? How effective are we at reaching out to policy audiences? And are there things we aren’t doing that we should be doing? Again, would welcome session ideas on best practices as well as, “learn from what we are not doing.”

After we receive the initial session ideas, we will provide more details about the agenda and exciting keynote speakers by late spring or early summer.

Thank you in advance for your great ideas.

In the meantime, if you have questions about the conference, send an email.

Photo of Bombay Clock from Natmandu on Flickr.com - used with gratitude under a Creative Commons license -- click for terms.

A Study In Contrasts About How to Get People Talking (Or Not)

The recent public releases of two entirely different studies and recommendations of how to do philanthropy more effectively stand in interesting contrast with one another, especially if one of the goals was to get people talking about the ideas each contain.

A few weeks ago the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation released a white paper arguing for a “robust marketplace of information about charitable activity” to provide donors what they need to make smart decisions about giving and to “ensure that the strongest, most effective nonprofits get the resources they need.”

Earlier this week, the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy unveiled a report that claims “grantmakers are not delivering as much social benefit as they could” and which urges the adoption of a “set of measurable guidelines foundations and other grantmaking institutions can use to maximize their contributions to society and make a positive difference in the world today.”

Interestingly, at least to this observer, is how the two announcements and some of the ancillary activities connected with the release of both reports set the tone for the discussion and debate that would inevitably follow.

The Hewlett announcement quoted one of the authors of the report saying: “This study is just a starting point.  We hope it will launch a deep and broad discussion in the philanthropic community about how to get dollars to the strongest nonprofits."  At the same time, and on the website where the report is available to be downloaded, the foundation set up a forum so those who want to can discuss it online. (For more on Hewlett's online forum, click here.)

While also saying that it, too, wants to “encourage dialogue” among foundation staff and trustees, the release NCRP issued contained what might be construed as a somewhat overly defensive warning:  “NCRP … anticipates considerable resistance to the new guidelines from many of the country's philanthropic organizations and trade associations.”

There’s no argument that philanthropy can’t be improved and that new ways are needed, and It’s good to see foundations and other groups taking the lead on pushing for change.  But because it goes without saying that there’s going to be resistance and some challenges offered any time someone says things can be done differently, why do you need to say that?

Rather than needlessly characterizing criticism that's likely to come as unwanted, isn’t it wiser to welcome healthy disagreement and encourage people to take their best shots?  Out of that back and forth real progress can be made and people invited to be part of a solution rather than forced to take sides.

--Bruce Trachtenberg

(Since putting up this post, Susan Parker, a communications consultant, sent her latest "ezine,"  in which she makes some similiar points and, above all, why respect for all points of view are key to successful communication. She writes: When you take the best of people's points of views, you show that you value their contribution...When you take the time to really listen to someone else, rather than think about what to say next or what's wrong with their argument, you'll likely learn something as well.

I hear you, loud and clear.

If At First You Don’t Succeed, Admit You Failed

In recent years, a number of foundations have taken a refreshingly open approach to admitting when things go wrong.  Talking about foundation failure, was even a session at the Network’s 2007 fall conference in Chicago.  Now, in its debut issue, the new peer-reviewed journal about philanthropy, Foundation Review, contains an  insightful analysis of why publicly “sharing and reflecting upon mistakes” is essential to philanthropic practice and foundation transparency.  In their article, authors Robert Giloth, Ph.D., director of Family Economic Success at the Annie E. Casey Foundation and Susan Gewirtz, senior associate at the foundation, discuss examples of past foundation “mistakes” and how lessons learned from failure can lead to better practice across all foundations.  They note that open grantmakers, versus their “secretive” counterparts, while not necessarily more effective, earn kudos for being better communicators and helping advance knowledge and fostering a culture of learning and adaptation.

Giloth and Gewirtz acknowledge that because one of philanthropy’s roles is to provide “high-risk financial resources to solve messy social problems and improve our overall quality of life,” it’s inevitable that mistakes will occur.  Not talking about them, the authors say, “would be the biggest mistake of all.”  Amen!

