By Minna Jung
The Communications Network Board Chair

Overview

In this brief paper, we share what we’ve learned from a series of conversations held over the past year with people who work at or with foundations and nonprofit organizations. The conversations focused on communications: how people and organizations communicate with each other and external audiences, how they invest in communications, how they even define the word “communications.” We want to remind you why we initiated these conversations, what we learned from them, and what we think this means for the Communications Network, moving forward.

First, some background: The Communications Network is a nonprofit organization with over 500 members that’s been around for a few decades. The organization offers webinars, an annual conference, and other content to help people who work at foundations and nonprofits communicate effectively.

For most of its existence, the Network has provided a platform for people who care about communications and who work at mission-driven organizations dedicated social causes. The platform sometimes takes different forms; sometimes it’s a conference with great speakers and sessions, sometimes it’s a webinar, sometimes it’s a listserv, sometimes it’s a one-on-one meeting between a communications professional and a communications newbie. Sometimes the Network provides refreshments, in the form of promising, exciting ideas and practices we’ve found through our channels. On this platform, people can connect, share, and, we hope, go back to their respective organizations better equipped to do their work. As one Network member stated: “I come to Network meetings to teach and to learn about how to communicate well so my organization can have greater impact on the issues we fund.”

With the Network’s longstanding raison d’etre in mind, three things happened in recent years that prompted us to do something sort of like what we’ve been doing all along, but in a more organized way – and this project, Communication Matters, is one of the things that that resulted. The three things were:

• In 2012, the Network’s Board engaged in a strategic planning process focused on the Network’s future. It led us to make a pair of important decisions. First, the Network would expand membership beyond foundations. And second, we would produce content to help everyone working on social causes “make the case” that effective communication matters when it comes to making meaningful progress on issues we care about.
• Implementing the strategic plan was then paused for a bit as the Network went through a leadership transition. In mid-2014, we hired Sean Gibbons as our new executive director.
• Despite pausing on the strategic planning front, the Network’s Board agreed to move forward with Communication Matters, to help us better understand what foundations and nonprofits believe about how communications supports (or doesn’t support) their goals.

In the spring of 2013, the Network hired two consultants to lead this project, David Brotherton of Brotherton Strategies and Cynthia Scheiderer of Scheiderer Partners. With the guidance of the Network Board and more recently, the Network’s new executive director, David and Cynthia developed and led us through a multi-phased data collection effort. It is important to note that while their work was research-focused, we elected not to comply with many established norms typically applied to qualitative or quantitative research. This project was ultimately about listening to as many voices and perspectives as we could, from all across the giving sector. So what we did involved scanning the field of published literature; plumbing a multitude of sources, like case studies and internal communication planning documents; and talking to a lot of our colleagues (not just communicatiors) working at foundations and nonprofits.

How is Communication Matters Different?

You may already be asking the question: Isn’t this like a number of other projects over the years that have examined foundation communications and came up with recommendations on how to do it better?

The short answer is: no, it’s not. The longer answer is: yes, we’ve all come across similar research efforts in our jobs, and the Network has even put out a few under our own steam, like a survey of foundations and social media practices and a twice-done survey of foundations’ communications practices. We’re aware of numerous studies and tools developed to help foundations and nonprofits think about branding, message development, social media, and in one case, to help foundations communicate more effectively about what foundations actually do.

This project is none of those things. This project was developed so that the Communications Network could continue to chip away at a question that has dogged so many of us working at foundations and nonprofit organizations: What is effective communications? And, if we can pin down what we mean by that, why aren’t more of us doing it?

So, what did we learn? Well, a great deal. And, it’s hard to tell what’s most useful to share now, and what’s most useful in terms of future conversation fodder for the Network’s audiences. To wrap up this phase of Communication Matters, we are going to focus on sharing what we learned in ways we think serve the immediate pragmatic needs of people who care about communicating on behalf of social causes, and want to do it better. But we are going to keep on noodling away as to how the lessons learned from this study can help the Network be a better resource to more people who care about contributing to real progress in the world.

Communications Network Goals and Hypotheses

Here is how we stated the original goals of the project, with the almost-verbatim wording from the Request for Proposals that went out to hire consultants for the project:

• To help us better understand what foundations and nonprofits believe about how communications supports (or doesn’t support) their goals.
• To better understand which foundations and nonprofits are using communications well, and how they’re doing it, so we can use those cases as examples for others to emulate.
• To know the best ways to get foundations and nonprofits to use communications most effectively to achieve their goals.

Before we delve into any of the insights that emerged from the project, however, it is useful to unpack some of the hypotheses underlying each of our three goals. Though we didn’t make these hypotheses particularly explicit at the outset of the project, they were shaped by many of the comments that emerged in our early outreach and conversations – comments which echoed opinions long shared by Network members over the years and mirrored attitudes we’ve observed in our colleagues working at foundations and nonprofits. We cannot say with absolute certainty that these attitudes reflect or capture all of the cultural norms and prevailing practices in the philanthropic and nonprofit sector. But we do know they exist in the minds of many of our peers and colleagues.

Goal: To better understand what foundations and nonprofits believe about how communications supports (or doesn’t support) their goals.

Hypothesis: Many people at foundations and nonprofits must not believe that communications is important to the work they do, as evidenced by how many foundations and nonprofit organizations do not invest significantly in communications. (A.K.A., The “Tiny Communications Team, Tiny Budget” theory)

Goal: To better understand which foundations and nonprofits are using communications well, and how they’re doing it, so we can use those cases as examples for others to emulate.

Hypothesis: Some foundations and nonprofits are doing really exciting things in communications, either by using their own voice and profile or through partners and grantees. By sharing examples of these efforts (with evidence of impact, where it exists), other organizations may be motivated to do more, or better, with respect to communications investments. (A.K.A. The “Research-Based Peer Pressure” theory)

Goal: To know the best ways to get foundations and nonprofits to use communications most effectively to achieve their goals.

Hypothesis: We have heard that many non-communications staff at foundations and nonprofits behave as if communications strategies and tactics are not mission-critical to what they do. Is this true? And if so, what would change those attitudes and beliefs? (A.K.A., The “Our Colleagues Just Don’t Get Communications” Theory)

What We Learned, and How We’re Going to Share

We describe our methodology on the Communication Matters website, but in the simplest of terms, we tried to talk to as many people as possible who work in or with foundations and nonprofit organizations. Because of the Network’s built-in audiences, many of our respondents were, predictably, professionals with communications in their title and/or job description. Knowing that would skew the conversation, we also worked hard to get the viewpoints from other staff, too: CEOs, executive directors, trustees, and leaders working in finance, evaluation, and program. All told, we talked to nearly 500 folks, from all types of organizations and a cross section of job functions.

We asked all of these people, through a variety of modalities (an advisory group, two online focus groups, and an online survey) how they all feel about communications within their organization and across the field of social change. We did not make our questions particularly scientific—mostly, we just tried to get at how people thought about communications at their organizations, and how much they and others cared about different aspects of that work.

Through these various research methods we gathered a broad base of knowledge. The data collected helps illuminate shifting opinions about a few important themes:

• The purpose and goals of communication in advancing social change
• What it means to do communications “strategically,” and what that looks like in practice across various organizations
• What is involved when organizations work at “integrating” communication and program functions in a substantive way
• Common barriers and concerns shared about communications across all types of organizations
• Who is seen as responsible for communications leadership and implementation
• And what barriers most often stand in the way of communicating effectively

Given that we spent nearly a year wrapping our heads around all of these big ideas we now think it is time to share what learned from our conversations. There was such a large volume and variety of comments and responses gathered that we’ve decided to sort the information into what is, in essence, a working model for effective communication. The model is what sits at the heart of the Communication Matters website.

The model is made up of for primary pillars: brand, culture, strategy and action. And each of those four pillars contains a set of “attributes” that were forged out of the ideas, challenges, successes and hopes of those with whom we spoke.

When viewed as a whole our model helps define how foundations and nonprofits should think about communications as a strategic method for achieving social change. It articulates why foundations and nonprofits should care about communicating more effectively, vis-à-vis their organizational missions. And it encapsulates what everyone told us are the hallmarks of effective communications. We hope you will spend some time with our model. Kick the tires, and look under the hood. Think about these attributes with respect to your own work, and see if they do or don’t apply. The model is intentionally simple in design, deliberately so. And that simplicity provides a significant opportunity for all of us to learn from and, hopefully, build on it.

