The Art of the Editorial Packet
Your issue is important. This blog post adds to your ability to enhance your issue’s visibility, and your chances of successfully moving your issue forward. An editorial in a key outlet, whether nationally visibly or locally influential, is a proven attention getter. Persuading an editorial board to opine on your issue starts with an editorial…
Read MoreDr. Jill Biden and Why Titles (Especially Women’s Titles) Are So Important
With a new administration coming in, there will be many changes afoot. Probably no one will get fired from the administration via Twitter. Hopefully no one will compare the size of their “nuclear buttons.” But another change is quite welcome: hearing “Dr. Jill Biden” announced as the First Lady. And delighted as we are in…
Read MoreWhat Nonprofits Can (and Cannot) Say to Influence a Transition: 2020 Edition
With the 2020 election behind us, nonprofit organizations can now shift their focus to what they want to achieve over the next four years. And like pre-election communications, there are certain limits on what nonprofits can and cannot say during a transition period, thanks to their tax status. Luckily, our friends with Alliance for Justice’s…
Read MoreIs Your Social Media Plan Ready for a Crisis?
When preparing your organization’s rapid response plan, don’t forget about social media. There are a few steps you can take in advance to help align your organization’s response and save critical time when news breaks you need to respond to. Do you have Twitter lists for key state and local journalists and a system/plan for…
Read MoreGender Dynamics in the VP Debate … And the Strategies You Should Try as a Woman Who Communicates
While last night’s vice presidential debate offered more opportunities for candidates to speak about the issues—ahem, clearing a *very* low bar set by the presidential debate a week prior—there were still many gender dynamics at play for how women are expected to speak in politics and how they are treated in return. There are even…
Read MoreWhat’s Your Media Engagement Plan for a Crisis?
Now that you have prepared your spokespeople and your internal organization to respond in a crisis, it’s time to look outwards. What’s your plan to engage the media when news breaks? Do you have up-to-date press lists of breaking news desks/reporters? Every news outlet has someone assigned to “breaking news.” These may be editors who…
Read MoreFive Things Your Organization Can Do In Advance to Prepare for a Crisis
As part of our series on preparing for rapid response, here’s a checklist of five things your organization can do internally to be ready when important news breaks. Do you have a “triage” plan for managing and prioritizing inbound press calls as well as for managing outbound media engagement priorities? Not all reporters or outlets…
Read MoreHow to Prepare Your Spokespeople for Rapid Response Events
Note: This post is part of a series about how to prepare your organization for its next crisis opportunity. Do you have multiple, well-trained, media spokespeople? A few common challenges that organizations face revolve around spokespeople. If there are too few, or the role is concentrated in a single leadership figure, this will result in…
Read MoreIs Your Organization Ready for Rapid Response Opportunities?
There are two types of media engagement: those where you execute a proactive plan and those where you spring into action in response to breaking news stories. Both—the known and the unknown—done correctly, require a sustained infrastructure, a substantial amount of coordination, and ever-deepening partnerships and trust-building with and among the communities and allies we…
Read MoreOur Signature Spokesperson Training Gets Results: A Case Study
After we identified a need to train more spokespeople—including lifting up the voices of women in our sectors—to speak to their lived experiences and tell their own stories, we developed what has become one of our signature trainings. Before the coronavirus grounded our flights and prohibited us from group gatherings, these training sessions were two…
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