--Bruce Trachtenberg

Read Any Good Budgets Lately?

Every foundation communicator at one time or another is given the task of turning academic prose, research findings or something impenetrable into a more accessible form for more general consumption and wide distribution.  As I look back on my past foundation days, I cannot personally think of a challenge that would have been more daunting than being handed the assignment of creating a compelling narrative to introduce the budget of the United States of America, and especially the budget that the Obama administration introduced this week.  Well, hats off to the team that prepared the introductory narratives.  

It’s worth going to the budget website and downloading any of the following sections:

President’s Message
Inheriting a Legacy of Misplaced Priorities
Jumpstarting the Economy and Investing for the Future
Conclusion

While not beach or late night reading, it’s amazingly well written and well worth your time. And talk about staying on message, using clear and forceful writing, and sprinkling the right number of fact and figures  throughout. (One negative: the charts are so-so). Oh, and did I say, no jargon?

Here are some snippets from one of the most interesting of the sections, Inheriting a Legacy of Misplaced Priorities, which lays out the case for why an entirely new approach to government spending and oversight is needed, and more the point, how we got into the mess we are are in:

This is the legacy that we inherit—a legacy of mismanagement and misplaced priorities, of missed opportunities and of deep, structural problems ignored for too long.  It’s a legacy of irresponsibility, and it is our duty to change it.

No one reading this report needs to be told that our economy is in crisis. We have lost jobs for 13 consecutive months for a total of 36 million jobs lost.  According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, more jobs were lost last year than in any year since data collection of this kind began in 1939.

For the past eight years, in a time of economic growth, the Government spent recklessly on tax cuts for the few and hand-outs for the well-off and well-connected, mismanaged billions of dollars in taxpayer money, and failed to honor the responsibilities we have to future generations.

Massive new programs have routinely been omitted from the Budget to mask their true cost, while a new entitlement program and massive tax cuts were proposed and signed into law without any attempt to pay for them.

It is no coincidence that the policy failures of the past eight years have been accompanied by unprecedented Governmental secrecy and unprecedented access by lobbyists and the well-connected to policymakers in Washington. Consequently, the needs of those in the room trump those of their fellow citizens.

With a government that is accountable to the people, we can jumpstart our economy in a way that is both quick and wise, and begin to make the long-term investments in areas long neglected.

(A special thanks to Chuck Sheketoff for bringing this material to my attention via a Facebook link.  Sheketoff is executive director and a founder of the Oregon Center for Public Policy, a non-profit, non-partisan research institute that uses research and analysis to advance policies and practices that improve the economic and social opportunities of low- and moderate-income Oregonians, the majority of Oregonians.)

--Bruce Trachtenberg

Worth a Listen: Foundation Advice On How To Spend Stimulus Money Well

Just a couple days after bemoaning the difficulty foundations have in getting media coverage, I've just listened to a replay of an excellent piece on NPR this morning -- The Art of Doling Out Stimulus Dollars -- that features interviews with representatives of the Gates and Pittsburgh Foundations, and other philanthropy observers, about what lessons grantmakers can provide the government when it comes to giving out lots of money effectively.  One of the best quotes is from Network Chair Emeritus and Pittsburgh Foundation President Grant Oliphant: "The whole idea that the government could have given away $350 billion to the banks without setting clear expectations for how that money would be used boggles the mind for those of us who work in philanthropy."

--Bruce Trachtenberg

The Brave New World of Social Networking or How to Stop Worrying and Let Go

Poll-tested messages are great.  Focus groups rock.  There is security in knowing exactly which buttons  to push to get the desired outcome.  But the world has changed. Today -- especially due to the rise of social media -- we  have to base our change and advocacy campaigns on a new paradigm.  It's no more top down/command and control. Instead, the key is giving people what they want and need to be our best messengers, and encourage them to "just do it."  

So, what's a communicator to do?