Ultimately, we know that a model only proves its value through the experience of those who take the time to walk through it and actually apply it to their work. And that this is not necessarily a case of, “If you build it, they will come.” We are thinking about multiple ways to bring the model to you, so we can road-test it together.

But before you plunge deeply into the model itself, we wanted to share a few thoughts on how this project is helping the Network think about the role of communications in advancing important social causes. And, we also want to share how this could change our thinking about ways the Network might help people at foundations and nonprofit organizations do their work.

Why This Matters for The Network

The biggest thing we think we learned from Communication Matters is that we still need to learn much more about the challenges facing foundations and nonprofits when it comes to investing in communications.

In part, we know we have to learn more because we found that at least one of our initial hypotheses was misguided – the one about our colleagues not “getting” communications. That attitude did not show up in our project at all. In overwhelming numbers, and with great clarity, our leadership, program, evaluation, and finance colleagues all told us that they understood perfectly well how important effective communications are to their organization’s mission and impact.

In all fairness to long-suffering communications professionals, however, this finding may be the equivalent to a lost key under a street lamp. You know, the street lamp only illuminates a certain area, and everything else beyond the area remains dark. By the same token, this project, because of its chief sponsors and champions and participants, might have only illuminated the folks at foundations and nonprofits who are already true believers in communicating for impact.

But even if that’s true (and it could be), the sheer number of people who participated in the project’s focus groups and survey suggests that we have more than a few true believers are out there. We can say unambiguously that there are hundreds of people working at foundations and nonprofits who really, really get why effective communications makes a difference to the work they do.

And, if we want more people at more foundations and nonprofits to believe this, case studies and evidence of impact may not be enough when it comes to increasing these numbers. Don’t misunderstand this point: we at the Communication Network still think it’s important to have those case studies and evidence, because generating them and sharing them serves all sorts of important functions, like helping good ideas spread and helping organizations and people learn from other each other, rather than re-invent the wheel. But we’re fairly certain that case studies and evidence of impact from good communications at foundations and nonprofits are not enough to break down all of the barriers to doing more of it.

So here’s the summary statement of what we learned and where we stand with the Communication Matters project:

The Communication Matters project, over the course of almost a year, looked at the attitudes and beliefs and practices of people who work at foundations and nonprofit organizations with respect to communications. Based on this query and the opinions it revealed, the Network developed a model detailing how we communicate, why we communicate, and the proposed attributes that define effective communications. Further, we found that the main problem underlying the lack of effective communications at so many organizations is not about “getting” the importance of communications. The main problem lies in “doing” more effective communications.

Which leads us to our final question: if there are so many people working at foundations and nonprofits who believe in the importance of effective communications, why do we still see so many cases where it’s not happening? This is what we think we need to learn more.

Moving Forward

The first phase of Communication Matters—the one we are wrapping up now—was intended to be a survey of attitudes and beliefs of people working at foundations and nonprofits with respect to communications. The Network’s Board also intended for there to be a second phase, which had to do with gathering examples and evidence of effective communications, based on the shared definitions and attributes of effectiveness that emerged from this phrase.

So we now face a critical question: Knowing what we know now, does the second phase make sense?

The honest truth is that we can’t answer this question yet. With our new Executive Director, the Network is fully back in the swing of figuring out how we can best serve our members and thought partners, and look to the future in terms of expanding our capabilities. Continuing projects like Communication Matters might be one of our core competencies, as long as we hear back that these efforts help organizations and people do their work better.

But the first phase really made us realize how much more we need to understand about the barriers that organizations and people face when they want to do more on communications and can’t, or won’t. And, we think that these barriers likely exist at different levels, such as:

• Sector-wide barriers: Most organizations in the private sector have to communicate in order to survive. They have products to sell, shareholders to please, brand images to maintain. Foundations and nonprofits don’t have the same incentives (or profit motives) to communicate effectively; and ironically, while nonprofits DO need effective communications to maintain and increase funding streams, many of them are dependent for their funding on foundations that don’t model or support effective communications
• Organizational barriers: We have often heard stories about the foundations and nonprofits where everyone really gets and supports communications, at all levels, internally and externally. These places are often spoken of as having a culture that values communications, openness, and transparency. But as we detail in our model, organizational cultures often aren’t like that, for any number of reasons: history, Board and senior leadership priorities, competition for scarce resources, etc. We’ve all known any number of organizations (especially family foundations) where the clear preference is for anonymity; we’ve also known organizations which are constantly putting out fires, like leadership transitions and keeping multiple donors happy and economic downturns, where communicating effectively really isn’t a priority, relative to other things.
• Individual barriers: Many people come into foundation and nonprofit communications jobs from other fields that sound somewhat related to strategic communications, like journalism, or public relations. Those people need help in learning their organizations so they can figure out where to set priorities for effective communications. And for individuals who have been working in foundations and nonprofits for many years, so much has changed with respect to the world going digital, it’s a constant struggle to keep up. A few decades ago, a press release, an annual report, and perhaps a few reports or brochures represented the mainstay tools of a communicator working at a nonprofit. Nowadays, the media landscape has completely changed, and we have a bewildering array of channels and mediums through which to convey our messages and tell our stories.

In thinking about all of these possible challenges that face our sectors, organizations, and people we work in and with, we should no longer wonder why more people aren’t doing effective communications. In fact, the Communication Matters project gives us something to celebrate: that despite these challenges, so many people actually do get why effectively communicating is so important.

Finally, the Communications Network needs to understand where we, as an organization of many members working in the philanthropy and nonprofit fields, can be the most effective at addressing these challenges.

We’ve already played a big role in the lives of so many individuals working in philanthropy. We’ve heard numerous stories and testimonials from the Network’s members over the years about how the Network gave people a place to connect, find peers and mentors, and exchange ideas. Should we continue to play that role for foundations and nonprofits? And if so, is there anything the Network can do to address the challenges at the organizational and sector levels?

These are the questions we’ll be tackling based on what we learned from this project. We’re thrilled that so many people do understand why communication does, indeed, matter. But it’s not enough to know that people believe. For the Network, our definition of success—and we suspect this will be true for you, too—will be about doing, not just believing.

The post Communication Matters appeared first on Communication Matters.

When I was working at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation several years ago, my colleagues noticed that I was developing a growing sensitivity to the words “tool” or “toolbox.” I had a reason for my somewhat irrational dislike; at the time, my job involved reviewing tons of funding proposals. In answering the question, “How do you plan to communicate the results of this project?” applicant organizations were predictably anxious to demonstrate that they had evolved beyond the, “We’ll publish a research article or white paper” phase. Instead, they said things like: “We’ll gather the ideas from this project to develop a tool/toolbox for others to use” phase.

What did people mean when they said, “tool,” or “toolbox?” Anything and everything, it seemed.

As the communications officer on a particular grant, I’d actually get these “tools” and “toolboxes” sent to me, ‘cuz you know, digital was not such a big deal back then. So I’d get a big fat binder, with colored tabs, with various sections that summarized research findings or case studies from a project we had just funded. Then there’d be variations on the binder theme, you know, like a fancy accordion folder, or mesh pockets with zippers, or…you get the idea.

These days, tools and resources are firmly ensconced in the digital space. Everyone wants a micro-site or some other type of online platform. At the Communications Network conference last October, we showcased many of these digital tools and resources through the pre-conference workshops and breakout sessions. Among the offerings: a resource for nonprofit organizations to help assess their communications capabilities (from Spitfire Strategies); a diversity/equity tool (from the Kellogg Foundation); and a digital storytelling resource (from Rockefeller).

And last but not least, the Communications Network unveiled its own resource, Communications Matters, a model for effective communications that, in essence, represents a distillation of the major findings and insights from a research effort sponsored by the Network on what constitutes effective communications at nonprofits and foundations.

I’m the first to say that it’s more fun to play with these new digital resources than it was to heft around a big fat binder. And, I recognize that like the previous iterations of toolboxes I received, these new resources represented virtual goldmines of insights, knowledge, and experiences. But some of my questions about the value and utility of these tools and resources persist: how are people actually going to use these tools? What’s the role of the tool developer in terms of making sure these tools get used? Sharing a tool or a resource is often not enough to make the thing useful. Some people are good at teaching themselves. Others prefer a little more hand-holding, by someone who is nice and, incidentally, skilled at conveying the right amount of information at the right time.

