#ComNet14 Handbook

1

2 3Communications Network 2014 | Philadelphia

I’d like to

introduce myself. My name is

Sean Gibbons and I am the Executive Director of The Communications Network.

Sharing stories and ideas has been my work and my passion for most of my adult life. First through journalism, and over the past decade, in the public policy world. My experiences have made this truth plain: quality communications are a difference maker. They can spark debate, elevate new ideas, and in very real ways, improve lives.

Over my career, I’ve spent more time than I should admit trying to discover and understand the latest innovations, data, trends, and tools to inform and inspire. I am, at heart, a geek. A communications geek.

And if I had to guess, I am not very different than you in that way.

So you can imagine

how lucky and honored I feel to be stepping into my new role at The Communications Network.

Right now we are in a new epoch of information. There are a number of big, thorny questions facing the social sector and its communicators. Questions like: How do you measure impact? How do make sure your organization’s voice is heard? There are quiet, crucial concerns as well, like: How do you do more with less? How do you ensure communications are an organizational priority?

I don’t pretend to have the answers, but I am delighted to have the chance to work with you to try to ask the right questions, and to share our learning widely so that we can all work smarter and better.

Since I’ve come aboard, so many of you have been extraordinarily warm and generous with notes of welcome and offers of help. Thank you. I deeply

appreciate the reception I’ve received. And I will need the help.

I’m looking forward to getting acquainted and working with each of you in the days, weeks and months ahead.

Our offices are now located in Washington, D.C. and the door is always open. Please feel free to reach out: I’m reachable via email at [email protected].

Great things are ahead! Let’s get started.

Sean Gibbons is Executive Director of The Communications Network, which he joined in June 2014 after a career in public policy working at The Center for American Progress and Third Way. Previously, he worked as a journalist at CNN and ABC News. Follow him on Twitter @SeanGibbons_

Communication Matters .................................................................................................. 4Minna Jung | What The Heck Foundations Do ..................................................... 6Nathalie Kylander | Brand Idea .....................................................................................8Andy Burness | Relationships .......................................................................................12Jane Golden | Mural Arts Program Interview ..................................................... 14Conference Schedule ..................................................................................................... 20Keynote Bios........................................................................................................................22How To Connect At The Conference ......................................................................23Breakout Synopses ..........................................................................................................24 Conference Sponsors and Host Committee ...................................................... 30 Ben Smith | Interview ......................................................................................................32Bill Schneider | Know Your Audience ....................................................................34Sarah Lewis | Interview .................................................................................................36Paul VanDeCarr | Storytelling ...................................................................................40#ComNet14 By The Numbers .....................................................................................42Pluto, Star Trek & Logo Design ................................................................................ 44Remembering Frank Karel .......................................................................................... 46Coming Soon ...................................................................................................................... 46

Table of Contents

#ComNet14 ConferencePhiladelphia, Pennsylvania | October 8 - 10, 2014

Some content has previously appeared on www.comnetwork.org.


Communication matters. Organizations that communicate well are stronger, smarter, and vastly more effective. Yet when it comes to delivering effective, strategic communication, many of us struggle.

At The Communications Network, we devoted the last year to a listening and research project to collect ideas and opinions, data and evidence, case studies and models to try to understand why.

We spoke to hundreds of people and organizations spanning the social sector and found that one of the biggest obstacles is not what we thought it would be when we started—that people don’t understand the importance of communication. Actually, they do.

Across the sector and across organizational roles, people “get” that communication is important. And it doesn’t matter what kind of social sector organization you are: a private foundation, a community foundation, or a nonprofit. All are more alike than we had previously supposed, at least when it comes to communication; they share many similar attitudes and concerns, despite different stakeholders and business objectives. What’s more, a strong majority of people, from those in the C-Suite to those in the program

and policy offices, agreed everyone in an organization needs to share responsibility for communication, and that effectiveness declines when it is relegated to the “communicators” alone.

That’s the good news.

Here’s the challenge: despite understanding the value of communication, most organizations and individuals admitted that they lacked the time and budget to “do” communication more effectively.

We saw this challenge as an opportunity. It’s why we made Com-Matters.org

Com-Matters.org distills what we learned over the last year and aggregates it in one central place. It houses the voices, data, and evidence we gathered and makes sense of it by offering a model for effective social sector communication.

Our model for effective commu-nication is based on attitudes, beliefs, and practices reported by hundreds of professionals across the social sector.

We hope that Com-Matters.org helps to establish a common understanding of what effective social sector communication can and should look like. It is designed for everyone who aspires to make the world a better place—not just communication practitioners alone. It’s meant to be practical, too. This site puts evidence from the field at your fingertips to help you draft memos, build presentations, and make the case for smarter communication at your organization.

A NOTE ABOUT OUR RESEARCHFirst, a thank you. Over 400 people representing well over 100 institutions participated in our research over the last year. Roughly half of those we heard from were communication professionals. The other half included CEOs, executive directors, trustees, program leaders, and evaluators. Without your candor, time, and help, we would not have been able to look across the landscape.

HERE’S WHAT WE DID: Working with our thought partners David Brotherton and Cynthia Scheiderer, we set out to learn as much as we could about how people in the social sector, from a range of roles, think about communication, and whether they act on their beliefs. While we didn’t follow established research standards to the letter, we did use

research-like methodologies—literature review, focus groups, surveys—to allow hundreds of people to share their insights and experiences with us. We also conducted a substantial literature review, inventorying some 250 different materials in all, including research reports, websites, tool kits, internal memoranda, evaluations, board presentations, and strategic plans.

We then took all of these inputs—the survey, the focus groups, and the “lit review”—and used them to construct Com-Matters.org.

MOVING FORWARDMoving forward, we hope you will share your feedback and stories, successes and failures, to build upon what we’ve started in order to make Com-Matters.org better over time.

The Communications Network has played a key role in shining a light on the ideas, trends, and practices that shape the communication we do on behalf of good causes—through surveys, events, thought pieces, webinars, and other offerings. Communication Matters is an important step forward in our ongoing effort to do this for you. With your membership, participation, and support, The Communications Network will continue to make the case for smart, impactful communication and help those who do good do better.

SOCIAL CHANGE

BRANDEvery social change organization, no matter its size or purpose, has three key assets that shape its identity: resources, reputation, and relationships.

CULTURECommunicating organizations share and cultivate certain qualities that make their work compelling to others. You may not have all in equal measure, but you need a minimum supply of each to succeed.

STRATEGYSuccessful organizations are consistently strategic (deliberate and intentional) about their communication choices, weighing several distinct, yet related, variables before they act.

ACTIONCommunicating should never be a one-way activity. Success demands a continuous, self-correcting cycle of sending and receiving, plus the ability to cede control.

HAVE A LOOK:


Most people don’t know much about founda-tions. I worked in philanthropy for over 15 years,

and when I first started, my parents (Korean immigrants) thought I’d be working directly for

sweet, elderly society matrons in Chanel suits, who had oodles of money to give away to libraries, hospitals, and pet societies.

It is true, foundations do give away money. But at many foundations, the act of giving away money has gone far beyond issuing a check to a deserving organization or cause. For example, many founda-tions invest not just in projects or initiatives related to important causes, like education or health care, but also in the people and the organizations that fuel those causes. I formerly worked at the David and Lu-cile Packard Foundation, and one of the many things I loved about this foundation is a dedicated grants program, called Organizational Effectiveness (OE), to help current Packard grantees tackle the “funda-mentals.” Meaning, things like fundraising, business planning, leadership development, and yes, strategic communications.

In 2013, almost a quarter of OE’s grants supported grantee efforts to build their own communications

capacity. And OE’s focus on grantee capacity is by no means unique: dozens of foundations across the country support capacity-building for grantees and some even specialize in communications capac-ity. When I worked at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, I participated in numerous efforts to build grantees’ communications capacity, through training programs, message boot camps, and other forms of assistance that were either part of or extra to the grants they received.

Capacity-building is one of those philanthro-py-speak terms that many people toss around without being 100% sure of what it means. But in the nonprofit world, for foundations and their nonprofit partners, it really does represent a critical concept, which is this: as we’re all striving to make progress on causes we care about, we also need to pay attention to the fundamentals, duh. How can your organization be successful if you don’t have a solid leadership team, or a functioning board, or updated IT systems, or a reasonable business plan? And, communications represents one of the biggest organizational fundamentals at all levels: internal, external, organization-wide, issue-specific. A story I told last year in a blog post illustrated this point

perfectly: communicating is a critical component of the change we all seek to make in the world.