Trust the  Wisdom of the Crowds. Marty Kearns is the founder of NetCentric Campaigns and was one of the early thought leaders on how philanthropy could use social media.  He often challenges communicators with the provocative question What would you do if you had 10,000 people for 10 minutes? What do you do when you don’t have control over the messenger or even the message – but have a willing army of messengers? 

Don't control the message. Just days after the passage of Proposition 8 in California, angry supporters of gay marriage took to the street while leadership was busy disseminating their own post-election messaging.  Leaders strained to take “control” of this tide – but instead learned to embrace it and make it another part of the overall campaign.

The new model encourages individuals to be more direct and to share their personal stories with voters, with peers, and with those who may disagree.  The movement is making the bet that one person, speaking in her own voice, on-line or off-line, can be more persuasive than packaged messaging built off polling and focus groups.  

Share the tools and get out of the way. Ken Banks is the founder of Kiwanja.net and the award-winning creator of a free software tool called Frontline SMS.  His software uses text messaging to educate, communicate and connect people to make change happen at a rapid pace especially in remote locales.  There are over 1,500 non-profits and NGOs using the text messaging platform and each is using it differently. 

One of the most exciting examples of text messaging at work is in election monitoring.  During the 2007 presidential elections in Nigeria, voters faced the problem of vote fraud and intimidation.  International monitors and local NGOs saw text messaging as a way to gather and share stories of election intimidation in nearly real-time.  In making the text messaging option available, they reaped three benefits.   Voters felt more engaged and trusting in the process.  Those thinking about doing something nefarious had to think twice as they were being watched by millions of texters.  And a small international election monitoring force suddenly grew in size, scope and authority.

Remember that it's not a panacea yet.  The budget process in most states is never a pretty process.  Here in California, because a two-thirds majority is required pass the budget and to enact any revenue enhancements, a few members of the legislative minority wield disproportionate control. That control has an odd effect on the implementation of new advocacy tools. In the most recent fight over the budget, listeners of right-wing radio were mobilized and whipped into an e-fury.  They emailed and blogged – all with a goal to get members to oppose a budget with new taxes.  In the end, a few Republicans broke ranks, risking their careers and the wrath of the anti-tax mob.

At the same time, progressive advocates watched as years of hard work and policy advances, built off of patient grassroots work, were traded away to get final passage.  The progressives watched their own e-fury fail to do what good old fashioned political horse trading accomplished – get someone to make an unpopular decision.

The lesson here is that the online tools and emerging advocacy strategies are never a substitute for good old fashioned political strategy – but they sure can amplify its reach, power and pace.

Dan Cohen is Founder and Principal at Full Court Press Communications in Oakland, California. 
Holly Minch provides strategic communications consulting for nonprofit organizations, foundations and public interest groups.

Photo of Skydive Vietnam, BFR forming from divemasterking2000 on Flickr.com - used with gratitude under a Creative Commons license -- click for terms.

Bumper Sticker Nation

Anyone who deals in the fine art of creating and delivering messages, especially messages tied to deeper ideas and meaty issues that require thoughtful debate and consideration, will benefit from reading an op-ed in today’s New York Times by Stephen L. Carter, novelist and Yale law professor, about the controversy resulting from remarks about race that Attorney General Eric Holder made last week.

In a 2,300-word speech about how America talks about race, and which was written for Black History Month, the one phrase that was picked up, commented on and criticized was Holder’s description of the U.S. as “a nation of cowards.”

As Carter points out, in the ensuing coverage of and conversation about Holder's remark, the context for his comment got drowned out in the criticism that followed.  Carter says Holder was actually trying to make the point that we still do a poor job discussing race in this country.  He writes: “The truly intriguing aspect is not what the attorney general had to say about race, but rather what he had to say about the way in which we discuss it.  ‘Our national conversation on race,’ said Mr. Holder, “‘is too often simplistic and left to those on the extremes who are not hesitant to use these issues to advance nothing more than their narrow self interest.’”