Put another way: you can give me pretty much any tool or utensil that’s related to food or grooming, and I’ll be able to put it to use. I can whip up a complicated stew, clip my dog’s nails—but anything to do with construction or gardening, I’m basically an idiot, and I need a lot of hand-holding and YouTube videos in order to, say, re-finish a piece of furniture, or grow tomatoes. In other words, the tool is only as useful as it is familiar or interesting to the intended user.

So two points I’d like to make here, one with respect to tools in general and one with respect to Communication Matters:

—One, whenever we in the communications field debut a new tool or resource, we should spend just as much time talking about adoption and engagement as we do about the fancy tool/resource itself. And we should invest as much time and money on dissemination and uptake as we do on development and design. I get it: we all like to go ooooh! and aaaahhh! when someone shows us the latest digital whatever. But more often than not I want to learn more about how the resource is supposed to get into the hands of people who will actually do something with it.

—Two, Communication Matters. Those of us who worked on this project for the Network learned so much about the attitudes and beliefs of people at nonprofits and foundations, with respect to effective communications. We learned so much, we wanted to share what we learned: hence, the model. But now we’re in the “what next?” phase. What do we do to make this resource useful to Communications Network members as they go about doing their jobs? How do we most effectively share the insights we’ve learned about strategy, brand, culture, action, etc. with folks in a way that will help them be more effective leaders and champions for communications at their organizations and within our respective fields of work?

The Network’s not been sitting idle on this question. Through a new series in partnership with the Stanford Social Innovation Review, #MoveIdeas, through a series of salon-type dinners, through other engagements, we’ve started to road-test the principles and ideas contained in the Communication Matters model with other folks. So when we come to our next Network conference, which is taking place this fall in San Diego, I’ll be interested in seeing what’s been happening with Communication Matters, and with other tools and resources that were launched by our brethren in philanthropy and nonprofits.

I don’t know what the right metrics are to measure the utility of a tool in our line of work. If someone gave me an apple-slicer and I still cut and peel apples in my old-fashioned way, with a paring knife, did something go wrong? When it comes to a resource like Communication Matters, I suspect that the metrics for success have to do with the following questions:

—Did you ever find the time to take the tool out of its wrapping, and play around with it a bit? What would it have taken for you to actually apply the insights and lessons contained in the model—and, for you to want to populate the resource with more examples?

—Did it help start conversations that you wanted to have about communications at your organization or in the field?

—Did it help you focus on what you could do better in your job, or at your organization, when it comes to communicating effectively?

—Did you find time to use it as a training tool for others in your organization? Like maybe that brand-new communication staff person you just hired? Or the program person who’s eager to learn more about how communications fits into her/his role?

So I’m leaving you with a challenge (and the Network’s taking on this challenge with respect to Communication Matters), which is: don’t just tell me you’re developing a new tool or resource. Tell me how it’s being used. Better yet: explain to me how you think it’s going to make a difference.

The post The Value of (Digital) Tools appeared first on Communication Matters.

This piece originally appeared in the Stanford Social Innovation Review (SSIR) as part of Making Ideas Move, a series on the power and potential of social sector communications produced by The Communications Network in partnership with SSIR.

Not too long ago, opinion researchers held a focus group experiment in two Colorado towns: Boulder, known for its left-leaning politics, and Colorado Springs, where views typically reflect a more rightward bent. Not surprisingly, the researchers found that when people talked about big, complex issues like climate change or same-sex marriage with others who thought the same way, they didn’t become smarter on the subject; they just became more set in their opinions.

Legal scholar and former White House staffer Cass Sunstein and behavioral scientist Reid Hastie wrote about this in a new book titled Wiser: Getting Beyond Groupthink to Make Groups Smarter, and their example is instructive. If communication is going to effectively move the needle in the understanding of complex issues, inspire action, and promote social change, it needs to encourage leadership that is open to divergent views, eager to co-create solutions, and ready to evolve.

Over the past 40 years, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) has worked to change American attitudes toward seemingly intractable issues, such as the use of tobacco, end-of-life care, and childhood obesity. Last year, we embarked on our biggest, boldest agenda yet: building a comprehensive culture of health for all. We’re heartened to see so many elements of our strategy reflected in Sunstein and Hastie’s book about smart decision-making, because we know that it will take nimble, systemic leadership and broad-reaching partnerships to change the way we view and value health in the United States.

When we embraced the vision of building a culture of health, we asked ourselves how we could get others to define health as more than simply “not being sick,” and bring about changes in our society that would make health an important part of how we all live, learn, work, and play.

We developed ideas of what a culture like this might look like—where doctors regularly discuss the price and value of treatments with their patients, or write prescriptions for food, heat, or housing for those in need. We pictured cities, towns, and neighborhoods designed to make sure that the health of children is a matter of fact, not a matter of chance. We imagined a future in which businesses could rely on the vitality of workers to stay competitive, military could perform at its highest level to protect us at home and abroad, and the trillions of dollars we spend on health care could go way down.We knew where we wanted to go, but where on earth would we start in communicating this?
Then we thought of the lessons we learned in our work to end childhood obesity. In all our communication on the subject, we had to sound an alarm about the urgency of the problem, and we had to make it clear that everyone—from parents to policymakers, from corner stores to corporate offices—had a role to play.To do that, we had to turn the problem of childhood obesity into dinner table conversation. We had to show Americans why it mattered and state it so boldly that they couldn’t ignore it. We pledged $500 million to reverse the childhood obesity epidemic, then backed up our pledge with blunt and powerful messaging: American children could be the first generation in US history to live sicker and die younger than their parents, and that for many inner city kids it is easier to find a gun than a piece of fresh fruit. That got people’s attention. Policymakers responded. Educators responded. Industry responded. Even the White House responded. Fortunately, we are beginning to see signs of progress, especially among children between two and five.As we look toward our broader goal of building a culture of health, our job now as grantmakers and communicators is to share the vision with others, but not in a way that is set in stone. When we say we are all in this together, we need to mean it and invite partners to help us build the road to our destination, stressing that there is no one route to get there. And we need to listen and really hear how others define a culture of health, and then reflect and amplify what we learn. Our leadership has to be adaptive, collaborative, and flexible. We cannot prescribe our particular vision to others. To them a healthier nation may mean a culture of care, a culture of well-being, or a culture of personal rights and responsibilities. We must have the discipline and courage to allow the direction of this effort to emerge from the input and innovation of others. And we need to continue working collaboratively across disciplines, both inside and outside our foundation, keeping in mind the many complexities inherent to building unprecedented systemic change.At the end of the day, culture, like the best communication strategy, is always co-created. As the anecdote from Wiser shows, meaningful change cannot happen in an echo chamber of the like-minded, and the best leaders, avoid the “happy talk” of group-think, choosing instead to create conditions for multiple voices to speak up and plot the course toward positive change.So as we look ahead to 2015, we know that our grantees, leaders in the fields of health and health care, and our philanthropic colleagues can serve as friendly ambassadors for our big idea. But it is important not to listen only to the choir. We must also be prepared to test our message with those who do not know us and have not typically considered themselves part of the health arena: business, the tech sector, educators, and others. Because the true measure of our success will not be the number of traditional allies who embrace our messages, but the number of “unusual suspects” who will find a place for themselves in a culture of health and invite others to join the movement.

Risa Lavizzo-Mourey is president and CEO of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation since 2003. Lavizzo-Mourey did her undergraduate work at the University of Washington and the State University of New York at Stony Brook, and earned her medical degree from Harvard Medical School and a master’s of business from the Wharton School.

Frederick G. Mann, vice president for communications of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, is a long-time journalist and graduate of Stanford University.

The post Bold but Flexible: How to Effectively Share Your Vision appeared first on Communication Matters.

This piece originally appeared in the Stanford Social Innovation Review (SSIR) as part of Making Ideas Move, a series on the power and potential of social sector communications produced by The Communications Network in partnership with SSIR.