So if foundations demonstrably care about grant-ee communications capacity—and evidence of this caring is to be found in the numerous tools, training programs, and grants offered to grantees, although I’m sure there’s still so much more to be done—should foundations also care about our own capacity to communicate? I’ve been mulling over this question because I was struck by how differ-ently foundations approach communications, with many investing hardly anything in either internal or external communications. In the business world, you can tell how much individual companies care about their brand, their audiences, and you can even tell, if you look at their job listings, how much they care about internal communications as well as external communications. But in the foundation world, the impression is that many foundations don’t commu-nicate, and they seem to be fine with that, thank you. Is this really what we’re trying to intentionally signal to everyone else?

There are notable exceptions, however, to the foun-dations don’t communicate as a general rule. In the

WHY SO MANY PEOPLE DON’T KNOW past several years, I’ve seen a handful of foundations:

• Be clear about what issues they fund, why they care about these issues, and who is eligible and not eligible for this support;

• Take great strides in sharing more informa-tion about what they’ve learned from their grant-making, where more progress needs to be made, and where they’ve fallen short;

• Engage in tweeting, Facebooking, and Google hanging out with nonprofit organizations or other types of partners engaged in similar issue areas;

• Convene disparate stakeholders around a specific social problem to see if there’s a way to make progress on solving that problem;

• Share stories about critical problems (e.g., our children need better education) and solutions in ways that help accelerate action and actual prog-ress on these issues.

This is just a sampling of what I’ve seen founda-tions do in communications. And guess what? If your organization wants to communicate to good effect, then you’ll need to develop the strategy and

the skills to carry that out (no, you can’t just hire a consultant—although they can be super-useful). Unfortunately, for funders and nonprofits inter-ested in communicating more, and in developing the chops to do more, there’s not a lot of help out there about what level of staffing and budget and effort is required for foundations to do all of these communications things, and there’s also not a lot of evidence as to what’s created the most impact. To return to the business world analogy, you can directly connect a marketing budget with product sales; you can connect your internal communica-tions capacity with employee engagement and satisfaction.

For foundations that really care about particular causes—causes that are super-complex, where progress is a question of years, not months—cor-relating a communications investment with impact is much less of a straightforward proposition. I serve as the board chair of The Communications Network, a nonprofit organization dedicated to sharing best practices among communications professionals at foundations and nonprofits, and we’re trying really hard to crack this nut.

So my somewhat obvious conclusion: foundations should continue to invest in grantee capacity, yes, but also in their own. For one thing, every organi-zation—for-profit or nonprofit—needs some basic level of communications capacity in order to sim-ply function in today’s world and “basic” is rapidly changing, given the radical digital transformation we’re experiencing. And given the always-tough competition for resources at any organization, for-profit or nonprofit, you should of course right-size your communications capacity to your mission, your values, and to what you want to achieve in terms of impact.

My belief is that if foundations strengthen their communications capabilities, they’ll become better partners with each other and with all of the part-ners they work with in the public and private sec-tors. Better communications could help foundations actually achieve greater alignment and traction on the complicated problems we seek to solve, that no one organization could possibly tackle alone. And bonus points: maybe more people would under-stand that what foundations do is about a lot more than money.

Minna Jung, the California Communications Director of Environmental Defense Fund, is Chair of The Communications Network Board. Follow Minna on Twitter @

Minnams

WHAT THE HECK FOUNDATIONS DO


The Communications Network: You and your colleague Julia Shepard Stenzel have a new book out, it’s called The Brand Idea. Tell us about it…

Nathalie Kylander: The original intent was really to examine the role of brand in the non-profit sector and to explore what differences might exist in terms of managing non-profit brands as it relates to for-profit brands. Most of the brand and brand management models that we have really stem from the for-profit sector. One of our objectives was to understand whether those models were still relevant and useful.

The Communications Network: In the non-profit, in the foundation world, people think about branding, they think first about fundraising. From there, it’s a quick jump to the logo and putting it on pens and coffee cups and T-shirts. What did you find in your research about how people do think about brands in the non-profit world and how is that thinking changing?

Nathalie Kylander: There’s a fundamental shift that’s occurring in terms of how a brand is perceived. The shift that we’re seeing in the field with non-profits is perception or an understanding of brand, much more as a strategic asset that embodies both the mission and the values of the organization. The goal becomes less to fundraise and to promote the organization and much more to focus on mission impact, how to use brand to implement the mission.

The Communications Network: When you think about those concepts and you think about organizations that are doing it well, give us an example of one or two and describe for us what that means in practical terms.

Nathalie Kylander: Those organizations that are thoughtful about their brand view it as a strategic asset. They really go back to the mission and try to make sure that the brand is closely tied to both the mission and the values of the organization. When they’re talking about brand and they’re trying to answer the question, “Who you are? What you do and why is it important?” There are a number of organizations that engage in a re-branding process and realize that they have to go back and actually redefine their mission. Is it still indeed the right mission?

The Communications Network: Are there some case studies that you like to share about organizations that went through a rebranding process?

Nathalie Kylander: We talked to Marta Tellado, formerly of the Ford Foundation and she talks exactly about this sort of internal brand exercise. This ability to tap into what she calls, “collective consciousness about who we are and what is being conveyed.” Taking into account things like the greatest accomplishment and taking stock of the organization’s 75 years to gain a sense of common accomplishment. That’s really understanding the brand as the reflection of the organization’s history. Chris Van Dyke from the World Wildlife Fund already talks

A conversation with Nathalie Kylander, author of The Brand Idea

IS JUST FOR FUNDRAISING

CUE SAD TROMBONE

IS A STRATEGIC ASSET

IS MISSION ALIGNEDBRAND

I DON’T HAVE A BRAND

YES YOU DO

YES

YES

NO

YES

NO

NO NO

NO YES YES SUCCESS!


about self-awareness and having great clarity in terms of who you are and where you’re headed in order to be able to articulate the brand. A lot of these organizations have been doing a little bit of soul searching about who they are, what they do, why it’s important and linking brand very firmly to their mission.

The Communications Network: One of the quotations that you had in the research that struck me said, “If you don’t know where you’re going and why you’re relevant, you don’t have a brand.”

Nathalie Kylander: A brand is closely associated to positioning. Positioning is the place that you occupy in the minds of your audiences relative to alternatives, relative to competition but also relative to other organizations in your ecosystem. Part of that shift that we’re seeing is the shift in the understanding of positioning and the role of brand, away from a competitive advantage and more to being able to gain clarity to be able to drive effective partnerships. It’s a fundamental shift from traditional brand management models which are all about competitive advantage.

The Communications Network: You talked about mission and clarity and partnerships. What are some of the other benefits that come to an organization when they have a strong brand?

Nathalie Kylander: One of the key things is trying to align the brand identity, which is the internal perception of the brand, which stems from the mission and the values, with the external perception which is known as brand image.

Part of the job of brand management is to make sure the internal identity is strongly aligned with the external perception or the brand image. When you have a misalignment, that’s when you get some erosion of trust. People expect the organization to be one thing, that’s their brand image but in fact, the brand identity is slightly different. A lot of our work, a lot of our objective as brand

managers is really to try to constantly align the image and the identity. You find a lot of the rebranding initiatives are really trying to align the image and the identity that are slightly out of alignment. Because if you’re perceived as being different from who you truly are, it’s going to erode the trust people have in you.

The Communications Network: What has been your experience as you talk about this idea of brand to people in non-profit marketing and communications? Are people receptive to it? Do you find resistance or skepticism?

Nathalie Kylander: I think the skepticism is around the word “brand,” it’s around marketing in general and it’s around the sort of sense of professionalization of the sector. Those are all themes that don’t necessarily sit well in the non-profit sector. When you’re thinking about brand as a logo to raise funds or to generate PR, if you’re in that old mindset, then I think it’s fairly natural to be skeptical of the brand and maybe a little cynical too. If you start making that shift and you really believe that the brand is about implementing your mission, then you sort of go to a different place in terms of being less about a logo to raise funds and much more about a strategic asset that helps you gain internal organizational cohesion and build trust with a variety of stakeholders, including key partners. When you make that shift, the skepticism around brand tends to diminish somewhat. In terms of people who have had experience kind of letting go of the control of the brand, I’d say it’s a little scary because we’re not used to it and we’re worried that people will say things about us or do things that we can’t control. I think the reality is you cannot control it. In fact, you’re better off harnessing the power of social media to create brand ambassadors than trying to police your brand. I’ve heard that doing that has really gained exposure and visibility for organizations because a lot more people are able to become brand ambassadors and talk with general authenticity about the organization.