Carter says this rush to reduce larger issues to simplistic “sloganeering” and “applause lines” makes it difficult to engage in meaningful debate about serious issues. “Whether we argue over war or the economy, marriage or religion, abortion or guns, we reduce our ideas to just the right size for the adolescent tantrum of the bumper sticker.”  He adds: “…democracy needs dialogue more than it needs bumper stickers.”

Nicely said. And, yes, too many words for a bumper sticker.

--Bruce Trachtenberg

Foundations Need to Make Themselves More Central to Philanthropy Beat Coverage

Just had a good news/bad news experience – quite literally.  I was invited to listen to a panel earlier today that featured several journalists and bloggers talking to other journalists and bloggers about how to step up their philanthropy beat coverage during these tumultuous economic times. 

The good news is that there’s interest in philanthropy and that those who cover the topic either routinely or as part of other things they write about are looking for tips, guidance sources, types of stories, facts, figures, etc. 

The bad news: few foundations were mentioned during the 90-minute gathering either as primary story topics or as sources for leads. Instead, the interest mostly zeroed in on identifying notable nonprofits, and how they are likely to fare in the days ahead -- will they be forced to merge or wil they go out business? -- as well as what kind of role the Obama administration is expected to play in funneling public dollars to organizations on the forefront of delivering social services in communities.

To his credit, Tactical Philathropy’s Sean Stannard-Stockton, a panelist, mentioned several foundations he follows, and why.  In addition he handed out a reprint of a nearly three-year-old Chronicle of Philanthropy op-ed that I co-authored, along with Grant Oliphant, chair emeritus of the Network and president of the Pittsburgh Foundation, arguing media coverage of foundations was falling far short.  We pointed out in the piece that while generally favorable, most coverage of foundations rarely went beyond the number and size of grants, and failed to look at the bigger story of what foundations are accomplishing or trying to.

It's almost three years later.  Why is it still so difficult for many foundations -- except the largest -- to be seen as worthy stories, or more than funders of their grantees?  What can we do to increase coverage and “encourage” philanthropy beat reporters to actually write more about foundations?  It’s not that we haven’t been trying, and not that we won’t continue, but how do we be seen and heard by more journalists out there looking for good stories?  I'm sure there are some great examples of where these efforts to increase coverage are working, and some great stories about foundations are being told.  If so, let's see how others can benefit from what's being learned, and which strategies and tactics are the most effective.

Let’s get a discussion going.

--Bruce Trachtenberg

Photo of Newspaper Stands from Will Hybrid on Flickr.com - used with gratitude under a Creative Commons license -- click for terms.

Hey Buddy, Can You Spare A Lot Of Dimes? Or The Tale of The $60 Million Man

The deluge of bad economic news (even on one of those rare uptick days) keeps the markets shaky. People are looking for signs of confidence everywhere, and it seems to me foundations have such confidence-bolstering examples in great quantities. From Miami comes a good-news story of Leonard Abess Jr. of City National Bank, who valued his employees so much he shared the wealth ($60 million worth). We hear he’ll be featured tonight in President Obama’s speech. Read the story, but more notably, read the reaction.

The huge response tells me people are starved for news that bolsters our collective confidence. That’s a frame that works for just about any foundation-funded effort, whether it’s housing, education, services, or opportunity. Th e dedication our grant recipients bring to the greater good inspires my confidence. Think about it as you plan your storytelling efforts.

--Larry "Bud" Meyer

Can You Hear Me Now?

Hat tip to fellow Communications Network members Will Bohlen of the German Marshall Fund of the United States and communications consultant Denise Graveline. Through a link Bohlen put on the Network's Facebook page and one of Graveline's "don't get caught" blog posts, I heard about GMF's first-ever audio annual report, which is featured on the Network website. 