Brilliant experts can write compelling policy papers filled with breakthrough ideas to make our society better. But they can’t influence and shape the debate if no one is reading and digesting their work. This is something that John Podesta and the founders of the Center for American Progress (CAP) understood when they set out to create a new kind of think tank; they knew that to have impact, you have to be forward-thinking in your outreach and strategic about whom you are trying to influence. That means organizations must invest in communications. CAP has. As a nonpartisan educational institute, communicating is part of our culture: Nearly 50 percent of our operating budget is devoted to communication and outreach work. Is this innovative? Yes. It’s also entirely necessary to ensure that people hear the ideas we develop and champion, and that that those ideas “move.” Creating change begins with meeting people where they are.

CAP was an early adopter and pioneer of social media in the policy world for precisely this reason. Our blog-based website, ThinkProgress, is today one of the most highly trafficked policy sites on the Internet. But when we launched it in 2005, it was a bold and untested idea. CAP’s Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter channels were already up and running, and driving conversations before virtually everyone else in Washington; we knew that critical audiences were assembling and sharing ideas and information on social media. New technology enabled us to enter new conversation spaces, and data (including sophisticated new email tools and diagnostics on our social sites) enabled us to see our ideas spreading.

This led us to create a robust outreach and event platform. We know that information moves (and sticks) when people gather in person, but here again, we feel obliged to break the mold. As we like to say, we’re not your Grandma’s think tank. In addition to producing panel discussions and speeches, we developed our Reel Progress movie-screening program to draw people to powerful, progressive-minded feature and documentary films. This reflects our understanding that there is more than one way to reach an audience. Sometimes the way to make a policy point on immigration, for example, is to hold a screening for a movie about DREAMers (individuals who meet the requirements of the Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors Act), or participate in a discussion about policy and the power of culture at the Sundance Film Festival.

But at the end of the day, what matters most are the ideas. In late 2005, for example, the conversation around the Iraq War was complicated by fear and confusion about US security. It was particularly difficult for the progressive community to express their uncertainty or downright opposition to the war in such a charged political climate. Those who didn’t completely oppose war needed to find a way to be critical of it while still honoring national security sentiments and concerns. It was in this environment that CAP released “Strategic Redeployment,” our blueprint for ending the war in Iraq. Not only was it a great plan, it empowered progressives to shift the conversation from the extremes (immediate withdrawal versus staying the course) to how to reasonably and responsively draw back troops. That message shift could not have been more delicate or more necessary. The plan created the space for policymakers and influencers to speak their minds about the war without losing a nuanced national security perspective, and we began to see a shift in the national conversation around US engagement in Iraq. This didn’t happen overnight, and it didn’t happen because we just put out a press release. Our team developed and executed a strategic communications and outreach effort to get our plan in front of as many eyes as possible—including reporters, Congressional leaders, and progressive activists.

Nearly a decade later in 2013, we found ourselves fighting another tough battle, this time around the federal budget. Fiscal austerity had dominated budgetary and political debates for months in Washington, DC; it was bad policy and, coupled with the federal government shutdown, it fed an unhelpful narrative about government ineffectiveness. In that crucial moment, CAP released a report titled “It’s Time to Hit the Reset Button on the Fiscal Debate.” The report, which we moved through a series of strategic communication initiatives—including high-level media outreach and a concerted social media push—resonated, and its impact among policymakers marked a shift away from a narrative focused around austerity, showing that economic conditions had changed but the budgetary process and the conversation around it had not. As with “Strategic Redeployment,” the conversation shift didn’t just happen by serendipity. It took crafting and implementing a thoughtful communications and outreach strategy to influence the debate.

For more than 11 years, CAP has put much care and thought into the policy ideas it creates, and the way those ideas enter the political and policy bloodstream. Our senior team has embraced and invested in communications, and everyone at CAP sees communications as part of their work. I believe this is what sets us apart from many of our peers and why CAP attracts some of the brightest policy minds. And if you look at the most successful organizations—no matter their mission—you’ll see that a strong and fully integrated communications strategy is always an important part of what they do.

Daniella Gibbs Léger (@dgibber123) is the senior vice president for communications and strategy at the Center for American Progress. Prior to rejoining American Progress in 2011, Daniella served as a special assistant to the president and director of message events in the Obama administration.

The post Meeting People Where They Are appeared first on Communication Matters.

This piece originally appeared in the Stanford Social Innovation Review (SSIR) as part of Making Ideas Move, a series on the power and potential of social sector communications produced by The Communications Network in partnership with SSIR.

For most of the 20th century, the go-to tools of communications were landline telephones and the US Postal Service. Most foundations preferred to stay humbly behind the curtain, letting their grantees’ good works speak for themselves, while nonprofits ventured out only for fundraising appeals.

The Internet clearly changed all that. It atomized the information ecosystem, and shook up business, politics, and culture. A few trusted news outlets gave way to thousands, of indeterminate credibility, as well as new ways to communicate, influence, and fundraise via platforms like Twitter, LinkedIn, Change.org, and Kickstarter.

Chaos presented opportunities for organizations and individuals who were ready to use communications in an entrepreneurial way. The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, for example, quickly realized the potential of the web to educate policymakers and deliver health information directly to the public. The Open Society Foundations assigned professional photographers to file to its Instagram account, giving followers a look into the issues it cares about.

Today, communications is not just an opportunity for nonprofits; it’s a necessity. Whether we’re fundraising or trying to influence policy, how we reach the right person with the right message has changed profoundly. Now it can take far more to figure out who the right people are, what channels to reach or influence them through, and how to hear them. It’s one thing to land a grant to open a new art space; it’s another to convince city hall that the community wants it, and still another to build a community to support it.

At its most powerful, communications means creating narratives that help the media and the public make sense of the disparate pieces of information flying at them from multiple sources. One narrative that emerged: Building the future of news and information is cool. Knight worked to convince coder and maker types that assisting traditional media organizations, which had been slow to embrace a digital future, was worth their time. Grantees such as the Mozilla Foundation and ProPublica became our partners. With Mozilla, Knight established a fellowship program that embeds those technologists, people often working on cutting-edge ideas, in newsrooms to help build the future of news one line of code at a time. ProPublica, a nonprofit news organization that develops investigative projects, helped show traditional media that data-driven applications could add depth to storytelling—and win major journalism prizes while doing it. Knight also became a regular attendee at SXSW Interactive, meeting the coders and makers at ground zero for innovative ideas. Finally, a video involving a Chihuahua showed that group that Knight itself was willing to depart from traditional means of communications in experimental ways.

Knight also led an effort to help community foundations embrace the digital present through online giving days, though it represented a departure from their core business model of working with wealthy individuals. We created an interactive Giving Day Playbook that, combined with outreach, has helped the foundations generate millions for community nonprofits while making them relevant for a new generation in their communities.

A current challenge we have is to convey the message that attracting talent, expanding opportunity, and spurring engagement are the best levers to make cities successful. Developing the Knight Cities Challenge was a big step: an open call for ideas to make cities better, supported by press outreach; posts on our own blog; videos; podcasts; social media; Facebook, Pandora, and community newspaper advertising; and a mention in our sponsorship tagline that accompanies NPR programming.

Our communications builds on the two pillars of outreach and content, and our work promoting grantees is emblematic of this. We help them pitch funding announcements to the press (a traditional method) and encourage them to write blog posts, which we then share through social media. For the many startups among our grantees, the post, the social media lift, and their grant page secure an instant, solid online presence.

For most foundations and nonprofits, communications is no longer an appendage to the work, but an integral part. In the information age, it’s a big part of how social change happens. The Center for American Progress, for example, changed the debate over withdrawal from Iraq by disseminating a moderate, progressive plan in 2005.

One of our grantees, CitizenshipWorks, is redesigning its mobile app, which aims to simplify the naturalization process for permanent legal residents. The new version won’t require a lawyer’s handholding, but it will require that we execute multi-level communications to reach the broad audience for whom the app is intended. Just as foundations are increasingly integrating metrics into the front end of grants, they should integrate communications so that the substance and message are one and the same. It’s a powerful recipe for social change.

The post The New Communications Imperative appeared first on Communication Matters.

This piece originally appeared in the Stanford Social Innovation Review (SSIR) as part of Making Ideas Move, a series on the power and potential of social sector communications produced by The Communications Network in partnership with SSIR.

With marriage cases back at the US Supreme Court and national resolution in favor of the freedom to marry possible as soon as June, many ask—somewhat in awe—how the LGBT community did it. How did we go from zero states with marriage for gay couples a decade ago to 36 states (and counting) today? How did the political wedge lose its edge, and America embrace as “inevitable” what 10 minutes ago it dismissed as “impossible”?

