Context and opportunity
When Family Equality Council came to LightBox Collaborative for communication guidance it was poised to jump to a new level of work on behalf of families. The organization was approaching its 30^th anniversary, emerging as a national organization after a history dotted with name changes and periods of rapid growth. Its programs were rock-solid; they had built a strong constituency by providing connections, information, and resources for families. Well-attended events allowed families with moms and dads who are gay to network, share, and learn from each other, just like any gathering of parents. On the strength of these programs, they were ready to accomplish more.

Strategic approach
Effective communication rests on alignment of words, deeds, and intentions. LightBox Collaborative looks at this as a pyramid. The Family Equality Council was doing a lot of things right. They have a strong foundation of BEing, and were DOing great work. The challenge was finding ways to SAY all of that in a consistent and unified way.

We focused on creating overarching, foundational messages that keep the spotlight on results and not just the day-to-day work. It is clear that Family Equality Council’s sizeable constituency, solid programs, and long standing in the community earns the organization a great deal of credibility. This gives them the opportunity to step up and be an effective advocate for social change—not just for parents who are gay and their children, but as a voice for all families, no matter who is part of the family. They recognize they can use their strong voice to influence policy and culture. We worked with them to create messages that would resonate in the public square.

Results
Steve Majors, director of communications for Family Equality Council, calls the work with LightBox Collaborative “transformative.”

“We now have functional, aspirational, and relevant messaging about our work and the impact of our work. We have been able to infuse that into all of our communications to every possible stakeholder you can imagine—board, staff, media, public education campaigns, and partners in the movement. For the first time in our history, we speak clearly and concisely about why we matter and what we do.”

By taking a stand and speaking up, Family Equality Council and its families have advocated for and won state and federal policy changes in the areas of foster care and adoption, relationship recognition, safer schools, health care, employment, housing, and immigration.

What about your nonprofit or philanthropic organization? Talking about the difference you make in the world can help create lasting change for the people that your programs serve. Like Family Equality Council, is your organization ready to take a stand and speak up?

. . .

Photo courtesy of Family Equality Council

Cynthia Scheiderer is a LightBox collaborator who for years has worked with people in and from foster care and adoption, and also with people who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender—which makes Family Equality Council one of her favorite organizations ever. Cross posted at Scheiderer Partners.

Karin Wang, Vice President of Programs & Communications, Asian Pacific American Legal Center

Our friends at the SPIN Academy are celebrating their 15^th Anniversary by celebrating those closest to them – their alumni! We at LightBox Collaborative are happy to share with you some of their featured alumni and a way you can help train the next generation of progressive communicators.

Taking a cue from our posts on crowdfunding, SPIN Academy has launched an online scholarship fund to give alumni, colleagues, and friends of the SPIN Academy a way to share this amazing opportunity with others in the progressive community. For every $3,000 raised, one lucky applicant will become a full scholarship recipient and join the ranks of esteemed alumni, just like Karin Wang, currently featured on SPIN Academy’s website.

Below is a brief interview with Karin and what she’s up to now…

Karin Wang serves as Vice President of Programs & Communications at Asian Pacific American Legal Center. She attended SPIN Academy in 2007.

What was the most valuable thing you gained from the SPIN Academy?
An introduction to various activist communications issues. My background was as an attorney and advocate on the program side, and I was just starting to become more involved in communications for my organization at the time.

How did lessons and/or connections from SPIN Academy influence your professional trajectory?
Because of SPIN Academy as well as other communications work I subsequently became involved in, my work now is a balance of programs and communications. I love being able to help shape my organization’s communications strategy, which has such a profound influence on the impact of our program work.

What’s a current professional project or challenge that has you excited these days?
Trying to use social media in an impactful and strategic way to further the work of the organization, as well as to draw in new resources. Although there are isolated examples of how certain groups have used social media effectively, I don’t think it’s clear yet how most groups can achieve impact by connecting their on-the-ground work to the online world.