The Communications Network: What are some of the biggest barriers you see for foundations or non-profits that want to do branding well?

Nathalie Kylander: For a long time, people in the communications department that have really been the stewards of the brand have struggled, I think, with the kind of skepticism that we’ve discussed. Using terms like integrity, democracy and affinity, doing some educational work in terms of what a brand is and what it can do for an organization is really helpful in helping people to make that shift into the new paradigm. I’d say really talking about brand as mission is really a good starting point to try to overcome that as well.

The Communications Network: What’s the one step or action you’d recommend a non-profit leader take to improve their organization’s brands?

Nathalie Kylander: I think starting a dialogue and starting the process of a brand democracy is really the first step. I would suggest starting with internal stakeholders, so that really you’re starting the dialogue about what a brand is, who are we, what do we do, why is it important and trying to get people on board. Effective brand management is a mindset that starts with understanding the brand as the embodiment of the mission. We really believe it’s got less to do with money and expertise and some of the smaller organizations or smaller non-profits will say to me, “Well, we don’t have the money or the time to do branding.” I would suggest that every organization has a brand and the decision is not whether or not to have a brand because we all have a brand. The decision really lies in how to manage the brand.

Nathalie Laidler-Kylander is a Lecturer in Public Policy at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government where she teaches courses on leadership and the strategic management of non-profits. She is the co-author of The Brand Idea, which offers a new strategic framework for non-profit branding. An edited transcript of the conversation follows. Read the full interview at ComNetwork.org


KEY TAKEAWAYS

• Relationships are at the heart of communications. They’re essential.

• The quality of digital communication has been proven to be lower than that of in-person communication.

• Building relationships through personal interaction is more likely to help you convey your message and achieve a desired outcome.

A few summers back, my then-teenaged son made the case for a summer job away from home. He showed great judgment in heading to Nantucket. What’s not to like there? He sold t-shirts to tourists.

He and his friends snagged a cheap sublet off the Internet, but needed another roommate to cover the rent. They found the perfect guy online.

Weeks later, I heard that the perfect roommate was a “complete disaster!”

I find myself asking the very same “I told you so” questions at work: Do you know this person? What does your intuition tell you? Do you think you have a connection? Why or why not?

It seems to me that in our embrace of the digital world, we professional communicators run the risk of teenage outcomes: occasional flat-out mistakes, but much more frequently, lost opportunities. We need less email and more face-to-face time. Less stark, more nuanced. Less quick and impersonal, and more authentic.

This dynamic plays out in some of the most challenging work we do – placing feature stories, being a steady information source for journalists or policymakers, earning the trust of donors

Relationships “We had to kick him out. Too many drugs, crazy late hours, broke stuff, weird dude,” my son complained. “This guy was out of control!”

“Yeah, we’ve been talking on Facebook. It’s cool.”

“I just know. He’s like us.”

“Well, have you talked with him? Do you know anything about him?”

“What makes you feel so sure?” I asked.

“ He’s gonna be great,” one of them said. “We like a lot of the same music. Ite’ll be fine.”

These outcomes are all hard to achieve, but they’re not done through email, voice messaging, MailChimp blasts, links or attachments or other quick-hit, impersonal or purely informational salvos. This is one case where what held true a generation ago is still true today: relationships matter, and because they are meaningful, they trump all other forms of communication.

By “relationship,” I’m not referring to an interaction that must rise to the level of BFFs, or even friendship. But a genuine human connection must meet the bar of authenticity, taking the honest measure of the other person. Getting a sense of body language. This need not take vast amounts of time, but it does take some time, as opposed to a touch or click. And, when direct personal contact isn’t feasible because of the miles that separate us, we ought to do the best we can with Skype or thoughtful phone conversations. In any case, we need more depth than a Gchat allows.

It’s worth it. There’s the time I landed a feature piece in the Chicago Tribune because I spent a half hour with an editor instead of emailing her. There’s the uber-talented intern I hired because she impressed me in the 15

minutes we had together after I guest-lectured in her class. And the dinner conversation with the head of a global research center who, before we parted, urged me to visit his operation to offer advice.

“ …In our embrace of the digital world, we…run the risk of teenage outcomes: occasional flat-out mistakes, but much more frequently, lost opportunities”.

There’s even some science behind this. Two samples: researchers at the University of Essex in England found that when two people are placed in a room and communicate face-to-face, the mere presence of an unused cell phone nearby causes the participants to report a decrease in the quality of the relationship. Also, multiple studies carried out at UCLA validate what we intuitively know: over 90 per cent of communication is driven by body language and tone of voice, as opposed to the content of the message itself.

Successfully promoting ideas and seeing them actually come to pass generally doesn’t happen by way of emails or voice messages. We

need a greater sense of each other’s humanity – even a glimpse – in today’s workaday world where the comfort zone tilts toward technology.

A few years ago, a client needed help running a workshop. It was a one-off, straightforward request; we could have prepped in a few emails. Maybe a phone call. Instead, we met for an hour to plan the session. He made an impression on me, and left me with a good gut feeling. I liked him, and the workshop was well-received. Soon after, I called him on a lark to ask whether he was interested in being fixed up, because someone I knew just “felt” like a fit for him. How did I know? I just knew.

My client and his fix-up celebrated their first wedding anniversary in July.

Now, that’s a communications outcome!

Andy Burness is the founder and president of Burness Communications, a mission-driven global communications firm supporting nonprofits and the people they serve. Before starting his firm, he was a liaison with the public and primary spokesperson for the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Follow him on Twitter @AndyBurness1.

Put Down the iPad and Pick Up the PhoneMatter:

Communications Network 2014 | Philadelphia14

“Art ignites change.” A conversation with Jane Golden of The Mural Arts Program

Jane Golden is the Executive Director of The City of Philadelphia Mural Arts Program. The Communications Network spoke to her about her work and the role of communications in Mural Arts’ success. An edited transcript follows. For the complete interview,

please visit ComNetwork.org

The Communications Network:

What is The Mural Arts Program and how did it come into being?

Jane Golden: The Mural Arts Program began in 1984 as a component of the Philadelphia Ant-Graffiti Network, a program started by former Mayor Wilson Goode to help reduce graffiti in the city. Between 1984 and 1996 the small art component of this larger organization worked tirelessly to use art as a catalyst for positive social change in communities throughout Philadelphia and offered intensive year-

round art programs to young people who had formerly been writing on walls. In 1997 the Anti-Graffiti Network was re-structured and the art component formally emerged as The Mural Arts Program.

At Mural Arts we believe that art ignites change. We create art with others to transform places, individuals, communities, and institutions. Through this work we establish new standards of

excellence in the practice of public and contemporary public art. Annually we enroll 3,000 people in three major program areas, engage 7,000 people in the creation of over 50 major public art projects, and host 15,000 on tours of our collection. Our work targets every neighborhood in Philadelphia, but we prioritize reaching underserved populations. Our three programs include an art

education program for youth, a restorative justice program for people in prison and those returning from prison, and a behavioral health-focused program for those struggling with mental illness, trauma, and addiction. We also have two other important divisions: a community murals department, which focuses on creating projects in collaboration with community groups and organizations, and a public art and civic

engagement division that produces large-scale artworks meant to push the boundaries of our practice.

Mural Arts aims to be a change agent - creating dialogue, connection and understanding - can you explain what that means to you? The changes we see impact individuals, communities, systems, and by extension there is a great civic impact

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16Communications Network 2014 | Philadelphia

on our city as we see Philadelphia turn into an outdoor museum that has work embedded in a social process. Every work of art we do involves someone, and by engaging people, connecting them, inspiring them to collaborate, we see how art has a very personal impact. The work we do engages people, stirs something in them, and asks them to talk about their stories, their memories, their struggles, their aspirations. Community-based public art represents people in a way that is often new and unfamiliar but extremely important.

Mural making, because of its intensive process that is so inclusive, ultimately builds social capital and creates other opportunities for change. As one of our artists recently said, all our work opens “social windows of opportunity” through which we can see things differently, and more importantly, glimpse other opportunities.

