the Communications Network blog

Conference 2.0 Strategies Capture a Bigger Picture

At the recent Communications Network annual conference held at the Ford Foundation in New York City, 20 volunteers known collectively as the Gorilla Engagement Squad, used Flip Cams to conduct video interviews with 120 conference attendees.  In addition to asking participants what resonated from the sessions they attended, Gorillas asked: “What has and hasn’t changed about foundation communications over the past five years?” 

What Has Changed About Foundation Communications in the Last Five Years? from Communications Network on Vimeo.

As commander-in-chief of the Squad, I was thrilled to see the wealth of engaging compelling content captured by my colleagues using what I call a “conference 2.0 engagement” strategy. It’s all just a further extension of the evolution from Web 1.0 to Web 2.0 in which we recognize that folks are no longer satisfied to be talked at -- we want to talk amongst ourselves.

As these videos demonstrate, it no longer need be just the insightful experience of presenters and the quick chats with folks in the halls that shape our experience of conferences.  Conference 2.0 engagement strategies -- captured by our peers -- can communicate the collective mood of a gathering.  Because this organized collective of my peers chose to commit acts of journalism (did Clay Shirky coin that great phrase?) I can quickly test my sense of reality by perusing the Twitter stream or viewing eight or ten brief videos featuring 40 or 50 of my colleagues. 

While I love to be inspired by those of you who shape panels and present winning experiences, I’m more of a sucker for how we, as participants, let what we hear shape and inspire us. 

So here’s my take-away, that I’d like to test with your sense of what you heard at the conference and in these videos:

The collective fear of” seasoned” (a.k.a 35 year old +) foundation communicators is receding.  Assuming budget cuts don’t get us, digital natives who intuitively grasp new(fangled) media tools, aren’t going to either. We are growing more confident in our capacity to adapt to a landscape where change is the only constant. Clay Shirky’s exhortations to experiment are not a threat -- they are an oft-repeated invitation we are ready to embrace.

Whether you agree or disagree, we welcome you to talk back on our blog here.  I’ll be inviting the Gorillas to chime in since, whether they know it or not, their work is not done here. 

Susan Herr

What's Driving Your Social Media Policies?

In a post on his blog, Mitch Hurst, communications consultant and Network board member, offers some thoughts about social media policies for foundations.  Hurst says that these policies sometimes become "guardrails" that "exist partly to keep you from driving your career off a cliff."  Hurst believes a better approach to creating a "decent organizational social media policy is finding the right balance between minimizing risk and maximizing opportunity."

For instance, he argues that instead of creating a set of restrictions, such as forbidding what words staff "can use in a tweet," Hurst says employees should be trusted to do these four things:

• Associate their social media page with their employer if a significant amount of the links or content they're posting is related to their professional obligations;
• Note prominently in their profiles that their views don't necessarily reflect the views of their employer;
• Not post stuff that's going to land them in the society section of the local newspaper; or the police blotter;
• Fan, friend, follow, etc. your organization's social media pages. The price for playing.

You can read the full post here.

--Bruce Trachtenberg

Making Sure The Important Stories Get Told

It seems that philanthropy abhors the absence of news outlets and news services as much as nature abhors vacuums.  Increasingly foundations are funding a range of nontraditional ventures to fill the growing gap caused by the shrinking number of newspapers or disappearing beat reporters who used to specialize in topics of national importance such as education and health. Examples range from the Kaiser Family Foundation’s Kaiser Health News, an independent news service that provides coverage of the policy and politics of health care to ProPublica, which specializes in traditional investigative reporting about issues of national importance such as tracking how the federal stimulus money is being spent, and which is primarily funded by the Sandler Foundation.

One of the latest examples of a foundation-funded project to increase national and regional coverage, this time of education, is the Hechinger Institute on Education and the Media at Teachers College, Columbia University. Through initial support from the Gates and Lumina Foundations, the Hechinger Institute is transforming itself from a training organization for journalists to “a source of in-depth, analytical and explanatory journalism about education."  According to the Institute’s director Richard Lee Colvin, who previously was the lead education writer at the Los Angeles Times, this change is occurring at a time “when traditional news media outlets have cut their spending on news-gathering due to a loss of advertising revenues.”