What’s your advice to someone just entering the world of strategic communications advocacy?
I think all program staff (advocates, lawyers, etc.) need to think about how communications impacts and affects their work/clients/issues, given how rapidly communications has changed over the past 10 years, even in the past couple of years. Strategic communications staff are instrumental to building this bridge, but such expertise doesn’t really exist in most nonprofits currently.

. . .

Alexis Weiss is Program Director for SPIN Academy and looks forward to welcoming a new class of SPIN Academy participants August 27 – 30, 2013 in Petaluma, California.

The medium of video can be tricky. A video can be a bit like a poem; a less direct and more artistic approach is often more powerful. Most people like to discover things, audiences like being invited on a journey, they like a challenge that poses a question, the thrill of an unknown outcome and the adventure required to arrive at a resolution — they like a good video because it’s rooted in a good story.

1. Plan your story with research.
Start digging, be an anthropologist, play ethnographer, interview your subjects, listen to their stories; spend time in your subjects’ environment and you’ll be on your way to discovering the real people that have been profoundly impacted by your organization. These are the stories filled with conflict, tension, joy and inspiration that turn viewers into advocates.

2. Develop an Impact Story.
Avoid the autobiography video at all costs. Don’t waste your time on a series of self-congratulating quotes from your executive team; don’t interview your employees; the last thing potential donors want to hear is why you think your organization is so great. Your audience cares about the work you’re doing, not who you are. Show what you’re doing through the experiences of the people who have been impacted. During your research phase focus on a single charismatic character who can articulate an exciting, funny or inspiring experience that illustrates how your organization changed their life for the better.

3. Use the video to pose a question that invites audiences to respond.
Seek to engage them instead of talking at them. Think about the conversation your video will start. It doesn’t have to antagonize or create controversy; but think about the response you want to elicit. How will people react? Are you inspiring them? Are you motivating them? If they don’t want to leave a comment, call you up, send you an email or tell their friend when they’re done watching then re-think your story.

4.  Choose one person.
Employ a documentary-style approach to capture the success of your organization through the story of an individual who has been positively impacted by the work you are doing. Select a single compelling character. You only have 3 minutes to tell your story and audiences get confused when you introduce multiple characters. Also, don’t jam your video with back-to-back quotes. People forget how much is communicated through the visuals we see in a video. Select a few really powerful statements and give your audience ample time to digest them.

5. Use story guides to craft a narrative arc.
During the “ethnography day” begin to develop “story guides” that will help support the story your character has to tell. Focus on positive outcomes that were preceded by challenges or struggles and are eventually overcome by your character through the help of your organization. We don’t recommend pre-scripting the story, but using story guides is a good technique to stay focused while you’re capturing your story. What kind of challenges did your character face? How did they overcome them? How has it had a profound effect on their life? Think cinematically and as you’re developing the story guides ask yourself what are the activities that your character will do that will be most suited to beautiful cinematography?

6. Use breathing time to set the pace and tone of your film to tell a story that packs a punch.
One powerful technique that we’ve had tremendous success with is creating a video with the right proportion of breathing time. Similar to the way a good photographer pays attention to composition and negative space; a good filmmaker pays attention to breathing time. Very simply put, breathing time is the part of the video that doesn’t have any voice over or talking head. Don’t overload your story with words. If your story isn’t visually compelling then create a podcast.

7. Develop a media strategy for releasing your content.
There are a variety of approaches for disseminating your content once it’s created; approaching blogs and social media players who reach key influencers and target audiences is popular and effective. However, there are a few other reasons that creating a documentary style brand short works extra hard for you.

1. It can live on it’s own. If it’s created well, provides entertainment value and tells a universal story, then it has much better odds of getting picked up by outside media channels like Independent Lens, Vimeo Staff Picks and other content providers that are looking for interesting stories and great content.