What do Philadelphia’s murals say about the city?The murals of this city are autobiographical in nature. They tell us stories of every part of the city and ultimately give people everywhere the

dignity and respect they deserve. The fact that our program started in 1984 and today not only has created thousands of new works, but also has a waiting list, shows us the great impact art has on the life of a city and that there is a demand for art in Philadelphia. This says to me that this is a city that cares deeply about art and all it can do, for young people, for artists who want to work in public, for communities.

Also, I feel that this program could not have happened anywhere. We are a city that has embraced public art for

a long time, we are a city of neighborhoods, and we are a city that is scrappy and sophisticated, bold and visionary. It is a wonderful place to have been doing our work. It is also a city of great ambitions - to be the greenest, to be a city that prepares our youth for a new kind of workforce in the 21st century, to transform how it delivers behavioral health services, to provide creative and meaningful programs for people returning from prison. We now acknowledge those challenges and ambitions as our own and want, with every project or program

we do, to nourish our work with imagination and collaboration.

You yourself are an artist. How do you think about and describe the work of an artist? I think the work of an artist is invaluable. They are the creative thinkers in our society. And I think for all too long art has been marginalized, and when one thinks of artists they think of a niche group of outsiders. But this kind of siloing needs to stop. First, because the arts are critical to our society, they inspire, they engage,

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they challenge, they educate, and in the end the arts connect us to all that makes us human. But also, when it comes to society’s more intractable problems, we cannot look past the role of innovation and creativity to ultimately make a difference when traditional interventions have failed us. And we understand that artists… the designer, the inventor, the writer, the musician, the teacher… are everywhere, and we need them and we need to support them because they make our world a better place.

When you hear the word “communications” what does it bring to mind? Why?We have come to see that it is imperative to do great artistic work, but in order to

sustain the work, in order to continually build a family of friends, supporters, and donors, one has to have a strong communications strategy. One has to communicate clearly, cogently, directly, passionately about the work they are doing so that people will see it, experience it, support it. When I hear the word “communications” I think it is how we tell our story, it is how we build our audience, it is the lifeline of our organization.

What’s the role of the arts in effective communication? Does design matter? Why?Design certainly matters. It distinguishes what is seen and what is ignored. It helps us tell our story in the most profound way or it becomes something seen as white noise. We have

learned over the years that the same amount of attention and care we pay to our work, we need to put that same attention to everything generated by Mural Arts, be it our website, our invitations, our annual appeal, the invitation we send out to our major gala. Design matters.

What’s the toughest audience that Mural Arts tries to reach? How do you approach them and why? I love it when people say “I hate murals” and then when I probe, it turns out there are murals they actually like. It is a strange conversation because the city is filled with things I like and don’t like. It is, after all, the 5th largest city in the country, and it seems we all benefit from being open minded about what exists here - buildings, sculpture, murals, etc. And art is so subjective. I

would never expect someone to like all murals, but I don’t expect people to be judgmental. The more diverse, rich, and interesting our city is, the better it is for all of us who live here.

As people watch a mural being constructed, what should they look for? How do they make meaning of it? One of the wonderful things about murals is that they are generally created in the public’s view. I don’t know if there is a specific thing to look for to make meaning, but muralists tend to be very outgoing people and are usually happy to answer questions from passersby as they are painting or installing a mural. And what better way to learn about the meaning of the mural than by speaking to the artist who designed it?

PHOTOS BY STEVE WEINIK FOR THE CITY OF PHILADELPHIA MURAL ARTS PROGRAM. REPRINTED BY PERMISSION.

Communications Network 2014 | Philadelphia

scheduleWOCT 8

11:00 am – 5:30 pm

Conference Registration Open

1:00 pm – 4:30 pm

Workshops:Less Tunnel, More Light: Sparking Action By Sharing Solutions

SmartScan: Do You Have What it Takes to Communicate?

Screaming Monkeys, Roaring Lions: Making Noise vs Making a Difference on Capitol Hill

Funny: Strategic Planning Using the Tools of Improv Comedy

Jargon Kills! Using Science to Craft Messages With Maximum Motivating Power

6:00 pm – 8:45 pm

Welcome Reception at The Barnes FoundationWelcome Remarks by Robert Wood Johnson Foundation President & CEO Dr. Risa Lavizzo-Mourey & Philadelphia Deputy Mayor Richard Negrin

Shuttle Buses Depart Doubletree Hotel at 5:30 pm and run continuously until 9:00 pm

ThOCT 9

7:30 am – 8:45 am

Breakfast & Morning MeetUps

8:45 am – 9:00 am

Welcome Remarks

9:00 am – 10:00 am

Keynote: Ezra Klein, Founder and Editor-In-Chief of Vox.com, Columnist for Bloomberg News, and Policy Analyst for MSNBC

10:00 am – 10:15 am BREAK

11:30 am – 11:45 am BREAK

10:15 am – 11:30 am

Breakout Session #1

Communications Idol – The James Irvine Foundation

Because the Boss Said So: How to Help your CEO Give a Presentation You’ll Want to Sit Through – The Nellie Mae Education Foundation

Making the Impossible Possible: The Art of Activism – Open Society Foundations

Digital Storytelling for Social Impact:Harnessing the Power of Narrative and Networks to Create Change – The Rockefeller Foundation

Change Journalism: Philanthropy/Media Partnerships - Rasmuson Foundation, Scattergood Foundation, The John S. & James L. Knight Foundation & WHYY

11:45 am – 12:30 pm

Keynote: Judy Smith, Executive Producer of ABC’s Scandal, in Conversation with Barr Foundation President Jim Canales

12:30 pm – 2:00 pm LUNCH(Ormandy Ballroom)

3:15 pm – 3:30 pm BREAK

3:30 pm – 4:30 pm

Keynote: Terry Gross, Host of NPR’s Fresh Air in conversation with Anusha Alikhan of The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation

Introduction by Jesse Salazar, Vice President of Communications, Council on Foundations

Evening On Your Own

10:00 pmLate Night Movie: Rocky - Sponsored by the American Film Institute

2:00 pm – 3:15 pm

Breakout Session #2

Hey! Your Users Matter Most. How to Build a Website That Meets Everyone’s Needs – The William & Flora Hewlett Foundation

Know Your Audience: How Polling Can Inform Social Change - The Communications Network

Talking Poverty in The Age of Piketty - The Annie E. Casey Foundation

Beyond Metrics: How Do We Know If We’re Making a Difference? – Nathan Cummings Foundation & Active Voice Lab

Let Your Mission Ring: Why Brand Matters - Philanthropy Network Greater Philadelphia

7:30 am – 8:45 amBreakfast & Morning MeetUps

9:00 am – 10:00 amKeynote:Ben Smith, Editor, BUZZFEED

Introduction by Marty McOmber, Managing Director of Communications at Casey Family Programs

8:45 am – 9:00 am BREAK

10:00 am – 10:15 am BREAK

11:30 – 11:45 am BREAK

11:45 am: Closing Remarks

20 21

10:15 am – 11:30 amBreakout Session #3

Who Cares About Your Foundation’s History? - The Atlantic Philanthropies & StoryCorps

This is Your Brain on “Nudge”: How We’re Applying Behavioral Economics to Marketing and Communications - The Ad Council & The Arthur M. Blank Family Foundation

The Revolution Will Not Be Televised: It Will Be Uploaded to YouTube - Ford Foundation, Human Rights Watch

The Promise and Perils of Communicating in Times of Change – The Barr Foundation, Conrad N. Hilton Foundation & MacArthur Foundation

Resource Revolution: Building a Home for Your Grantees’ Work - W.K. Kellogg Foundation

HTTP://WWW.COMNETWORK.ORG/SCHED/

FOCT 10


Keynote Bios: How to Connect at the Conference:

Connect and share your Philadelphia story with your colleagues:

22

TERRY GROSS Terry Gross is the host and co-executive producer of NPR’s

acclaimed interview program, Fresh Air. The San Francisco Chronicle noted that Gross’ interviews are, “a remarkable blend of empathy,

warmth, genuine curiosity, and sharp intelligence.”

EZRA KLEIN Ezra Klein is Editor in Chief of Vox.com, a general news website that

focuses on giving the public crucial contextual information necessary to understand what is happening in the world today. Prior to founding Vox.com, he oversaw The Washington

Post’s Wonkblog. He is also a columnist for Bloomberg View and

a contributor to MSNBC.