Colvin says the Institute will function like a broker–seeking funding from foundations that want to increase coverage of education and then using that support to write and publish stories in partnership with mainstream publications as well as publish on and distribute through its own website.

Even as recently as “five years ago the idea that some outside entity, and one supported by foundations, would have anything to offer a commercial news operation would have been laughable,” Colvin adds. "It would have been viewed as compromising journalistic integrity. Today, things have “completely changed. All sorts of new arrangements are being set up every day.”

While being supported by foundations, Colvin is quick to add that the Institute operates without any editorial oversight by its benefactors and that foundations are not the focus of its coverage.  Instead, it’s the issues driving the foundations’ work that the Institute seeks to focus on and, in the process, helps foundations raise awareness of the work they are supporting while also informing the thinking of policy makers.

Watch This Space

In just a week, the Fall 2009 Communications Network Annual Conference kicks off at the Ford Foundation in New York City.  We are expecting about 230 people--a terrific mix of foundation communications professionals and program staff, individuals who work for foundation associations and other nonprofits, as well as some from communications firms that work with both foundations and nonprofits. (And they are a patient bunch--our conference sold out in 3 weeks, way back in mid-May!)

We've put together a stellar lineup of speakers and panel presentations, all focused on helping conference attendees excel at using communications--everything from new and emerging technologies to the tried and true--to advance the work of their organizations and philanthropy overall.

To help conference attendees stay on top of the many sessions and discussions that will be occurring simultaneously over the course of the conference and to give those not attending a flavor of what's taking place, we've recruited a crack team of bloggers, tweeters and video cam users. We're calling them our "Gorilla Squad."  They'll be observing and reporting on what they see and hear and we'll be posting regular updates to our blog.

So, we invite you--beginning on October 14--to keep checking this space regularly for conference reports and updates.  Also, you can follow us on Twitter at #comnet09. Whether you are attending or observing from afar, don't hesitate to offer your comments or even pose questions you'd like answered.

For more information about the conference, including the agenda, discussion topics, and list of attendees, click here.

We also want take this opportunity to thank this year's sponsors:  The Atlantic Philanthropies, The California HealthCare Foundation, Ford Foundation, Open Society Institute, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Rockefeller Brothers Fund, DeSantis Breindel, Hattaway Communications, and Lipman Hearne.

--Bruce Trachtenberg

Remembering Frank Karel (1935-2009)

By Larry Meyer, Communications Network Board Chair and President, Meyer Communications LLC

We’re saddened to hear of Frank Karel’s passing Saturday after a long battle with cancer.

For years, Frank has been the singular leader, visionary and ceaseless advocate for communicating the value of philanthropy.

Many Communications Network members, past and present, owe Frank Karel a debt of gratitude for the way he eased the path for us.

My story is typical.

As a brand-new communications director for the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation back in 1995, I recall how bewildering … how Alice-through-the-Looking-Glass …  this new work of mine was after a career at The Miami Herald and elsewhere in print journalism. 

All this jargon … “corpus” and “grantees” and “anticipated outcomes” and “say what?” For several months I searched for a like-minded practitioner, someone who could school me on how to understand and explain grant making, but it was lonely down here in Miami at the tip of the Sunshine State.

I attended my first Council on Foundations annual meeting the next spring in Honolulu, and scanned the schedule seeking reasons to justify the long trip. Walking down the hotel hall to my first meeting of the Communications Network in Philanthropy, I was met by a big grinning bear of a guy named Frank Karel. He immediately established an alumni connection to The Herald with me (he was The Herald’s first science writer). He swept me into the room, found me a beer and introduced me to my new peer group. The stress level dropped and my pre-Facebook friend list grew, starting with Frank. I was impressed that a vice president  with the gee-whiz Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, who’d worked at the National Cancer Institute and the Rockefeller Foundation, was so gregarious, self-effacing and fun – unlike the self-important crowd so prevalent in this field.  Take a hint, people. 