2. It lends itself to creating a series, which helps your organization begin the journey of assembling a library of content. This is the best way to engage the people you want to participate in your organization’s story on an ongoing basis. It keeps them coming back to your site and lets donors see the results of their donations. It’s a nice compliment to the impact story and a tool for building loyalty.

3. Besides earned media and loyalty, the documentary film medium also works hard at making your organization more transparent, which is also emerging as one of the most valued ways to build trust with your audiences!

. . .

Photos courtesy of Truth Be Told

Ken Fisher is a creative director & founder at Truth Be Told creative, a documentary film and storytelling shop that focuses on nonprofits and socially responsible businesses. His work has been featured on PBS and a few of their clients include Aspen Institute, Marine Mammal Center & ClimateWorks. Their most recent work,  Family Planning in Malawi and Understanding Dispraxia, exemplify the strategies outlined above.

More importantly, the SPIN Academy IS a learner’s permit—the chance for people just starting out in the field or looking for some formal training to learn from experts in the field and from each other.  It’s also a chance to become part of a network of communicators for change, now more than 800 strong. SPIN Academy alumni have gone on to lead communications departments and organizations fighting for—and winning—on the most pressing issues of our time. (You can keep track of their accomplishments via the LinkedIn Group for SPIN Academy Alumni.)

To celebrate our 15^th anniversary, we’re launching an IndieGoGo campaign to give alumni, colleagues and friends of the SPIN Academy a way to support a new scholarship fund for the event. Our goal is to raise $3,000 to support full cost of participation of one person.

If the SPIN Academy was a formative experience in your own career, or you just believe in its mission of training the next generation of progressive communicators, this is your chance to chip in on a learner’s permit for a deserving candidate.

And if you know someone who could benefit from four days of intensive communications skills-building and quality networking opportunities, could you take a minute to let them know about the SPIN Academy? Applications are open now.

. . .

Holly Minch is LightBox’s founder and hopes to see you at SPIN Academy 2013.

At the recent 2013 NTEN Nonprofit Technology Conference (NTC), I spoke to attendees about ways they can help their organization’s content take flight.

Whether or not you’ve been able to formalize your organization’s content strategy (perhaps starting with these core elements of content strategy), having someone in your organization in the role of Air Traffic Control gives you a way to effectively manage your editorial process.

Your content creation dream — and reality

Imagine your content is a plane. This is what you might dream your content creation looks like:

You have one piece of content, one plane. The runway is clear, free of any obstacles. Takeoff will be easy. Piece of cake, right?

Unfortunately that’s just a dream. This is your content creation reality:

If each piece of content is a plane, the planes take off and land at different times, have different destinations, and take different routes to get there. Content strategy, creation, production, cross-platform distribution, and governance are not simple. They’re complex and take a lot of work.

So how do you plan and manage your content creation? How do you keep track of many pieces of content being written, edited, and undergoing approvals — all with different dependencies and complexity?

Start with a clear editorial process.

The editorial flight plan

Your editorial process is like a flight plan. Though it may look like a jumble, there are ways to make sense of and manage it.

Keep in mind that the editorial process is more than the end product, the content. It’s more than the words that will wind up on the screen. The editorial process is your workflow — even if it’s a complex one. It’s also a practice that is key to both better content and successful communications. The more clear your editorial process, the easier it will be to create content that will help your organization achieve its goals.

If your editorial process is a flight plan, you need someone to be Air Traffic Control.

The role of Air Traffic Control

If you are Air Traffic Control, your job is to:

• Set the flight plan, and make sure that content — the planes — take off and land on time and hopefully in one piece! This can be efficiently managed using tools like LightBox Collaborative’s free nonprofit Editorial Calendar.
• Track each piece of content as it’s in flight and the deadlines, owners, and approvals needed, and how the content is (or isn’t) progressing according to plan.
• Bridge content strategy and tactics, that is, you’re the one that makes connections between the strategy that drives content choices and the tactics of the actual creation and publication of content.
• Decide what gets published, when, the structure or format it takes, and on which channels it will be shared, with an eye always on your content strategy.
• Repurpose and remix each piece of content to push out onto different channels.
• And, just like with flight delays, if a piece of content isn’t ready on time, you may need to adjust the flight plan and adjust which content gets published and when.