BEN SMITH

Ben Smith is the Editor in Chief of Buzzfeed, an internet news media company that has redefined how information is constructed and

moved across the web. A graduate of Yale University, he has been a political columnist for The New York Observer, New York Daily

News and POLITICO.

JUDY SMITH Judy Smith served as a Special

Assistant and Deputy Press Secretary in President George H.W.

Bush’s White House and is the President and Founder of Smith

and Company, a crisis management and communications firm. Her

experiences inspired the hit ABC drama Scandal, where

she serves as an executive producer.

#ComNet14 #ComNet14 #ComNet14

www.comnetwork.org The Communications Network will be documenting Communication Matters as it happens through essays, interviews, and blog posts that can be found at www.comnetwork.org and across our social media channels. If you would like to contribute, please email Paul VanDeCarr at [email protected].

23

@TheComNetwork

@TheComNetwork

The Communications Network www.facebook.com/thecomnetwork

CommNetwork www.flickr.com/photos/thecomnetwork

www.comnetwork.org/sched/


Breakout Session #1

ART+ACTIVISM

Thursday, October 9 | 10:15 am – 11:30 am

COMMUNICATIONS IDOL: Impact Edition

The search for a superstar begins this season on Communications Idol: The Impact Edition. Three contestants compete before a panel of foundation CEO judges to see whose communications work has actually made a

difference. Contestants will detail a project goal, related communications activity, and the resulting impact. Our celebrity judges provide commentary, but your vote determines the next Communications Idol.

Presenters: Alfred Ironside, Jim Canales, Grant Oliphant, Laura SparksSponsor: The James Irvine Foundation

BECAUSE THE BOSS SAID SO: How to Give a Presentation You’d Want to Sit Through

If you’re looking to communicate your organization’s message effectively, you’ll need to prepare – and deliver – tight, effective, and entertaining speeches, talking points, and presentations. This session will teach you how. Whether you’re preparing for an

interview, writing a speech for your boss, or producing talking points for stakeholders and partners, the strategies you learn in this session will make you a better communicator, writer, and executive or staffer.

Presenters: Shaun Adamec & Steve RabinSponsor: The Nellie Mae Education Foundation

MAKING THE IMPOSSIBLE POSSIBLE: The Art of Activism

Creativity is essential if we want to bring about social change. We know that rational, fact-based messaging is not enough, and well-worn tactics such as petitions and marches no longer work the way they used to. In this session on Creative Activism

participants will be introduced to ideas and exercises that enable advocates to unlock their imaginations from the prison-house of the possible – and then to figure out how to make the impossible possible, through new tactics and strategies.

Presenters: Brett Davidson, Steve Lambert & Stephen DuncombeSponsors: Open Society Foundations, New York University & The

Center for Artistic Activism

DIGITAL STORYTELLING FOR SOCIAL IMPACT:Harnessing the Power of Narrative and Networks to Create Change

Storytelling. We all want our organizations to be better at it. Few have figured out how to really connect it to social impact. This session will focus on lessons learned from Rockefeller Foundation’s recent landscape study on what it

takes to create a storytelling organization, including Strategy, Capacity, Content, Platforms, and Evaluation. An interactive session, participant input will be used to strengthen this effort moving forward.

Presenters: Jay Geneske, RJ Bee & Michael Slaby Sponsor: The Rockefeller Foundation

CHANGE JOURNALISM: Philanthropy/Media Partnerships

Foundations are in the change business, and change requires exposure to ideas and information that prompts interventions and actions. Newsrooms are in the ideas and information business – a business undergoing rapid change, but with the mandate

to produce information that serves the public interest. Can we work together? Really? Hear from funders and reporters about the rules, risks, and potential rewards of philanthropy/media partnerships.

Presenters: Cassandra Stalzer, Joe Pyle, Andrew Sherry, Kyle Hopkins & Maiken Scott

Sponsors: Rasmuson Foundation, Scattergood Foundation, The John S. & James L. Knight Foundation & WHYY


Breakout Session #2

U X

Thursday, October 9 | 2:00 pm - 3:15 pm

HEY! YOUR USERS MATTER MOST. How to Build a Website That Meets Everyone’s Needs

With no widgets to sell or services to provide, no campaigns to run or donors to inspire, what’s a foundation website for? That’s the question the Hewlett Foundation recently asked. With the help of UX (user experience) design firm Quor, the foundation has been examining how to use its website to better provide useful information to relevant audiences. During this session, Quor will

share the results of their research, which included interviews with leaders in foundation communications, a comparative analysis of exemplary nonprofit, philanthropic, and commercial websites, and data from hewlett.org’s analytics. The session will facilitate a discussion among participants about how they are using their own websites in support of their communications goals.

Presenters: Heath Wickline, Eric Brown & Michael GharabiklouSponsor: The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation

KNOW YOUR AUDIENCE: How Polling Can Inform Social Change

The United States is the world’s most populist nation. That means that polls matter. A lot. When most Americans care deeply about an issue, you can be sure, change will come. Bill Schneider, an Emmy and Peabody award-winning journalist, writer, and teacher, for whom the title “political analyst” was coined during his three decade career at CNN, previously taught politics and public policy at Harvard

and Stanford. The Boston Globe named him “the Aristotle of American politics.” This session will focus on how social change most often occurs in America, with an interactive look at the tools and insights that can be gleaned by understanding public polls like those from Gallup, Pew, and The New York Times, including how to read them, understand them, and put them to work in your work.

Presenter: Bill SchneiderSponsor: The Communications Network

TALKING POVERTY IN THE AGE OF PIKETTY

Communicating about poverty is complicated. Is poor better than low-income? Will one person’s success story reinforce the bootstrap narrative? Are messages about obstacles more effective than solutions? Can a scientific

approach help? The Annie E. Casey Foundation and partners took to the public to find answers. Take part in this interactive case study to discover the sweet spot for talking fixes in today’s conversations on poverty and inequality.

Presenters: Arin Gencer, Jennifer Hahn, Kaitlin Swarts & Julie HootkinSponsor: The Annie E. Casey Foundation

BEYOND METRICS: How Do We Know If We’re Making a Difference?

Is your communications effort designed to engage lots of different kinds of stakeholders, giving each an opportunity to participate? If so, it could be a Rake. Or are you steering your audience toward a particular policy outcome on a pressing issue? That’s a Trowel. Join a funder, an evaluation innovator,

and a story strategist as they “dig” into AV Lab’s emerging framework that uses garden tools as metaphors for matching various narrative styles to desired outcomes. Using a lively, interactive approach and participants’ own projects, this session will also cover smart ways to assess or evaluate each tool.

Presenter: Ellen Schneider, Maurine Knighton & Tanya Beer Sponsors: The Nathan Cummings Foundation & Active Voice Lab

LET YOUR MISSION RING: Why Brand Matters

Is your organization’s brand helping to achieve your mission? Author Julia Stenzel will describe the Brand IDEA framework for aligning brand with mission and values, and leveraging brand to engage stakeholders and support collaboration. Philanthropy

Network Greater Philadelphia will tell the story of how the organization embraced a new identity after 25 years, achieving buy-in and sparking renewed dialogue around its brand promise: Smarter giving. Greater good.

Presenters: Julia Stenzel, Denise Portner, Debra Kahn, Susan Segal,

Meredith Huffman & Chris MurraySponsor: Philanthropy Network Greater Philadelphia


Breakout Session #3

Friday, October 10 | 10:15 am – 11:30 am

WHO CARES ABOUT YOUR FOUNDATION’S HISTORY?

Can we better shape the future by looking backwards? The Atlantic Philanthropies is a limited-life foundation that will complete grant-making by the end of 2016, and shut its doors shortly thereafter. Using oral history techniques, the foundation has committed to documenting the past to inform the future. In this session, renowned oral historians will talk about the importance

of sharing, listening, and recording as we go so that future practitioners, activists, funders, and historians can hear first-hand from those on whose shoulders they now stand. Participants, whether from limited-life or perpetual organizations, will be encouraged to think about how to preserve both the life and the lessons of their own organizations for future audiences.

Presenters: Katie Butterfield, Dave Isay, Bruce Weindruch & Thaler Pekar

Sponsors: The Atlantic Philanthropies & StoryCorps

THIS IS YOUR BRAIN ON “NUDGE”: How We’re Applying Behavioral Economics to our Marketing and Communications Efforts

We all know the golden rule of communications – know your audience. But what about incorporating what makes people tick? Whether you’re trying to get someone to donate, sign a pledge, or embrace a policy, the quirks of human irrationality are at play. Hear from the Ad Council,

Booz Allen Hamilton, Bully Pulpit, and The Arthur M. Blank Family Foundation on how they’re applying behavioral science to communications. While there’s a lot of chatter on this topic, we will share practical tips and real world examples.