It's an interesting story on a couple of levels. One it's a move in the direction a lot of us are pushing to eliminate costly and not terribly useful print versions of foundation annual reports -- with the goal of getting rid them in any form eventually -- because they don't appear to be effective at increasing understanding or awareness of foundations and philanthropy.  Two, it's another example of thinking creatively about how to find people where they are and give them what they need.  As Bohlen explains, GMF has a large collection of podcasts and event recordings from the work they do all year round. So, why not recycle/repackage and produce an audio companion to the foundation's traditional annual report?

Have a listen...

--Bruce Trachtenberg

What's Black and White and Read All Over, and Fading From View?

A lot has been written and blogged lately about whether the newspaper business, as we've known it for centuries, can survive, and whether online news services can replace what’s lost.  If you want to read a superb analysis of the problem and why, in his view, online news distribution alone, is not a solution,  Paul Starr’s article in the current New Republic -- even with its dire warnings -- won't disappoint. 

Among some Starr's points and predictions:

“The decline of newspapers and the growth of the Internet as a source of news may have a similar impact. On the one hand, there is likely to be less incidental learning among those with low political interest. Like the entertainment-oriented TV viewers who learned about the world because they had no alternative except to sit through the national network news, many people who have bought a paper for the sports, the recipes, the comics, or the crossword puzzle have nonetheless learned something about the wider world because they have been likely at least to scan the front page. Online, by contrast, they do not necessarily see what would be front-page news in their city, and so they are likely to become less informed about news and politics as the reading of newspapers drops.”

Starr, who is Stuart professor of communications and public affairs at the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton University, also notes -- to their favor -- that online media do offer “mechanisms for filtering information for reliability and relevance, organizing it into easily navigated paths, and raising it to higher levels of public debate, contrary to critics who have worried that the Internet would be a chaotic Babel or a polarized system of ‘echo chambers.’"  But Starr also worries worries that “some of these innovations are mixed blessings: people can now share their misinformation as well as their knowledge. Viral email, Twitter, and social network sites can be used to spread rumors and malice through channels hidden from the wider public and insulated from criticism.”

Starr is among those who sees benefit turning newspapers into nonprofits, and he prefers philanthropic support over government subsidies: “...If we want a press that is independent of political control, we cannot have government sponsoring or bailing out specific papers." Noting that over the past half century, state and federal support has “enabled public TV and radio stations to become important sources of news,” Starr adds that the “dependence of many local stations on state government funding makes them vulnerable to political pressure and unlikely to fill the void left by the decline in newspaper coverage of the states. Virtually any proposal for government subsidies of the press today would likely fail on just these grounds: funding by the federal government or the states has too much potential for political manipulation.” 

Some of the current nonprofit news operations he cites include ProPublica, "an independent, non-profit newsroom that produces investigative journalism in the public interest” and the newly launched Kaiser Health News, which was started by the Kaiser Family Foundation (and which you can read more about here).

Clearly this is a subject that will continue to be discussed, debated and analyzed online and off. The future of newspapers -- and all the surrounding concerns about how news is distributed and consumed -- affects philanthropy in significant ways.  Above all, independent quality reporting is important for informing the public and policymakers about many key issues at the heart of the work foundations do.  

--Bruce Trachtenberg

Some Things Bear Repeating...(Over and Over Again)

Over the course of many moves, I sadly misplaced my copy of The Elements of Style by William Strunk, Jr. and E.B. White. Hands down, it's the best guide to writing ever written.  In a nod to Strunk and White, blogger Dean Rieck has developed an equally useful and incredibly concise one-page writing guide that you should print out and paste to your computer. 

Here’s a taste: 

Good writing is like a store window. It should be clean and clear, providing an unobstructed view of the contents within.

Get to the point. Say what you mean. Use specific nouns.

Use short paragraphs. Look at any newspaper and notice how short the paragraphs are. That’s done to make reading easier since our brains take in information better when ideas are broken into small chunks.

Since your purpose is to communicate and not impress, simple words work better than big ones. Write “get” instead of “procure.” Write “use” rather than “utilize.”