As Air Traffic Control, you ideally will not create all the content yourself. Your colleagues, volunteers, or even program participants may pilot the different pieces of content along the creation path.

By applying the Air Traffic Control approach to your editorial process, you’ll be on your way to creating amazing content that can help your organization accomplish amazing things.

Images courtesy of Ho-Yeol Ryu, FSBUILD, FanPop

. . .

Lauren Girardin is a LightBox collaborator. She encourages you to check out all the slides from her 2013 NTC presentation, “Air Traffic Control: How to Guide Your Content from Ideation, to Creation, to Publication.”

During the session, “Air Traffic Control: How to Guide Your Content from Ideation, to Creation, to Publication” (Friday at 1:30 pm CT, hashtag #13NTCair) I’ll share tips for keeping your content production flying smoothly. This will include techniques like keeping an idea bank and building an editorial calendar (like the free Editorial Calendar we publish at LightBox Collaborative), useful project management tools, and more.

My fantastic co-presenter, Betty Ray, will talk about the air traffic control process she uses as senior blog editor and community manager at Edutopia. She’ll discuss how she has recruited contributors, coped with turbulence in the content production process, and adapted her process over time to lead Edutopia’s award-winning blog and other content channels.

But, before the NTEN attendees — and you — launch your editorial process and content publication, it helps to have a clear content strategy.

What is content strategy?

Content strategy is the groundwork that strengthens your editorial process and content choices. Your content strategy sets out the value your organization offers to your audiences and how you will use content to get and keep them engaged.

Content strategy is a deliverable, something you formalize in a document and in processes. It is also a discipline that forms the groundwork for successful content production.

Keep in mind that content strategy is bigger than a blog post. One could write entire books about it (in fact, some very smart people have written very good books about content strategy).

Even if you are tasked with getting content published ASAP, you can still keep the core elements of content strategy in mind, even if you don’t have time (yet) to formalize it.

Core elements of content strategy

Content strategy helps your internal stakeholders be aligned about what your organization is trying to accomplish with your content, who your content is for, and how your content will inspire them to action. Content strategy:

• Establishes the organizational goals that your content can support. These goals are your content’s purpose, the reason why your content exists. Knowing your goals will also give you a filter to help you choose which content ideas merit publication and which do not.
• Identifies your organization’s audiences and the content they want to hear from you. If you try to say everything to every audience, the people you most need to listen may tune you out.
• Examines your available resources for content creation. This needs to be firmly based in reality, so don’t overestimate the resources your organization is willing and able to commit to your content production. What resources — people, financial, and technical — do you need to “right size” your content to fit?
• Pinpoints your content formats and types you can and should offer that will be useful, interesting, usable, and relevant to your audiences. This could include the written word, video, photos, infographics, or user-generated content. Also, think about longer-term themes for your content that will be engaging to your audiences.
• Defines the channels that will help you best reach your audiences. This may include a blog, newsletter, website, podcast, or various social media channels — but you won’t necessarily use all of them to engage every audience. Consider both your organization’s channels and any that your staff may use in a professional capacity.
• Explains your editorial voice and tone. What voice and tone is appropriate for your audiences that will also engage them and catch their attention? Is the voice and tone the same in all channels? (Probably not, you’ll sound more authentic if you use a casual tone on social media).
• Clarifies any legal and cultural considerations. If your organization works with children, what is your policy on using photos of kids? What content needs to be reviewed by legal counsel? What should not be shared publically to protect the confidential information of the people you help?
• Formalizes your editorial creation process and governance, setting out the steps that will get the content produced, reviewed, and published in the way you intend it to get out.
• Plans for content maintenance, including how often specific content needs be updated and by whom.