It took a many-decade movement with a central strategy—driven by the campaign entity Freedom to Marry—to get here, and the campaign’s investment in strategic communications played a central part.

From the beginning, we at Freedom to Marry believed that the chief engine of change would be conversation; thus, generating conversations was a critical objective. The right people delivering the right message—amplified across multiple media and advertising platforms, and, yes, millions of conversations—changed the American public’s understanding of why gay couples want to marry and of gay people generally.

Through exhaustive qualitative and quantitative research, we found that emphasizing only part of what was at stake—rights and benefits—wasn’t enough to reach the middle and gain majority support. What did resonate with many Americans were values-based arguments: love, commitment, and family. These are, after all, universal concepts that are simple, emotional, positive, and easily understood. We cracked the code on message, and then focused our work on message delivery.

The messenger mattered too. Gay and lesbian couples across the country humanized and dramatized their stories in the press, in television ads, and on social media. Couples from all walks of life swung open the window for all of America to get to know them. At the same time, we made sure to encourage trusted supporters—family members, labor and business leaders, military personnel, clergy, President Obama—to get out on the stump and be vocal. These heterosexual validators gave undecided folks and soft opponents permission to “evolve” their thinking, at their own pace, toward the freedom to marry.

With the message and messenger nailed down, we built our press and social media machine to convey the personal stories of why gay couples wanted to marry. Keeping a constant and creative drumbeat going paid off. In 2004, a poll by Washington Post/ABC News showed that 59 percent of Americans thought same-sex couples should not be able to marry while 38 percent thought they should. A decade later, those numbers literally flipped, with support for the freedom to marry skyrocketing more than 20 points. The needle began moving in various state polls, followed by state legislators—including Republican lawmakers in New Hampshire and New York—voting for freedom-to-marry bills in multiple states.

Educating ordinary Americans, however, wasn’t enough. We needed to make the case to elected officials on both sides of the aisle that: a) supporting the freedom to marry was no longer a risky proposition politically, and b) the momentum was with those in favor—the writing was on the wall. We did so quietly behind closed doors, as well as through reams of Beltway news accounts and reels of TV ads featuring high-profile Republicans and other unexpected allies, such as firefighters and a World War II veteran who has a gay grandson.

Evan was part of the world’s first-ever freedom to marry trial as co-counsel, back in the 1990s, in Hawaii. From that experience, we learned that the movement needed to make the case for marriage both inside and outside a court of law. We brought together litigators and other partners to build a communications strategy during the United States v. Windsor case, which ultimately struck down the Defense of Marriage Act and restored federal protections to legally married gay couples. We have worked with our litigation partners to drive similar media operations since June 2013 in the federal circuits where the same kinds of legal challenges have advanced and in the states that still discriminate.

With a mix of leadership and partnership, Freedom to Marry has driven a successful strategy and enabled others to bring their part to the work. To engage partners on multiple fronts, we provide central hubs of expertise—including a digital action center, press room, and field and opposition research—for all activists at national, state, and local levels to use as they do their part. We have won by galvanizing the multiplicity of a movement with the cohesion of a strategy guided by a central campaign entity.

Since its founding, Freedom to Marry has pursued a bold and clear goal: winning marriage nationwide through a ruling of the Supreme Court, enabled by a critical mass of states and support. Through stumbles and successes, we’ve continued working, and we’ll keep doing it until we have won. Then happily, we will put ourselves out of business. We’re working hard to make sure that 2015 is the year we close.

The post The Chief Engine of Change: Conversation appeared first on Communication Matters.

This piece originally appeared in the Stanford Social Innovation Review (SSIR) as part of Making Ideas Move, a series on the power and potential of social sector communications produced by The Communications Network in partnership with SSIR.

Jonah Berger—an expert on word of mouth, viral marketing, social influence, social contagion, and trends; a marketing professor at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School; and the author of the best-selling book Contagious: Why Things Catch On—recently sat down with the Communication Network’s Sean Gibbons to discuss how to build support for ideas and gain momentum on social change.

Sean Gibbons: Why do some ideas move and capture the public’s attention? Is there a secret sauce to making things go viral?

Jonah Berger: There is. When we see things that become popular, we think these things are random—that there’s no way you can replicate them or be as successful. But as I tell the companies and nonprofits I work with, that intuition is misguided. I’ve spent the last 15 years working in this space, analyzing thousands of pieces of online content, tens of thousands of brands, and millions of purchases.

Again and again we see the same factors show up. It’s not random or luck or chance. There’s a science to way things catch on. Word of mouth is over 10 times as effective as traditional advertising. People trust it more, and it’s much more targeted. To make word of mouth work for you, you have to figure out how to take someone that supports your cause or cares about your issue, and turn them into an advocate—almost a communication channel—to bring in new potential users or new potential supporters.

Is there a key to doing that?

Yes. We find that there are six drivers. In Contagious, I put them in a framework called STEPPS—social currency, triggers, emotion, public practical value, and stories. Each of those is a time-tested principle that causes people to talk about and share information. It leads products to catch on and nonprofits to become popular.

While it’s fun to talk about viral, most organizations don’t want to be a one-hit wonder. Ten or 100 million views for a piece of content is great, but what’s more important is getting 10 percent to 20 percent more new supporters or donations. And that’s what the STEPPS help people achieve: creating enduring value by turning supporters into advocates.

Can and should you measure impact in communications? Is that possible? Followers and clicks seem somewhat like an empty metric when you’re seeking social change.

Definitely. A lot of organizations have just assumed, well, if we amass 10 million followers, we’ll be successful. There’s a great cartoon about this that I show when I give a talk. It’s of a whole bunch of empty seats at a funeral and this person saying, “You know, they had 2,000 Facebook friends. We were expecting a bigger turnout.” And a lot of organizations that just jumped on the social media bandwagon are in this exact spot, expecting a bigger turnout.

If a video has a view, that doesn’t mean the person who viewed it is going to take any action based on the video. Metrics like shares and comments—that track deeper engagement—are better reflections of whether content or a communications message is effective. You don’t want more friends and followers; you want more donations, more supporters. Track active engagement, not passive following. In collaboration with Digitas, I’ve put together a new metric called the Contagious Index that helps organizations track how they are doing more effectively.

This reminds me a little bit of what you hear about in polling. It’s oftentimes the case where you look at something like guns—where there’s majority support for better gun safety or better gun control laws in the country—yet there doesn’t seem to be much political will. That’s because the folks who oppose those measures have a greater deal of intensity. Does that play itself out in this space as well?

You’re talking about an organization’s “heavy supporters.” How do you grow your base?

One of the big benefits of word of mouth is targeting. Word of mouth is more targeted than traditional advertising. If you ask someone, “Hey, can you tell someone else about this cause?” They’re not just going to tell anybody. They’re going to tell the person in their network who they think might find that cause the most interesting or relevant. If you can generate more word of mouth, the people in your network will do the targeting for you. They’ll figure out who your best prospect is and share the information with them.

In a world teeming with information and ideas, how do you break through? Is data—new information, new facts—what compels people to act?

Take social currency from the STEPPS framework. People are more likely to share things that make them look good. The smarter, the more in-the-know, the cleverer something makes them look, the more likely they are to pass it on. How can you make your supporters or followers look smart and in-the-know?” The better you can make them look, the more likely they’ll be to pass your story or information along. The Ice Bucket Challenge is a great example of this.

People who work in the social sector are often tackling long-standing problems. How can you calibrate your communications to compete for attention if you’re working on an issue that’s been simmering in the national debate for ages, and in some respects may seem tired?

That’s always a challenge. How do you reinvent something that’s been around for a long time? One key is to find the inner remarkability. Rather than telling people information, how can you show them how important this cause or issue is? What would happen if the problem wasn’t solved? How would the world be worse as a result?

Emotion is also important. When we care, we share. As I talk about in Contagious, certain emotions in particular—like inspiration, but also anger and anxiety—drive people to share. Understanding how to harness those emotions are important.

If you could offer a nonprofit CEO one piece of advice based on your work and on your research, what would it be?

Which would you rather eat, broccoli or a cheeseburger? Everyone knows that they should eat more vegetables. Broccoli is good for us and we should eat more of it. And yet, when push comes to shove, we often pick the cheeseburger. It’s just tastier, based on how our tongue and stomach are built.