Presenters: Tony Foleno, Victoria Adams, Mark Skidmore & John BareSponsors: The Ad Council & The Arthur M. Blank Family Foundation

THE REVOLUTION WILL NOT BE TELEVISED: It Will Be Uploaded to YouTube

For foundations and nonprofits, the question is no longer “Should we be producing multimedia?” but “How do we?” Human Rights Watch and the Ford Foundation, winners of Webby Awards and a Peabody Award, share tips,

including how to collaborate with major media organizations, why you shouldn’t work with people who only work with nonprofits, and how to convince your president to cut loose…footloose.

Presenters: MacKenzie Fegan, Jessie Graham & Ben RellesSponsors: The Ford Foundation & Human Rights Watch

THE PROMISE AND PERILS OF COMMUNICATING IN TIMES OF CHANGE

Change is coming. No matter what the change, a few things about change never change: It isn’t easy. It raises questions. It stirs speculation. Change can raise tensions and anxiety both inside and outside your organization. And it raises the stakes for every single communication activity. Yet, change also creates incredible opportunities for communications professionals. They can help

new colleagues or programs launch well and position them for leadership. They can advance missions and increase impact. Through interactive case studies and by tapping the collective wisdom of The Communications Network, this session will build our shared understanding of guiding principles, effective practices, and pitfalls to avoid when communicating in times of change.

Presenters: Meredith Klein, Stefan Lanfer & Marc MoorghenSponsors: Barr Foundation, The Conrad N. Hilton Foundation &

MacArthur Foundation

RESOURCE REVOLUTION: Building a Home for Your Grantees’ Work

Our grantees are important. So is the technical assistance they receive. What if there was a way to move technical assistance online and allow for other grantees and individuals to help sustain the work and assistance for the foreseeable

future? The W.K. Kellogg Foundation has taken a step in that direction with the Racial Equity Resource Guide, and in the process, built a knowledge hub as a home for our grantees’ work.

Presenters: Omar Hussain, Joanne Krell, Kathy Reincke & Scott

RobinsonSponsor: W.K. Kellogg Foundation


Lead Sponsors:

Sponsors:

www.thehatchergroup.com

A F INNPARTNERS COMPANY

Supporters:

The City of Philadelphia Mural Arts Program

The Philadelphia Eagles

American Film Institute

Agency 3.0

J Sherman Studio

Flying Dog Creative

Recurve Services

SteegeThomson Communications

Sen Associates

Special Thanks to our #ComNet14 Host CommitteeMinna Jung, Environmental Defense Fund

Alfred Ironside, Ford Foundation

Fred Mann, The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation

Jesse Salazar, Council on Foundations

Donna Frisby-Greenwood, The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation

Betsy Anderson, The Philadelphia Foundation

Tanya Barrientos, The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation

Brent Thompson, The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation

The Communications Network Board Minna Jung, Environmental Defense Fund, Chair

Joanne Krell, W.K. Kellogg Foundation, Vice Chair

Charity Perkins, The Duke Endowment, Secretary

Craig Ziegler, California Healthcare Foundation, Treasurer

Rebecca Arno, The Denver Foundation, Chair Emeritus

Alfred Ironside, Ford Foundation

Fred Mann, The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation

Maureen Cozine, New York State Health Foundation

Kevin Corcoran, Lumina Foundation

Jesse Salazar, Council on Foundations

Daniel Silverman, The James Irvine Foundation

Doug Root, The Pittsburgh Foundation

31

About DesignRyan Cassidy and Josh Limbaugh, art directors at Fenton Communications, along with Elke Dochtermann, Chief Creative Officer, had a blast designing this program based on the mood boards created by J Sherman Studio. This is what happens when the smart folks at The Communications Network told us to go nuts. Thanks for the opportunity.


BuzzFeed has been deeply influential. What do you think has happened and why?

We have deep roots in web culture, and in the big shifts — to the web first, and then to social and mobile— that have been happening for quite a while, but have only recently become serious business. In the early 2000s, Jonah Peretti, our founder, was doing some of the first viral web projects. Ze Frank, who heads BuzzFeed Motion Pictures, was pioneering online video and video blogging. And I was figuring out how political blogging worked as a political reporter in New York City. These all felt like side projects, not businesses, at the time, but these are the forms that have really moved to the center of how people communicate.

Many people posit that BuzzFeed has changed the way people consume information, that it has been a pioneer in utilizing social

and mobile media. What lessons can communications professionals take from the way BuzzFeed approaches its work and its audience? We basically assume our reader is someone who opens her phone, and opens the Facebook or Twitter or Pinterest app on that phone; our challenge is to get into those ecosystems, or into the emails her friends sent her, and the only real trick to getting there is doing something really good.

How do you gather information - not only for your work, but in your life - what do you read, where do you look?

Twitter, Facebook, Path, Instagram...and my cursed email. Twitter is really the beating heart of news, though it can be hard for non-power users to figure out. Path is the other end — it’s where I share baby pictures with blood relatives. And Facebook is increasingly just the center of the media universe, though

what you see depends so much on what you engage. A lot of what I look at there is hyperlocal news from my part of Brooklyn.

What did you learn during your time at POLITICO? How has it informed the way you approach your work at BuzzFeed?

I think Politico really proved out the value of original reporting, and of scoops, and of hiring really talented people, and that’s something we’ve certainly focused on. They came in at a moment when the Post was incredibly complacent and proved something that I’ve certainly taken to heart, which is that you can establish a reputation for great reporting and for breaking news within, at least, the inside conversation very very fast, but that there’s no trick — you just have to do it.

You worked for The New York Observer. What’s the biggest difference between that experience and working primarily online? What’s the same?

I actually started blogging when I was at the Observer, partly because it was a weekly and I had all this extra information that would get stale or was too small for the paper. As soon as I did start, I got addicted to this sensation that you weren’t just creating stories of a certain size — you were communicating directly with readers. The main difference is the sheer immediacy of the connection with the reader and your subjects.

How do you see the way people get information changing in the next 10 years?

The shifts toward social, mobile, and global are just accelerating, that’s about as far out as I can see. I think the prospects for doing professional work in apps like Snapchat and Vine is also really interesting.

The New York Times wrote of your hiring: “BuzzFeed, a site where the editors and algorithms sift the Web in search of viral articles elsewhere, has decided that

it needs articles of its own.” It went on to discuss how BuzzFeed’s strategy centers on sharing. What is sharing these days? What’s the purpose and what’s the way that you think about it?

We think of sharing in very abstract terms — just about what factors make people pass a story on to friends. That can be that it’s new news; it can be that it is something they can share a laugh over; it could be a recipe they can use.

Who, in your opinion, is an excellent communicator working for social change today? Why? What distinguishes them?

Cory Booker is pretty notable in his real, native fluency on Twitter. Authenticity goes a long way.

What does it take for something to go viral? Is there a secret formula? Are there elements that appear consistently in viral content? And if the short answer is no, what’s your hunch about why some things, like the recent ALS Ice Bucket Challenge, take off?

There’s no formula, but the Ice Bucket Challenge has a lot important features: Sharing it is an act of charity, which is something people often like to do in public; it’s funny, and you can share a laugh with friends. And it’s novel.

What are the apps you use the most?

Twitter, Path, Facebook, WhatsApp, Cabin. Gmail. Rdio, BuzzFeed, New York Times, Uber, Waze. hello for texting. Everytask. Only game on there is Badland.

What’s the first “listicle” you remember reading?

The 10 Commandments.

In a world of text messages, Facebook updates and tweets, does good writing matter anymore? Why or why not?

Of course — these are all written forms. We’re a more literate society than ever before.

What book is on your nightstand right now?

When we launched in Brazil I read Dom Casmurro by Machado de Assis, and was pretty blown away by it.

A CONVERSATION WITH

BEN SMITH, EDITOR, BUZZFEED


KEY TAKEAWAYS

• Polling can reveal when a narrative

will work and when it won’t.

• With public opinion, intensity

matters just as much as numbers.

• Polling can help you find a story

that will draw the audience in.