--Bruce Trachtenberg

Photo of Lead Type from jm3 on Flickr.com - used with gratitude under a Creative Commons license -- click for terms.

Only Visionaries Can Spot A Sea Change

Our resident jargon maven, Tony Proscio, dropped by the other day to leave his comments on two words recently submitted to our Jargon Finder: visionary and sea change.

Visionary

"Visionary" used to be one of those exceptional, superlative terms reserved for extraordinary people capable of remarkable things. But such words tend to fall, sooner or later, into a kind of inflationary spiral -- think of "brilliant," "unique," "amazing," and "genius" -- after which they end up being applied to practically everyone who is capable of sitting up and taking solid food. In its pre-inflationary use, "visionary" described people who see things that others do not see: distant horizons, undiscovered worlds, future ages, secret laws of the universe. (In some uses of the word, dating back at least to Jonathan Swift, the "visions" of visionary people weren't always considered so inspiring. The Oxford English Dictionary includes among its definitions of the term "given to fanciful and unpractical views," and cites several 18th and 19th century uses with that meaning. Lately, though, the term is most often meant to be flattering.) 

How many people, would you say, can really see visions unavailable to most mortals? I don't know the answer to that question, but I'm pretty sure the number isn't as high as 27,000. That's how many times a Communications Network member found the word used on LinkedIn. Some of those uses apparently entailed people applying the word to themselves. That kind of goofy immodesty makes me suspect that these folks' "visions" don't include seeing what's in the mirror. 

It's too bad, really. Every once in a while, you really do run across someone who seems able to peer deep into the misty realms beyond the imaginations of most of us regular people. There used to be a fine word to describe such a rare being. There isn't any more.

Sea Change

A "change wrought by the sea" can be a frightening and unpredictable thing -- a wrenching that sets you on a new course, willy-nilly, at the summons of vast, inscrutable forces.  Or it can be a mystical transformation, the way the churning of the sea turns a Coke-bottle shard into a jewel-like specimen of polished glass. Shakespeare had the latter kind of transformation in mind when he placed the phrase in the mouth of the spirit Ariel in Act I of  "The Tempest." In one of the play's most famous songs, the sprite leads young Prince Ferdinand to believe that his father's dead body lies "full fathom five" beneath the ocean. No part of the king's body has faded, Ariel sings, "But doth suffer a sea-change / Into something rich and strange." 

Whatever kind of change may be wrought by the sea, you'd expect it to be something overpowering, life-altering, mystical, or some combination of the three. And the term, with its high literary origins, would seem right only for the most intentionally poetic uses. Unfortunately, it seems to pop up every time the tide shifts, and to apply to every turn of events whether large or small. 

The writer and part-time lexicographer Michael Quinion, on his literary blog "World Wide Words," passes a judgment on this trend that sums up the case perfectly. "Pundits and commentators who think ["sea-change"] has something to do with the ebb and flow of the tide," he writes, "and use it for a minor or recurrent shift in policy or opinion, are doing a grave injustice to one of the most evocative phrases in the language. I wish a figurative full fathom five to such people."

Thanks, Tony, and if any of you have words that need exposing, please email us.

Start Telling Before Anyone Asks

My friend Rick Cohen sent me a collection of his recent articles on the economic meltdown and what's ahead for charities and foundations.  Toward the bottom of his extensive list was a link to a sobering piece he did titled Lessons for Charities and Foundations from Bernie Madoff. 

In his lead, Cohen writes:

The press has been tallying the losses to investors, operating charities, and foundations, but there has been precious little analysis of what this means for the needed monitoring and oversight of how some foundations handle their–our–tax exempt dollars

Rick's words sounded like a warning shot across the bow.

Seems to me that if you are responsible your foundation's communications you better become ultra-familiar  -- if not already -- with your organization's finances: your balance sheet; how the endowment is invested, including types of asset classes; the returns (and losses); as well as how your foundation selects, monitors, and evaluates its investment managers; the performance benchmarks it uses, etc.