In conversation with Frank, you could count on him to challenge a bald assumption with a trademark: “You lie!” (And in the pre-Joe Wilson era, he meant it nicely). He was proud of his work, he loved his spouses and always told you so, and geez, did he love his Gators.

Frank took it on himself to be the center of our labors, and never turned down a request to reconnect, answer a silly question or refer me to good people and good info. More important, he used his platform and reputation to advocate tirelessly for improved and clear communication by foundations for their work and causes. He was a central actor in the creation of the current-day Communications Network, and setting our path. He set a standard for us, and gave our part of the sector the rationale to ratchet up the investments in staff and resources to do our communications jobs back home better than before.

He was never prouder than when his spouse Betsy endowed a new teaching chair in his honor at the University of Florida, emphasizing public interest in communications. And he was frustrated when the current financial crisis hamstrung the state of Florida in matching the generosity of the $2 million commitment. Our work goes on now without Frank to coax, cheer and lead. But I know he’s got our backs. 

Well, that's my story.  What's yours?  Please leave a comment.

Photo credit Frank Karel: Randall Hagadorn

The Payoff from Betting On A Documentary Film

On September 15, PBS will air THE PRINCIPAL STORY, a documentary funded by The Wallace Foundation that portrays the challenges principals face in turning around low-performing public schools and raising student achievement.  For Wallace, there was some risk in underwriting a film that was meant to advance its program goals but without having any say in the editorial content.  In this blog post, Jessica Schwartz, senior communications officer, describes how the foundation navigated the process, discusses lessons learned, and offers advice for others who want to use film to advance mission.

A good way to engage target audiences is to inform the discussion without controlling it. That’s what The Wallace Foundation set out to do by funding a documentary film project that advanced its strategic goals, while maintaining the filmmaker’s independent voice.

By way of background, Wallace is nearing the end of a decade-long exploration of education leadership and its impact on school turnaround and student achievement.  We believed that a film documentary could point to the fundamentally changed role of today’s school leader – and inspire interested audiences to learn more.  We have been developing our website as a knowledge center, with downloadable reports and articles, to serve just this purpose.

In other words, the film documentary or media project, when independent and well done, conveys “third-party” credibility and makes the case for further exploration and, ultimately, action.

This “hybrid” approach – i.e., neither funding a worthwhile project that was tangential to our goals; nor creating our own media product with “filmmakers for hire” – came with trade-offs.

Yes, It's That Easy!

In his 2001 memoir, legendary television news producer, Don Hewitt, attributed the success of 60 Minutes to "...four words every kid in the world knows: Tell me a story. It's that easy."

Although Hewitt was talking about a television news program, my friend Joanne Edgar believes there's a lot foundations can learn from the 60 Minutes formula for success.  In a letter that appeared in the Chronicle of Philanthropy last week, Edgar, who is a communications strategist and a former foundation communications director, argues that grant makers that tell stories will have a greater chance at success than those that don't.  She writes: 

Foundations are in the business of improving people's lives. Even foundations that fund pure scientific research are doing so with the end goal of making the world a better place. Data and analysis are important ingredients of success. But if we do not capture the personal and institutional stories that illustrate change, we miss a key opportunity to advance our goals. If we do not tell the stories of what works — or if we do not acknowledge what does not work — we lose the opportunity to expand our lessons.

Stories help grant makers and grantees argue successfully for replication of successful reform. Daniel Pink points out in his book A Whole New Mind: "When our lives are brimming with information and data, it's not enough to marshal an effective argument. Someone somewhere will inevitably track down a counterpoint to rebut your point. The essence of persuasion, communication, and self-understanding has become the ability also to fashion a compelling narrative."

Down With Deficits

Deficit has become a scary word to a lot of people.  And not just those with an eye on the economy and our nation's growing debt.  It turns out that In philanthropic circles some people are also warning of deficits unique to our sector.