Bill Schneider is CNN’s former Senior Political Analyst. He has served on the faculty at Harvard and Stanford and taught courses on public policy and political science at Boston College and George Mason University’s School of Public Policy (where he presently holds an endowed chair). The Boston Globe named him, “the Aristotle of American politics” for his keen insights and storytelling skill. Follow Bill on Twitter @BillSchneiderDC.

This is his inaugural column for The Communications Network.

When you need to reach an audience and advance your cause, polling can help you find a narrative. The best way to connect with people is with a narrative. Give potential supporters a story that they can identify with. And make sure it ends with a bottom line: you have a role to play in this story. For forty years, I have been reporting polls on political issues. Political issues always have a narrative. Usually competing narratives.

The better narrative wins.

In 1991, during the Senate confirmation hearings for Clarence Thomas’s nomination to the Supreme Court, there were two competing narratives. One was whether Judge Thomas was qualified to go on the court. The other was whether Thomas was guilty of sexual harassment.The second narrative prevailed. Thomas’s accusers could not prove he was guilty. It became his word against that of Anita Hill. In the end, for a senator to vote against Thomas’s confirmation meant that the senator judged him guilty. I tried to explain on TV that a confirmation hearing is not a trial. If a nominee cannot be proved guilty of harassment, it does not mean he or she belongs on the Supreme Court. It didn’t work. Republicans succeeded in depicting the proceedings as a trial. It worked because Americans “get” trials. They had been watching Perry Mason for years.

President Bill Clinton would never have survived

without the polls. When the Monica Lewinsky

scandal broke in 1998, official Washington

declared Clinton’s presidency over. At first, even

Democrats were unwilling to defend the President.

But the polls created their own narrative. The

public believed President Clinton deserved to be

shamed. But the political death penalty -- removal

from office -- was too extreme. President Clinton

fed the narrative by demonstrating that he was

doing his job. The polls saved him.

In 2000, conservatives tried to create the narrative that little Elián González, who had survived a shipwreck and the death of his mother, should not

have to live in communist Cuba. The public responded to an alternative narrative -- that this was a family tragedy and the child belonged with his father. Voters threatened to punish anyone who tried to turn the case into a political cause. The same thing happened with the Terri Schiavo issue in Florida in 2005. The public accepted the narrative that her case was a private tragedy and that politicians interfered at their peril.

KNOW YOUR AUDIENCEPolling can reveal when a narrative will work and when it won’t. When the economy is bad, people accept the “fairness” narrative. Middle

class Americans know that people like themselves – good, honest, hardworking people – are hurting. It’s not their fault. There must be something wrong with the system. It’s not fair. When times are good, however, the fairness issue does not work. As long as “people like us” are doing O.K., there’s nothing wrong with the system. If some people aren’t making it, it must be their own fault. The narrative changes.

Polling is also useful when your objective

is to change opinions. One of the most

dramatic changes in the history of public

opinion has been on the issue of same-sex

marriage. What changed people’s minds

was the narrative of personal experience.

The percentage of Americans who said

they know someone openly gay increased

from 42 percent in 1992 to 77 percent in

2010. Those who know openly gay people

– friends, relatives, co-workers – reject

discrimination.

The narrative of personal experience did

not work, however, when it came to selling

Obamacare. Most Americans did not

personally experience the new healthcare

law and were frightened by the narrative

against it: that it would endanger their own

health care security. When a relatively small

number of individual policyholders saw

their insurance canceled, fear spread and

public opinion turned negative.

In the U.S., the only way you can get government to act is if there is a public sense of crisis. Politicians are always declaring a crisis -- an education crisis, an energy crisis, an environmental crisis, a debt crisis. Or they declare war on something -- a war on poverty, a war on crime, a war on drugs, a war on terror. Polls can tell you when the crisis is real and when it is not. For example, conservatives are constantly dismayed to discover that, for most Americans, budget deficits are a problem but not really a crisis. People do not say, “Do something to get us out of this mess. Raise taxes! Cut entitlement spending! Anything!” So conservatives try to turn the deficit into a crisis by shutting down the government or threatening to default on the national debt. It never works.

The same thing is true for climate change. People see

climate change as a problem but not a crisis. Polls

show that Americans are not willing to make significant

sacrifices to curb greenhouse gas emissions. Climate

change does not have genuine urgency. Yet.

With public opinion, intensity matters just as much as

numbers. Gun owners are a minority, but they have

intensity on their side. They will vote against anyone

who threatens gun control legislation. The majority

may favor gun controls, but very few of them feel

so intensely about the issue that it drives their vote.

A good poll will measure not just whether people

support your position, but how much they care about it.

Opinions matter, but loud opinions matter more. Polls

can help create a narrative that will turn up the volume.

In fighting for a cause, you have to engage people by telling a story. Polling can help you find a story that will draw the audience in.

HOW POLLING CAN ADVANCE SOCIAL CHANGE

Communications Network 2014 | PhiladelphiaWHERE W

E ARE

36 37

THE COMMUNICATIONS NETWORK: In your book, you talk about the difference between success and mastery. Why, in the long run, do you think mastery matters more than success?

SARAH LEWIS: Mastery and success are distinct. Success, I believe, is a label that the world confers on you for hitting a benchmark that allows people to see you as having achieved something, maybe enviable, in their eyes.

Mastery, if you look at the lives of different individuals who we might consider masters, shows that it is about not just success, but seeing your life as a journey, seeing any kind of benchmark of achievement as perhaps just a near-win so that you have enough fuel to keep on going.

The reason why mastery, I think, is more important than success is because success doesn’t really motivate us. It’s a nice thing, but it doesn’t propel us onward. Mastery is more important because it allows us to see our life as a journey as opposed to just one moment in time.

THE COMMUNICATIONS NETWORK: How do you think people come to that realization that life is, in fact, a journey, and not a series of winner-take-all competitions?

SARAH LEWIS: Many creative individuals learn that lesson and understand that their lives are a journey because the process tells them that that is the case, because when you create, there are sort of two realities you live with. There is this sort of external world

where people respond to what you put out and might deem it with some acclaim.

Oftentimes, the internal world, the sort of second reality of any creation, reminds you – because you might not be satisfied with it – that you still have more to do, that there’s still more that you need to create.

Mastery and success are distinct.

An example of this is when an interviewer asked Duke Ellington, a jazz musician, what his favorite work in his repertoire was, he said, “Always the next one. Always the one I have yet to compose.”

People, oftentimes, who are creative, will answer in that way because they understand that in order to stay creative, they need to be able to see their life as a lineage.

Sarah Lewis is the author of The Rise: Creativity, the Gift of Failure, and the Search for Mastery. The Communications Network spoke to her about the difference between success and mastery, how a near-win can be a good thing in the long run, and why grit matters more than talent and IQ. An edited transcript follows. For the complete interview, please visit ComNetwork.org

FAILURE IS THE GAP

WHERE W

E

WANT TO GOBETWEEN WHERE WE ARE

AND WHERE WE WANT TO GO.

Oftentimes, because we look to timeless masters when we create – Tolstoy, you name it – we are reminded that we’re doing work that will go beyond our lifetime perhaps, and is an extension of the work that has come from lifetimes before.

When you’re not in a creative field, I think one of the main ways that people remember that our life is a journey is by focusing on someone’s life story, looking at all the different permutations that have gone on to allow them to become who they are known for being.

THE COMMUNICATIONS NETWORK: One of the stops on that journey, and you described it earlier, is the near-win. What is it, and what are the benefits?

SARAH LEWIS: The near-win is the phenomenon where one comes close to a goal, but doesn’t quite arrive at it. This gives us a sense of frustration enough to propel us to reaching a goal that

we never imagined we could. We see this really vividly in athletic competition, especially Olympic competition. There has been a great study done at Cornell about the near-win phenomenon as it relates to what silver medalists go through as distinct from bronze medalists.

What the study has found is that the frustration that silver medalists feel on not receiving the gold, on average, is much greater than, say, that of bronze medalists, who tend to be happy that they didn’t receive fourth place and no medal at all.

Why is that so? It has to do with what Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky called Counterfactual Thinking, the ideas that the mind tends to rest on, the easier to imagine scenario, the more frustrating scenario in this case, of what someone had just missed achieving.

One way to consider this is to imagine yourself going to an airport.

You’re about to try to catch a flight and you missed your flight by, say, 5 minutes. If that were the case, you probably would never miss a flight again. If you miss it by 30 minutes, it’s harder to imagine what you could have done differently to arrive at the airport on time.