If you don't have a lot of experience in this area, start now.  Make your CFO your best friend.

In the past, when foundation assets were growing at a rapid pace, there was little interest, and no story. But these days, this soon could be an area of increased news media scrutiny.  To the degree you can, perhaps now is the time to start sharing some of this financial data, and more than you have in the past, and with a greater degree of explanation.  Make sure this information can be found easily on your website. That way, you won't have to worry about someone first asking you to tell. It already will be there.

If any of you have examples of how you make information about your financial activities more transparent, and beyond posting your financial statements and 990s, leave a comment and share relevant links.

--Bruce Trachtenberg

Let There Be No Doubt!

The Minnesota Council of Foundations has just started an important and timely conversation on its blog, Philanthropy Potluck.  Bill King, president, writes about the rumblings in Washington from a few lawmakers that government can only do so much and it's up to philanthropy to "fill the gap" in services. He writes: "While it is not unusual to have elected officials...create an expectation that philanthropy fill the gaps of government cutbacks or budget shortfall, it is the stark reality that the capacity to do so simply is not there. And, quite frankly, it is not the role of philanthropy in our society to fill the gaps left by government."

King's comments serve as an important reminder that there's no time like the present -- and maybe even more so than in past years -- for foundations to be both aggressive and strategic in communicating their unique role in our society.  Foundations should seize this moment to make the case about what they are best equipped to do -- either on their own or in partnership with government -- during these tumultuous times (as well as once the crisis begins to ease).  Otherwise some will just continue to see foundations as deep pockets waiting to be tapped. 

If any of you or your organizations have examples of what you are doing to make the case, let us know. If you want to join in with your colleagues and discuss a sector-wide response, we'll help.

--Bruce Trachtenberg

What's On Your Mind?

We started the Communications Network blog last Fall as a way to report on and give people a chance to comment on discussion topics and sessions at our 2008 Chicago conference.  We let anyone at the conference submit a post.  Based on the success we had last Fall, we decided to keep this blog going as a way to keep people talking about communications practices -- everything from "big ideas" about how  to excel at being a communicator to the routine things that are worth reminding ourselves about.  We want this to be a place where people can pose questions, seek answers, spark debate, and even have fun. This is an open blog -- which means if you have something to say that you think is of interest to others who are working to advance communications practices in philanthropy, we want to hear from you. During these uncertain (to put it mildly) and challenging times, this blog can become a very useful place to trade ideas, check in with each other, and float discussion topics

To submit posts, send an email .

Thanks, and look forward to hearing from you.

There's A First Time For Everything

I have been among those leading the tirade against continuing to produce foundation annual  reports. I believe, as do some others (and I hope a growing number), that the considerable investment in time and money yields a negligible return and is actually an enormous opportunity cost: How else could those precious resources have been spent to achieve greater purpose and have more impact?

Then, this week, Bill Gates issued his first annual letter. In the wake of the incredible attention it received – when's the last time a columnist for the New York Times wrote about a foundation president's annual letter? – I had to pause for a moment. Was I wrong?  Is there a future for the foundation annual report after all?

I quickly regained my senses and realized that the buzz about Bill Gate's letter changed nothing. The attention and commentary it received didn't herald a new future for annual reports.  Instead it showed that under the right circumstances, and with careful planning and excellent execution, foundations can capture public attention (even if it's just for 15 minutes) about themselves and their work.

The way I see it, the Gates Foundation and its communications team saw a moment and seized it. And in the process, they brought considerable attention, not just to the foundation, but to philanthropy in general – its role, purpose, and impact in our world. But to think they can score as effectively next year is highly unlikely.  You only get to do something for the first time once.

So if there's a lesson in this story, it's this: What you say and to whom always should come ahead of how and in what form – or medium – in which you plan to say it.  And just because you did it that way yesterday, doesn't mean it will work the same for you tomorrow.  Also, and unfortunately, in all too many instances, the decision to publish comes first, and what to say is secondary.