You can say the same thing about messages or ideas. Some are just tastier based on how they fit with people. Not their stomachs or their tongues, but their minds.
Unfortunately, nonprofit communication is often like broccoli. Listeners know it’s the right thing to do, that they should care, and yet they don’t give it the attention it deserves.

If you understand the science of effective communication, though, you can make any message tastier and more likely to catch on. By understanding why people talk and share, you can take your good science, your important cause, your healthy broccoli, if you will, and turn it into something everyone will find tasty. By better understanding your supporters or members, you can make any cause contagious.

The post Making Ideas Catch On appeared first on Communication Matters.

This piece originally appeared in the Stanford Social Innovation Review (SSIR) as part of Making Ideas Move, a series on the power and potential of social sector communications produced by The Communications Network in partnership with SSIR.

When I sat down with co-founders Tom and Jim Steyer in 2010 to design the nonprofit now known as Next Generation—a strategic communications and policy group focused on clean energy, climate change, and investment in America’s kids and families—we quickly agreed on two guiding principles: Fact-based, nonpartisan information would drive the organization, and communications would be baked into our programmatic work.

We also wanted to have an outsized impact, but remain lean, nimble, and entrepreneurial. We’ve done that. We’ve created several successful, national initiatives and California projects, while keeping staff size small. How?

• We hired the best and the brightest to head our major program and operations units—people who understand how to leverage information, communicate it effectively, and recognize emerging opportunities.
• We created partnerships that deeply leverage our project ideas and communicate them across multiple platforms and organizations, creating a larger megaphone for our core issues.
• We sharply target our messages and content. No organization—large or small—can afford to waste time and resources on messaging that does not reach its core audiences.

Our work on climate change provides a good example. A deeply political and often polarizing issue in the United States, climate change is often framed as “jobs versus the environment,” with little discussion of the potential economic impacts we face if we don’t address it. The US climate discussion has tended to fall quickly down two partisan rabbit holes: the debate over the science and the debate over the perfect policy solution. This leaves out the business and investment communities, important players in helping solve this problem. So we asked ourselves, “How can we change the current frame and increase engagement by business leaders?”

Our answer? The Risky Business Project—a research and communications project that quantifies the economic risks generated by the impacts of climate change, aimed in part at making the issue a business and local story, not just an environmental or political one. Early in the project’s development, co-chairsTom Steyer, Hank Paulson, and Michael Bloomberg led the recruitment effort for a high-level, bipartisan group of partners who serve as very active, involved advisors and messengers. How and why the group came together was nicely summarized in a New York Times business section piece.

We also recognized the importance of bullet-proof data, so we contracted with Rhodium Group to conduct specific, actionable analyses on climate impacts to the US agriculture, energy, and coastal infrastructure sectors. This resulted in some of the most-detailed analysis ever compiled on these issues, all of which is open source. Importantly, the group decided not to make collective suggestions on policy solutions; this allows the Risky Business Project to remain centered on facts and unencumbered by politics. Recent stories, like this one from the Columbia Journalism Review, have established the project as a game-changer in climate communications and demonstrate the exponential power of combining nonpartisan information, communication by respected messengers, and unassailable data.

Another example is a project developed under Next Generation’s Children and Families program. We wanted to create an initiative that would both magnify attention on the value of early investment in children, and provide parents and caregivers with tools that they could use to help their children right away.

The result was the Too Small to Fail initiative, created in partnership with the Clinton Foundation. Based on the input of notable researchers and advisors, the initiative focuses on narrowing the “word gap”—the difference in vocabulary—that exists between the youngest low-income kids and their higher-income peers, and that greatly hampers lower-income children’s opportunities for success. Closing the word gap is surprisingly simple and inexpensive—talking, reading, and singing to kids from the time they are born can make a difference in their life trajectory. Focus groups with lower-income parents indicate that many are not aware of the positive impact of early exposure to words, and many face challenges in making these simple acts a priority.

We included others, such as former Senator Bill Frist and Cindy McCain, to ensure that Too Small to Fail would be bipartisan in nature. We also partnered with national organizations such as the American Academy of Pediatrics and Sesame Workshop, and leading researchers and other groups working toward closing the word gap. To communicate the message directly to parents and caregivers, we developed a multi-platform partnership with Univision; worked with the entertainment industry to place storylines in popular shows; and created city-specific initiatives in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and Oakland, California, where we work directly in communities and develop replicable models. We have made our creative content, from toolkits for parents to designs for outdoor ad campaigns, free to organizations and communities that want to develop their own campaigns.

So what communications lessons have we learned in the process?

Many nonprofit leaders fail to make communications a true priority. To be successful, leaders need to develop and constantly reinforce an internal culture that values effective communications as a programmatic strategy.

I’ll leave you with the communications rules that the most successful nonprofits I have observed abide by: Communications should be part and parcel of program work, and organizations should highly leverage and sharply target communications initiatives. While these “rules of the game” do not ensure success, they can create a foundation that will allow smaller nonprofits to compete with larger organizations and drive social change.

The post Big Communications for Small Nonprofits appeared first on Communication Matters.

The giving sector deserves credit for many things, but efficiency is not always one of them. For as long as there have been foundations investing in worthy causes, there have also been critics rightfully pointing out the duplicative, even wasteful ways with which the business of grant making often gets done.

Fortunately, a partnership by two philanthropic support organizations is helping demonstrate the way network thinking can improve foundation efficiency and impact through strategic collaboration. The result? Better services to support grantmakers everywhere, cost savings for the participants and an enhanced ability for philanthropy to tell its story using credible, timely data.

Our organization – the Forum of Regional Associations of Grantmakers, or “Forum Network” for short – is a philanthropic network made up of 34 regional philanthropic associations with a combined membership of more than 5,500 organizations. Together we comprise the largest network in American philanthropy. With deep regional roots and a broad nationwide reach, the Forum Network facilitates effective philanthropy that strengthens communities and improves lives throughout the United States.

We recently teamed up with the Foundation Center to think more closely about how our network’s regional expertise, leadership and connections and the Foundation Center’s expertise in data collection and analysis could complement each other. What’s emerged has the potential to transform how foundation performance gets measured and shared.

For many years the Foundation Center has worked on a one-on-one basis with some 20 regional associations of grantmakers, helping each to collect impact data from the field and produce reports on the state of giving in their respective region. The data and information they generate is invaluable, of course. It provides the evidence foundations use to demonstrate the breadth and depth of their impact to policymakers and other stakeholders and to inform their own work.

But the way information typically gets collected is highly inefficient, often expensive and always time-consuming. One reason is because the Foundation Center has had to build and manage relationships with regional associations one-by-one. Each time a new data-gathering effort would begin, the terms, criteria, reporting methods and collection systems would vary. There was rarely consistency between one regional association’s data and the next, or agreement on what should be counted and why.

A recent experience in Oregon, however, presents an alternative worth considering.

In late 2013, Oregon’s Governor and Portland’s Mayor jointly asked who was benefitting from philanthropy in their state. The Foundation Center had one data set of all grants made in Oregon above $10,000, but the list painted only a partial picture. It failed to account for millions in smaller grants, including many investments from tribal philanthropy.

With guidance from the Forum Network, Grantmakers of Oregon and Southwest Washington (GOSW) quickly went to work educating its members on the importance of collecting more thorough and accurate data. Their members responded as needed, supplementing the Foundation Center’s strong, but incomplete, numbers and filling in the gaps. The report that emerged showed precisely where Oregon’s philanthropic resources were flowing, and how those dollars benefited diverse populations important to the policy decisions of the day.

Without GOSW and Foundation Center working together – a connection made stronger through their mutual ties to the Forum Network – the project never would have happened so quickly. It would have taken years, not months, to gather the data, and an important opportunity for educating the Mayor and Governor in a timely manner would have been lost.

Through the Forum Network’s new strategic partnership with the Foundation Center, our goal is to replicate Oregon’s experience across the country.  Instead of the Foundation Center engaging in separate agreements and negotiations with each regional association, it will now work with the Forum to engage with all the regional associations through a single agreement.  The result will be a vast improvement, across the country, in how foundation data are gathered and reported; sophisticated new tools that regional associations can use with their members to map and report on grantmaking in their regions; and greater efficiencies for both the Foundation Center and the Forum Network.