If you’ll be at the 2013 NTC, my presentation will pick up from here — particularly about how to use an editorial calendar to map relevant, compelling content to your channels and track your content production.

If you won’t be at the 2013 NTC, keep an eye on this blog for a future post in which I’ll share highlights from my Air Traffic Control session.

Image courtesy of Ho-Yeol Ryu

. . .

Lauren Girardin is a LightBox collaborator and looks forward to seeing you at the Nonprofit Technology Conference in Minneapolis, MN on April 11-13, 2013.

The Triple Layer Cake

Basically, three key avenues exist to reach most artists.

The Artist’s Agent

If you have a budget for honoraria or fees – say for a keynote address at your annual dinner – then an artist’s agent is the place to go. The largest agencies include William Morris Entertainment and Creative Artists Agency, and there are a multitude of smaller agencies that represent today’s artists. Agency websites typically provide a list of their clients, as well ways to contact the individual responsible for their account. Speaker’s bureaus operate in a similar manner, and the most established bureaus include American Program Bureau, The Harry Walker Agency and Washington Speaker’s Bureau. Note: while you are doing your research on speaker’s bureaus, we recommend two of our favorites who represent some interesting and eclectic clients: Soap Box Inc. connects you to the top thinkers in feminism including Gloria Steinem and Bust magazine founder and Stitch ‘n’ Bitch creator Debbie Stoller, and Speak Out, represents artists ranging from Alice Walker to John Trudell. Since there are a variety of types and levels of artists to engage, think through your various options and let the agents and speaker’s bureaus connect you to the right artist.

The Artist’s Manager

If you are seeking pro-bono involvement, then reaching out the artist’s manger is the way to go. There are a few ways to do this other than endless hours of Google research. The first is through a subscription to IMDB Pro, the advanced version of the well-known movie database that includes contact information for actors and film industry executives. Membership is $15.95/month with no commitment, and they offer a free two-week trial. Another resource is Celebrity Access, with an annual nonprofit rate membership rate $799/year ($899 for general public). If you intend to do a lot of outreach, Celebrity Access provides management contacts for a range of notables, including tour dates, artist representation, and detailed profiles on over 40,000 celebrities.

The Artist

Last, you can try to reach out directly to the artist. Today, social media provides the possibility of a direct conduit that never existed in the past. The major interest in bringing Ugandan warlord Joseph Kony to justice last year exploded practically overnight due to the many celebrities who tweeted about Invisible Children’s video, most notably Rihanna. While it’s not unusual for celebrities to talk publically about causes they care about, one thing was dramatically different in this case: Rihanna learned about the video through the multitude of fans who tweeted her about the video. So many fans contacted her at once that she was compelled to click on the link then immediately share it with her followers (28 million) and the rest is history. If you mix solid strategy with a dash of good luck, then social media can be a very good tool to reach an individual artist.

Sleuthing 102

We started this process with sleuthing, and we’ll end with a bit more Sherlock Holmes detective work. As a final step before you make contact, it’s important to find out exactly which organizations and causes your intended artist is working with now, and what he or she is already doing. A terrific place to start is with an organization called Air Traffic Control. Formed in 2004 by musicians and their managers, ATC’s goal is to provide tools and resources to help musicians create more effective collaborations with each other and with social and environmental justice movements.  ATC has a terrific blog and is a solid go-to resource to see what musicians and other artists are already doing so you can better craft your ask.

Building the Relationship and Making the Ask

Once you’ve conducted this final bit of research and determined the best route of contact, you can begin to build the relationship. If you are reaching out to the agent, let them know which artist on their roster you are hoping to book, the type of event you plan to host as well as your budget and timeframe. If you are going directly to the artist’s management, be sure to let him/her know why you think their artist would be interested in your subject matter. (Note: don’t be afraid to show you’ve done your homework!) Include any relevant materials and visuals, but remember they are really busy so be clear with your ask. If you decide to make contact with the artist via social media, be sure you have all your ducks in a row in case the celebrity acts on your outreach. Make sure you are ready and clear with your strategy, and you might just be surprised. As American Top 40 radio show creator Casey Kasem always says, “Keep your feet on the ground but keep reaching for the stars!”