--Bruce Trachtenberg

Three Things We Social Changemakers Can Learn from Obama’s Speech

First - Be Direct

The inaugural speech was brief, direct and to the point.  The President was clear in his call to launch an era of responsibility – talking about why this needs to happen, how it could happen, and providing examples about how we have done it before.  Unlike most political speeches, this moment did not call for an anecdote about one American who had done extraordinary things. This speech really was an attempt to reach and engage each and every one of us.

Second - Make your ask

The President was not shy about asking for help.  He called on each citizen to serve others.  This was not a new call to action – but one that was pitch perfect for the moment in time in which it was delivered.  Just the day before, millions of Americans were moved to participate in service projects on Martin Luther King Day.  How better to build off of this momentum than to include it in a speech listened to by billions.

Third - Know your audience & always target

A friend of ours is fond of saying, “The general public is not a target audience.”  So true – even on Inaugural Day.  The speech was not meant to be all things to all people – but recognized that there were specific constituencies – domestic and foreign – each of whom needed to hear very specific messages on this critical day.  To young people – a call to serve.  To foreign dictators – a call to loosen the grip of despotism and meet America’s open hand of friendship.  To cynics – a call to recognize that the world has changed and there is little time to stand on the sidelines and jeer.  And finally, to political leaders of both parties – this train, Obama’s political agenda, is moving so you’d better be on it or risk getting left behind.

And as a bonus…Respect the moment

With billions around the world watching, the Inaugural Committee and the President created stagecraft that was simple, elegant, and respectful of our nation’s history.   Much like the punch held back by Ali during the second Liston fight, there was no need to belabor the historic nature of the day.  Instead, by reveling in our shared American history, the President was able to capture the importance of our common history without overplaying the uniqueness of the day.

--Dan Cohen, Principal, Full Court Press Communications

Photo from brungrll on Flickr.com - used with gratitude under a Creative Commons license -- click for terms.

So, How Do You Really Feel About Annual Reports?

While it was a bit more civil than we expected, the conversation at our Fall Conference in Chicago did raise some interesting -- and contrasting -- points of view about whether or not foundations should continue to publish annual reports. The question boiled down to: "do ARs help -- or even contribute to -- efforts to raise awareness of foundations among key audiences?" During the back and forth, David Powell, director of publications for the Lumina Foundation for Education, made some brief comments about a readership survey he conducted to help find out what readers thought about the annual report.  Click here for a story about some of the interesting findings from that study and how they are helping Lumina plan future annual reports.

So...that's one point of view and one foundation's experience in trying to untangle the annual report knot. What's yours? What do you think?  Let us know.

--Bruce Trachtenberg

A train wreck in the making

Based on how some of us with the Communications Network constantly rail against offending jargon, you’d think it’s only foundation and nonprofits that are guilty of this sin.  Well, you can take some comfort knowing that other abusers of language abound, including organizations – like foundations and nonprofits – that also depend on clear communication so the public knows what they are talking about (and in some cases, more so).  According to an article in the New York Times, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA)  — the agency that oversees the state’s public transportation systems — recently issued a report detailing efforts to reduce it’s carbon footprint that the Times says “filled with colorful, head-scratching, tongue-twisting gobbledygook.”

Examples from the Times:

Rather than describing itself as an operator of trains and buses, the MTA calls itself “a provider of climate stabilization services.”

To makes its operations more environmentally friendly, the report recommends that the MTA “develop a climate-adaptation matrix” and a "Climate Adaptation Resiliency Evaluation Procedure.”

Finally, the report urges the MTA to “promote ‘clustered development’ while also fostering ‘robust, flexible feeder and distributor services.’”

I don’t know about you, but reading that is enough to sending me in search of such warm and comforting foundation jargon like consensus, operationalize, and parameter.

--Bruce Trachtenberg

Photo from rcstanley on Flickr.com - used with gratitude under a Creative Commons license -- click photo for terms.