The Forum Network is achieving efficiencies and improving impact for the philanthropic sector in many other ways as well.  Over the past two years, for example, several regional associations have collaborated to jointly develop a new website framework that has saved time and money and allowed for a streamlined sharing of online resources and expertise.  And the Forum’s PolicyWorks for Philanthropy Initiative has pooled resources to vastly improve regional associations’ collective public policy capacity.

Our partnership illustrates a cultural change that is taking place in philanthropy, one with the power to transform siloed thinking and old ways of doing business into a more streamlined, logical and effective system for grantmaker support. The Forum Network has been an early adopter of this approach and over the past five years we have been learning how effective networks such as ours can increase foundation impact. The Oregon experience sheds light on why it is more important than ever for grantmakers to work together efficiently and for those who support them to combine their competencies.

The Forum Network is not the only entity working in this way, of course. There are many similar experiments across the giving sector testing the bounds of shared learning and selective collaboration. But this is not an academic exercise; it is a living, breathing example of network theory in practice, one that can help grantmakers everywhere make better decisions for deeper impact and increased efficiency across the field.

The post New Thinking About Networks Makes the Field Better, Stronger, More Efficient appeared first on Communication Matters.

At Barr, we initiated our change process by engaging our trustees in a conversation about how communications might advance Barr’s mission. We considered examples of other foundations that had successfully integrated communications for greater impact and aspects we might emulate. This created space to explore more thoroughly where there was the greatest enthusiasm and what concerns might exist. Ultimately, it helped us build agreement on a new vision for communications. In the words of one of our trustees, “Communications is obviously an important tool in our arsenal, and to the extent it is mission-advancing, we ought to be using it.” Decisions about what tools or tactics to use, how to organize ourselves, and how to allocate resources would follow. Yet they would be anchored in (and emboldened by) this shared vision.

2. Leadership must be on board.
Without clear agreement and direction from a foundation’s leadership, communications strategy cannot reach its potential. It doesn’t matter how sophisticated a strategy or team may be. Without engagement from the top, a spirit of anxiety and timidity can rule. Not knowing how far leadership is willing to go, staff members default to playing it safe. They avoid risks. They react, protect, and play defense.
Compare this to an environment where leadership helps to shape the strategy, where communications staff know their mandate and boundaries, and where staff operates with the full confidence and engagement of leadership. When that happens, a spirit of boldness, a willingness to take risks, and a proactive, open, and creative orientation can manifest. Sure, surprises, failures, and sometimes crises will happen. But the organization can embrace these as opportunities to learn and grow together, and to realign for greater impact—rather than as causes for recrimination or retrenchment.

The post Creating a Communications Culture appeared first on Communication Matters.

This piece originally appeared in the Stanford Social Innovation Review (SSIR) as part of Making Ideas Move, a series on the power and potential of social sector communications produced by The Communications Network in partnership with SSIR.

The power of influence is extraordinary.  In 2013 the Rockefeller Foundation developed ideas on how to build a more resilient New York and New Jersey after Superstorm Sandy, and we used influence—our brand, reputation, knowledge, networks, and convening power—to leverage $5 million of our grant dollars into the smarter use of almost $2 billion in federal funds. In the process, we helped catalyze a shift in the national conversation from disaster relief and recovery to resilience planning—a shift that will save lives and taxpayer money in this era of disruption.

Deployed strategically, influence can be one of the most important tools for impact, ranked right up there with the more traditional grant-based interventions philanthropy is best known for. The two work hand-in-hand: An influence approach allows foundations to both magnify the impact of their grants and use other assets (such as the expertise of staff) to advance programmatic goals—in the case of Rockefeller, our twin goals are building greater resilience and more inclusive economies.

We’ve seen success with this influence approach across the globe. Our Asian Cities Climate Change Resilience Network (ACCCRN), for example, convenes practitioners and produces toolkits to support the development of comprehensive city resilience strategies in South East Asia. After demonstrating proof of concept at the city level, ACCCRN helped inform a national policy in Vietnam, and now the government is seeking advice and support from the Rockefeller Foundation to develop an urban resilience assessment tool that it can apply in more than 60 cities, with the ultimate goal of saving lives as Vietnam deals with the impacts of climate change.

How can organizations—foundations or otherwise—build their own influence strategy? We recommend five steps:

1. Build an “influence endowment,” and manage and grow it just as you would a financial endowment. Start by understanding your brand and your strengths, or “influence assets.” One of Rockefeller’s assets, for example, is our history: 102 years of philanthropy, from the field of public health to the Green Revolution. You can commission a professional brand assessment, but if you don’t have the financing for that, there are some good resources, such as the framework developed by Nathalie Laidler-Kylander and Julia Shepard Stenzel in their book The Brand IDEA. The book emerged from research funded by Rockefeller, which Laider-Kylander and Christopher Stone outline in the SSIR article, “The Role of Brand in the Nonprofit Sector.” Or you can set up your own series of conversations with peers and partners. Once you can clearly and explicitly identify your brand and strengths, promote them to build influence capital you can spend later.

2. Understand when and how to use influence as a component of your impact goal. Rockefeller, for example, has set a goal of bringing Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) to cities in the United States. BRT delivers the permanence, speed, and reliability of rail systems, along with the flexibility of bus systems, for a fraction of the cost of rail. We invited reporters from target US cities to go to Mexico City to see gold-standard BRT in action, then our grantee developed different influence strategies for each targeted US city. In New York, for instance, we funded a “BRT for NYC” campaign, which involves a diverse group of business organizations, rider advocates, labor unions, and social justice groups committed to addressing transportation inequality by advocating for Bus Rapid Transit. In concert, Rockefeller has used our history and reputation in New York City to inform “power players” (funding and planning decision makers), who can communicate the need for BRT to constituents and help achieve campaign goals.

3. Map your networks. Who are the influential people who can deliver your goal or connect you to the people who can? Don’t forget to include your board and staff at all levels of the organization. At Rockefeller, we create individual thought leadership plans for each senior program leader so that through activities like blogging, public speaking, and board memberships they can strategically grow and build their influence to advance their impact goals.

4. Be creative and flexible in seizing opportunities for engagement. For example, we used our centennial in 2013 to build our “influence capital” by engaging with political, business, and media leaders through a series of convenings, publications, and challenges. We also spent our “influence capital” on two major, new, high-visibility initiatives that year—Digital Jobs Africa and 100 Resilient Cities—that will require significant shifts in behavior for success.

5. Be patient and look ahead. The Sandy funding initiative we mentioned earlier was a two-year process. Immediately after the storm, Rockefeller was asked to help develop recommendations for New York Governor Andrew Cuomo’s commission, co-chaired by Judith, which focused on how New York State might rebuild in a more resilient way post-Sandy. Our recommendations informed both the Governor’s policy priorities and the recommendations of the federal Sandy Task Force. Out of this process came Rebuild by Design—a competition that brought together global, interdisciplinary teams of scientists, engineers, designers, and architects to work alongside affected communities and generate ideas for more resilient design.  Now, capitalizing on our expertise in resilience, the federal government is expanding this model through the National Disaster Resilience Competition, offering up $1 billion for 67 disaster-affected communities across the United States.

Influence isn’t free—it takes significant staff time and likely some strategic investments to understand your brand and grow your networks. But with these five steps you can be in a strong position to use influence to significantly magnify and multiply the impact of both your communications work, and your grantmaking or programmatic spending. Influence is a force multiplier that foundations and nonprofits can no longer afford to regard as optional.

The post Greater Influence, More Impact appeared first on Communication Matters.

This piece originally appeared in the Stanford Social Innovation Review (SSIR) as part of Making Ideas Move, a series on the power and potential of social sector communications produced by The Communications Network in partnership with SSIR.

ONE’s mission is to end the injustice of extreme poverty by 2030. Our strategy to make that happen is forcing governments in countries both north and south of the equator to adopt smart policies that will save and improve millions of lives. We know from experience that governments are more likely to act when pressure comes from both political insiders and the world outside—noisy, popular, public campaigns.

Research confirms that there are about 50 million people in America and Europe (and many millions more across Africa) who care about ending extreme poverty and would do more to make it a reality, given the opportunity. It’s on us to give these people an easy way in. That means reaching them, giving them some means of engagement, and taking them on a journey toward impactful policy-changing actions. That’s the purpose of ONE’s creative and communications strategies.