. . .

Photo courtesy of Mark Armstrong Illustration

Claudette Silver is a LightBox collaborator and wants to know your thoughts on connecting celebrities with campaigns.

Operational Questions

While the leaders of the Strong Families have deep experience and deep skills in navigating the questions of coalition governance, they found some new questions as they took the coalition into the online space. LightBox Collaborative offered research, counsel and facilitation to help the group resolve key questions as to the ownership of and access to intellectual property, use of joint lists for fundraising purposes, brand identity and more.

Because Initiative leaders had a commitment to creating a campaign that would build their allies and make each of their respective organizations stronger, the campaign strategy and all governance practices had to account for alignment and autonomy. LightBox Collaborative assisted in crafting an overall message platform, communications plan and social media strategy, all designed to leverage and enhance the strategic assets that the larger number of organizational partners each brought to the table.

Communications Opportunity: Mama’s Day

The Strong Families Initiative leadership has a firm commitment to supporting partners in leveraging strategic communications opportunities to advance their shared message, and therefore leads an annual “Mama’s Day” campaign. In an effort to recognize and celebrate the many ways we mother in our world today, the Initiative commissioned e-cards from eight artists. These cards are made for the mothers of today, acknowledging families with two moms, single moms, activist moms, and professional caregivers. Cards could be customized via the web site and sent via email and social media.

Though an effective online campaign pegged to Mother’s Day 2012, some 5000 ecards were sent, Strong Families picked up almost a thousand new Facebook fans, and an additional 1000 email subscribers. They also gained 14 new online donors – even though they made a strategic choice not to make a monetary ask. To learn more, please see the case study on our blog.

Communications Opportunity: Election Day

LightBox Collaborative also assisted Strong Families with the creation of fill-in-the-blank voter guides for the November 2012 elections. The guides featured common format, design and messaging that highlighted key Strong Families themes, while allowing organizational partners to tailor the guides to highlight specific issues relevant to their geographic and/or demographic communities.

To complement the guides and highlight the importance of voting, Strong Families also created the “Vote for Us” campaign, which encouraged users to submit images of their families as the ultimate beneficiaries of the election, along with statements about the issues that are most important to them.

. . .

Holly Minch is LightBox’s founder. Read more about how we help clients hold good ideas up to the light.

Ask nonprofit professionals how they connect with their members and audiences, and they will tell you it’s through email, Facebook, Twitter, even Pinterest. If you dig a little deeper and ask them how they got all those sign-ups, likes and followers, you will almost always uncover press coverage. One of the most reliable ways to drive eyeballs to your online presence is through editorial media – TV, radio or newspaper and magazine stories, online and off.

However, the challenge of earning coverage is getting harder even as people lament the future of “old” media. Newsrooms are getting smaller, and journalists have to file more stories on more topics than ever.

So, what makes news and how? One rule to live by: spend less time on your materials and more on your press list.

Why?  Because finding the right reporter is much more important than the perfect pitch. Writing the story is the journalist’s job. Your job is to connect them to stories they want to tell—your stories. If people spent less time agonizing over the perfect press release or topical news hook and more time googling their issues and finding people who are actually already writing about the topic, their pitches would go farther.

Sure, a pricey media database helps. But you know what else helps? Reading, watching, listening. Pitching people who are predisposed (by their interests, beat, and outlet) to cover your story.

To put my money where my mouth is, I have actually written your pitch for you, and I have made it as easy as a kid’s game. It’s a fill in the blank Mad Lib—you can do it at camp! Or in the back seat of a station wagon!