For instance, for a few years now, my friend Mark Sedway, who runs the Philanthropy Awareness Initiative, has been talking about the dangers to philanthropy from what his group calls the "awareness deficit."  According to Sedway, the term describes the fact (based on polling data) that a large number of "engaged Americans show limited knowledge of foundations and struggle to identify their impact on communities or issues they care about."  To Sedway and a number of others, this awareness deficit could create a "perfect storm" for philanthropy "as rising legislative and regulatory scrutiny of foundations is compounded by continued ignorance of their work and value among policymakers."  In other words, the very people who are in a position to influence the direction of future policy decisions aren't going to be of much help to philanthropy because they don't know what it is, what it does, who it's helping, or why they should care.  

Just the other day I came across what Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors (RPA) CEO and President Melissa Berman calls the "trust deficit," a development that she says could be "crippling" for the philanthropic and charitable sectors. She says just as the economic meltdown caused banks and consumers to stop trusting each other and the wealthy to mistrust their investment advisors, a combination of factors, including the Madoff scandal and  drop in foundation assets, has given rise to distrust in the philanthropic sector. 

Writing earlier this year in the RPA newsletter Linkages, she says "Nonprofits now have far more cause to worry that a donor's pledge has no meaning. Donors now have to worry that nonprofits have not invested their money with proper safeguards." Berman says that these concerns have existed before "but they've never been so pervasive--and corrosive." She adds, "Once trust weakens, the slightest tremors cause sharper collapse, and the rebuilding process can take forever."

Also, the Chronicle of of Philanthropy quoted remarks Berman made during a discussion of this topic -- specifically the threat she believes the "trust deficit" poses -- at the Council on Foundation's Annual Conference in May.  She said, "If we’re in a situation in which foundations can’t be trusted as appropriate stewards of private resources for public good, then the very sort of ‘license to operate’ that everybody in philanthropy enjoys is under threat.”

Who's Responsible for Communicating About Our Work? All of Us

One of the themes we never tire of repeating at the Communications Network is that communications is a foundation responsibility, and shared by the entire organization. But it's usually communications staff members who deliver this message -- and sometimes to their skeptical colleagues. In this post, regular contributor, Elizabeth Miller of the Overbrook Foundation  in New York City, herself a program associate, makes the case for open, strategic and regular foundation communications.

There’s no question about it: foundations are quickly learning that the ability to effectively communicate their work, whether it’s calling for a request for proposals or producing an annual report highlighting grants awarded, can be one of the driving factors for strategically advancing their missions. 

When I first came to The Overbrook Foundation nearly five years ago, I had no idea that one of my most important roles would be to serve as “communications central.” What started out as a small part of my daily activities has become one of the most, if not the most, important jobs of what I do for the Foundation. Oh, and did I mention that my major responsibility is managing a portfolio of grants?

It’s hard not to see the huge importance of this work, which is why it is important to take it seriously and do it right. Unless you are strategic, it is hard to communicate with the public effectively – whomever you define that “public” to be – through the din of the Internet and other media. And whether your organization defines your public as your current grantees, potential grantees, other funders, or the  general public, will guide how your institution communicates with them. It may seem daunting to look at your day-to-day work and figure out how best to accomplish the goal of strategic communication.

Believing Without Seeing

Most people will agree that film can be a powerful medium for delivering powerful messages, especially for issues or causes to which you want to draw a lot of attention and spark action.

But sometimes the release of a film and the back story of the production can be just as powerful.

I experienced a fresh reminder of that lesson the other day listening to a podcast of NPR's Fresh Air, which was devoted to a discussion about a new documentary, The Cove. The film, which is now in theaters, exposes in painful and sometimes graphic detail the merciless capture (for aquariums) and brutal slaughter (for food) of thousands of dolphins each year by fisherman who work the waters off Taiji, a village on the rural coast of Japan.  While the story about dolphin abuse is shocking enough, and, up until now, mostly unknown, the life-threatening risks the producers and crew took to make this film are just as attention grabbing.

Even without seeing the movie (other than the trailer posted above), I heard and visualized  enough to make me a believer and want to support efforts to stop this senseless tragedy.