It is so exciting and challenging to constantly try to find creative ways to reach and engage people—from London to Lagos—and give them the tools to influence political change. Here’s a look at what we have learned (so far):

1. Popularize policy change.

We cut our teeth with a campaign in 2000 for debt relief, captured by the slogan “Drop the debt.” This slogan helped sell a complex issue—third-world debt cancellation—to a young audience and persuade celebrities such as Muhammad Ali, Thom Yorke, and Bono to get engaged in something that might otherwise be crushingly dull. The crucial lesson was that a powerful media and popular culture strategy, tied to evidence-based polices directed at real political processes, got results.

Subsequently, we distinguished ourselves through two slogans: “We’re not asking for your money, we’re asking for your voice,” and “We’re about justice, not charity.” These strong, simple declarations with complex implications have driven successful campaigns.

We used this strategy aggressively in 2005 around the public launch of ONE, and it’s a model we continue to follow whether we are calling for life-saving investments in AIDS medication or for legislation to tackle corruption.

You will see it throughout our central digital property—our website—with its strong, simple, responsive design. But while One.org might be our bedrock, it’s often not what gets people to us. For that, social media has been a revolution …

2. It’s social, stupid.

Facebook has been critical to introducing people to the issues we tackle and building our base. Last year, we surpassed a million “likes”—an important number, given that Facebook drives nearly half our web traffic and increasing numbers of petition signers. But social isn’t just about the personal connection—it can also get political. Twitter is great for both latching onto a current issue and taking direct political action—the vast majority of our political targets are active tweeters.

3. Don’t forget where you came from.

We love social media, but nothing beats email for action. Our activists are most responsive to calls to action via email, particularly tougher political actions like direct contact with politicians.

4. What works here won’t necessarily work there.

As we increasingly campaign across Africa, we are adapting our tactics. Last year, we launched one of the continent’s biggest musical collaborations: “Cocoa na Chocolate,” a song featuring 19 of Africa’s biggest stars performing in 11 languages. The goal was to inspire young Africans and convey the idea that the future of their continent depends on agriculture. It launched on music channels, web, mobile, and SMS, and we promoted it through social media, radio, and pan-African TV shows like Big Brother Africa.

The song captured public attention; it also pushed a petition calling on African leaders to invest in agriculture. More than two million African citizens signed, overwhelmingly via mobile. We delivered the petition to leaders at the African Union Summit, and seven of our recommendations appeared in the summit declaration. The project worked because we trusted the sensibilities of our African staff and artists to make it authentic and effective.

5. Irrelevance is worse than adaptation.

The beauty and the struggle of the digital world is its ever-changing nature—alongside Facebook and Twitter we must also come to grips with Instagram, Snapchat, and Vine. We must be fast to adapt but slow enough to pick winners—there are only so many platforms an organization can deliver on well. There is no such thing as rinse and repeat—it’s adapt and start again.

6. Change don’t come easy.

The toughest challenge with some digital platforms is finding ways for people to take action. Our Agit8 campaign—aimed at fighting corruption and backed by Ed Sheeran, Jessie J, Macklemore & Ryan, and many other musicians—generated more than 10 million YouTube views, but converting people from audience to action-taker wasn’t easy. Going forward, we need to explore how to create actions for a digitally savvy audience that will effectively hit policymakers.

7. Celebrity ain’t what it used to be.

With social media, the reach of celebrities has never been stronger, but it has also changed everything. There are A-listers who aren’t on any social networks and people we’ve never heard of who can reach millions of people with a single tweet. Teens recognize YouTube stars more than Oscar winners. Digital platforms also demand transparent authenticity and two-way interaction.

Next steps in building the movement that will end extreme poverty

This year, world leaders will agree on a new set of global goals for the next 15 years. Right now, we are reaching out to three important segments—women, youth, and faith—to help build the backbone of a movement that will monitor the implementation of these goals.

Above all, we are focusing the mobilization of the movement around girls and women. All the lessons we’ve learned feed into this. Our data on ONE members shows that our most ardent activists and social media followers are women. Leading figures like Meryl Streep, Beyonce, Sheryl Sandberg, and Lady Gaga are amplifying our message. Email campaigning on International Womens’ Day this year brought in tens of thousands of petition signers. We used striking images on Instagram to build awareness of the campaign along with strong events and media launches in Germany, South Africa, and the UK. Above all, a striking slogan—#PovertyIsSexist—demanded attention and cut through.

This communications effort, like previous ones, is a means to an end: to activate millions more global citizens, especially women, to come together and form the bedrock of a global monitoring movement, and ensure that we implement the new global goals and keep policy promises, and that every woman and girl survives, thrives, and overcomes extreme poverty by 2030.

The post Communicating Creatively appeared first on Communication Matters.

The post DIY PR appeared first on Communication Matters.

With great interest and admiration, we have read and reflected on our esteemed colleagues’ contributions to this series about the role of strategic communications in driving social change. We are delighted to participate in the conversation. While many have written insightfully about what we can do if we embrace strategic communications, we would like to talk about why these communications are so important and how we can use them to help create real, enduring change.

When the two of us took on our new roles at the Ford Foundation, the president of a major university told Darren that he appreciated the way we were raising our voice on the issue of growing inequality in America. “You’ve got an independence to speak out on issues that university presidents don’t have anymore,” this person said. “I’ve got a capital campaign to worry about and can’t afford to offend my donors.”

It rings true. As financial pressures, market-oriented thinking, and short-termism take an ever stronger hold of so many sectors in our society—including the university and arts sectors, and even the public sector—foundations are privileged to enjoy a kind of independence.

Now more than ever we have the unique opportunity to communicate uncomfortable truths to entrenched power, including our very own sector.

One of our favorite quotes from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. is written on a sticky note in Darren’s office: “Philanthropy is commendable, but it must not cause the philanthropist to overlook the circumstances of economic injustice which make philanthropy necessary.”

This idea informs—and indeed inspires—our work and the way we match words to it. It challenges us not to be smug in our privilege. It gives us license to ask why there is philanthropy in the first place, and to speak candidly about the national and global systems that created us—systems of which, as Henry Ford II phrased it, “we are a creature”—especially when they benefit some more than others.

We know this advice does not apply to every foundation, and not every foundation needs to speak out in the same way. But sometimes we see our peers leave unleveraged opportunities for communication on the table, and—if we are being honest—we do not always use our full set of tools to make change, ourselves.

From our perspective, there are three things every foundation can do more of, locally or globally, when it comes to strategic communications:

Steward time strategically. The Ford Foundation has a broad social justice mission and global footprint—there is no shortage of topics to which we might speak. Time is our most precious asset, and we do our best to put it to optimal use. Rather than try to speak to everything, we tie most opportunities back to the topics our leaders are passionate about and actively prioritize. By accepting more invitations than we turn away, we generate good will and more opportunities.

Be comfortable with taking risks. We deliberately have avoided leaning on talking points and traditional messaging when our leaders are out speaking. Last year, Darren helped celebrate Ballet Hispanico. In addition to sharing some more-traditional remarks about the dance company, we got creative and made a video of us doing some dancing of our own. More than anything else, the video reflected a sense of fun and authenticity that people responded to far beyond our expectations, which leads us to our final point…

Be authentic. We know from surveys like the Edelman Trust Barometer that the public, by and large, does not trust its institutions or leaders. Why? Often because the public does not believe that what institutions and leaders say is what they actually do. Their messaging often comes off as manufactured rather than meaningful, and their humanity gets lost in translation. There are so many dynamic, interesting leaders in philanthropy, but too often foundation leaders take a conservative stance, rather than speaking from candid, relatable experience. Our leaders are more effective when their communications reveal their humanity and vulnerability in the service to their missions.

Ultimately, we are ardent believers in the role and power of philanthropy to support and sustain movements for justice in our societies. As a global foundation, we can be the megaphone—the amplifier—for the voices of visionaries on the frontlines of social change.

Smart communications strategies make foundations relevant. If we are relevant, we create opportunities to influence others and build new partnerships. And by attracting new partnerships, we are more likely to contribute to pragmatic, powerful problem-solving across sectors.

As others think through their communication strategies, we encourage them to embrace the strategic use of time, risk-taking, and authenticity. Then and only then will we be able to inform and inspire, connect with people, and catalyze real change.

The post Express Yourself appeared first on Communication Matters.