If you do your research, this short pitch should be all you need to get started. I am not guaranteeing a placement every time you send it, but I will promise that it will get you in front of the right journalists and show them you know who they are, what they write and what they need. And that is how you get them to call you someday.

I have to admit; sharing this with you could be bad for business for PR folks like me. At my first meeting with a past client, who was hiring LightBox Collaborative to promote her organization’s 5^th anniversary, she shared with me that she wanted a story just like one she had read in the major local paper. She said the reporter told the story of a similar organization in a way that really made her think that she “got it.”

I advised her to email the reporter a note that looks almost identical (blanks filled in of course) to the pitch I have provided you in Mad Lib form. She got a quick response, and then a commitment to do a feature piece that ran with a photo, above the fold of the local news section. The client and I continued to work together as we approached the anniversary event, but in truth our greatest height was achieved at that first meeting.

Why am I letting you in on this little “secret?” Because you’re a do-gooder, and I want your organization to be able to do more good. Plus, if we do work together one day, I hope you hire us to spend more time doing research and building a good press list rather than doing endless rounds of press release editing!

. . .

Photo courtesy of LightBox Collaborative

Amanda Cooper is a LightBox collaborator who hopes you {_verb_} the Pitch a Reporter Mad Lib to connect with {_noun_} and  {_verb_} your cause.

CONTEXT AND OPPORTUNITY

In studying nonprofits that had participated in sabbatical programs, a group of funders and other partners saw evidence that executive director sabbaticals can strengthen the organization—and the nonprofit sector.

Their research exposed the myth that an executive sabbatical is a chaotic disruption, finding instead that the creative disruption of a well-planned sabbatical can support growth across an organization’s entire leadership team. In fact, sabbaticals for nonprofit leaders were a relatively inexpensive but highly productive way to increase organizational capacity, help with succession planning, strengthen governance, benefit funders, and even extend executive tenure.

Project partners included the Durfee Foundation, the Barr Foundation, the Virginia G. Piper Charitable Trust, the Rasmuson Foundation, the Evelyn and Walter Haas, Jr. Fund, and the Alston Bannerman Fellowship Program.

To share their research, the partners commissioned CompassPoint Nonprofit Services and Third Sector New England to produce the final report, Creative Disruption.

The partners knew that ensuring wide exposure for the report would be the most effective way to reach foundations that could advance the understanding of and funding for sabbaticals as a powerful capacity building intervention.

STRATEGIC APPROACH

The partners commissioned LightBox Collaborative to lead a strategic communications effort to gain wide-spread attention for the Creative Disruption report.

To kick-start the process, we developed a communications plan and supporting outreach materials. The core messaging focused on sabbaticals as a means to strengthen the entire leadership of nonprofit organizations: the board, executive, and management team. The messaging also highlighted the research finding that executive directors who go on sabbatical come back rejuvenated and stay at the organization longer.

A key component of our strategy involved the identification and orientation of messengers to carry these message points to their personal networks. We elevated and leveraged the stories of nonprofit leaders who have benefited from sabbaticals. We also employed critical third-party validation by amplifying the voices of foundation leaders who had seen the benefits of sabbaticals.

Finally, we engaged in outreach to traditional outlets and social media channels. The social media strategy centered on the provocative question:What would you do with three months off?

RESULTS

In just a few short weeks, the Creative Disruption report enjoyed coverage in mainstream publications such as Crain’s New York Business and The Alaska Business Monthly, popular online publications such as The Huffington Post, and nonprofit trade press including The Chronicle of Philanthropy and Philanthropy Journal.

The report also enjoyed wide exposure on nonprofit blogs such as The Social Executive, Inside Philanthropy, Nonprofits Assistance Fund and others. The report also was included in Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors’ “What We’re Reading” list, and generated considerable discussion in many other social media spaces such as Idealist, Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.

> Read the Creative Disruption report

. . .

Holly Minch is LightBox’s founder. Read more about how we help clients hold good ideas up to the light.