In the same way, bronze medalists don’t really dwell on what they could have done to receive the gold as much as silver medalists do, who are much closer to it.

We see the near-win playing out not just in athletic competition, though, but in creative human endeavors of all kinds. It creates this “ever-onward” feeling for artists.

Michelangelo is a classic example, in some cases, of the near-win. He wrote, at one point, in a letter, “Lord, grant that I might always desire more than I can accomplish,” as if he understood that the thrust of the near-win would allow him to achieve something masterful.


SARAH LEW

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THE COMMUNICATIONS NETWORK: Why do you think places like Silicon Valley embrace failure? Are there other sectors that you’ve seen do this, too?

SARAH LEWIS: To talk about Silicon Valley, I think, requires that we first remember that the term failure, in America, was first used as an economic term. Failure, in the 19th Century, meant bankruptcy. It meant that you had reached a dead-end. It was only in the 20th Century that we started using the word failure to talk about the human spirit.

Entrepreneurial feats, I think, require talking about these sorts of potential dead-ends and glean from them because of the pivots that people often make that then let their product sort of arrive at an achievement.

If people were to stop with their so-called failures, entrepreneurially, we might never have, in our lives, something like Spanx, which Sara Blakely decided to create, but only did so by thinking about failure very differently.

Silicon Valley has, as you know, something called FailCon. It’s a conference where CEOs will come together, but are only

allowed to speak about their failures. What they’re doing is actually replicating what Sara Blakely did every day at her kitchen table when she was growing up. She’s the founder of Spanx, one of the few self-made billionaires in America.

At that kitchen table, her father asked her, “What have you failed at today?” She and her brother were really, in some sense, pressured to offer an answer, because he was disappointed if they didn’t have an example. That line of questioning made her reconsider failure.

This is what I believe is happening at FailCon. It’s allowing for a re-framing process. To consider that word differently,

to consider failure not as an outcome, but as the refusal to try.By understanding that the refusal to try is often the very thing that leads to a dead end, entrepreneurially, people are able to encourage one another, I think, by speaking more openly and candidly about their failures in public, not just at a kitchen table. That’s why Silicon Valley, I think, is doing such great work.

THE COMMUNICATIONS NETWORK: You tell a lot of different stories in your book across different cultures. Did you see cultural differences in views about success and mastery and failure? Is there a uniquely American viewpoint on these topics, or European or Asian viewpoint, or did you find some universal themes across all continents?

SARAH LEWIS: There are, I think, cultural differences as they relate to failure that come out in this book. Some people have said that this book is distinctly American, and that might be the case. We are, I believe, a culture that doesn’t simply honor and value achievement. I think we value ambition, which is separate from achievement.

I think ambition comes with the sense of valuing something because of the risk that it might not work out. In that way, failure is always a part, always a potential reality of what it is that we’re celebrating.

THE COMMUNICATIONS NETWORK: What are some of the practical lessons from the book that you would encourage people to keep in mind as they pursue their own life journey and their careers and the work of their organizations?

SARAH LEWIS: Two Nobel Prize winners that I spoke to gave me a sense of why play is so important. They are the Nobel Prize winners who discovered the first two-dimensional object on the Earth – graphene, as it’s called – and it’s replacing silicon. It’s really an incredible material. It’s thinner than silk. It’s stronger than steel. It’s the most conductive material that they’ve ever found.

They found it through such rudimentary, playful means that when they submitted their findings to the prominent journal, Nature, the journal didn’t think they actually had a discovery on their hands. They thought that they had to just be mistaken in their findings.

They found that by playing with Scotch tape and graphite, in fact. But, really, they’re sort of exemplary for creating this model of what they call Friday Night Experiments, times where they’re in a very serious laboratory, allowing themselves to enter into another person’s field of endeavor and expertise and ask questions that those experts might not dare ask.

Other companies have models for doing this as well. Google has 20% time. Lots of different

companies, like the Mayo Clinic, have sort of a safe haven that allows their inventors to create without fear of repercussion. The Mayo Clinic inaugurated what they call the Queasy Eagle Award for ideas that didn’t quite make it, but that they still want to honor for the effort that went into them.

Before this experiment with this Queasy Eagle Award, they had a few ideas for patents that were very good, but, after 18 months with this Queasy Eagle Award, they had 245 ideas, many of which merited new patents.

Anything that lowers the barriers to feeling the sense of shame from failure is helpful, and play allows for that.

THE COMMUNICATIONS NETWORK: Are there stories in your book about non-profit leaders or people in the foundation world that you’d like to share?

SARAH LEWIS: The idea that the foundations gave me was that if organizations really had 100% success in achieving their goals – vis-à-vis grant applications – we would have already solved all the world’s problems. Meaning, in order to have some honesty and

integrity in the work, people do need to admit their failures.

This was taken to such an extreme that the Engineers Without Borders organization I spoke to decided to publish not just an annual report, but a failure report. That sense of disclosure really ignited a huge conversation in the field of international aid about the repercussions of doing this, but also what can be gained from it, what foundations can learn about best practices from it. I thought that was really instructive. I’d leave with a quote that Winston Churchill said, which is,

“ Success is the ability to go from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm.”

The question is how do we do that?

THE RIS

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• Don’t shy away from communicating the high stakes of your issue.

• Keep your audiences in suspense to keep them engaged and willing to take action.

• Use graphic and sound design to signal your organization’s “story brand.”

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watching—and that’s a notion that applies to stories of 3 minutes or 3 seasons. Nonprofit communicators who are too quick to resolve conflict, or never even introduce it in the first place, run the risk of boring their audiences. More nonprofits could also stand to leave their audiences in suspense at the end of a story— the way audiences resolve that suspense is to take action, to donate, to volunteer.

It’s got an excellent logo, musical score and sound effects.

Fans like me will start to salivate when we see the logo of the digital clock and hear the clanking sound it makes as the seconds tick by before and after a commercial. And the music, if you pay attention to it, is remarkably effective at multiplying the drama in a scene. Yes, “24” has a big budget and can afford top-price sound designers and composers, but even small nonprofits, if they’re collecting and sharing stories on a regular basis, can use graphic design and music to heighten the emotional impact of those stories, and build “brand recognition” over time.

While viewership has dropped off in recent seasons, “24” sparked some strong public debate in its time about the efficacy of torture in extracting reliable intelligence. (The verdict from experts, if not audiences, was a strong “no.”) Part of the reason that people are still talking about “24” is that it dramatizes strong conflicts, doesn’t resolve them before audiences have a chance to get invested in the story, and creates anticipation.

Can you say the same thing about your communications?

Paul VanDeCarr is the Managing Director of Working Narratives and a regular contributor to The Communications Network. Follow him on Twitter @wnstory.

I love “24.” Yes, that “24”—the hit show on FOX that, since 2001, has followed counter-terrorist agent Jack Bauer as he shoots, runs, yells, cajoles and, oh yeah, tortures his way into foiling plots to nuke America or kill the president. I love it even now in its ninth and possibly last season, as Kiefer Sutherland, the actor who plays Jack, looks old enough to barely withstand bouncing a grandchild on his knee, let alone be beaten up by a gang of Russian agents. So, how could I love a show that has dubious politics (though not as bad as you might think) and an increasingly preposterous premise? Fact is, the writers and producers know how tell a good story.

The stakes are clear.

Right from the very first episode of each season and continuing until the end, we know what’s at stake. In the opening minutes of the current season, which takes place in London, we learn that visiting U.S. President Heller is the target of a terrorist plot, and Jack Bauer comes out of hiding

to save his life, which is especially cool of him, because Heller kinda screwed Jack over before. That all happens before the first commercial break! From there, the stakes and plot complexities only deepen. Contrast that with a lot of nonprofit storytelling, which is often so concerned with nuance and balance that it qualifies itself right out of existence. You, dear reader, are no doubt dealing with conflicts every bit as dramatic and high-stakes as those on “24”—are you communicating that powerfully enough?

The show is consistently suspenseful.

Viewers of “24” are kept in almost continuous suspense. What will happen to President Heller’s daughter Audrey in the season finale, since at the end of the last episode she had an assassin’s gun trained on her? And will Audrey and Jack rekindle their love of old?

“ Nonprofit storytelling … is often so concerned with nuance and balance that it qualifies itself right out of existence.”

Suspense doesn’t have to hang on the cliffhanger conventions of action thrillers, like on “24.” The larger principle here is, viewers are invested in what’s happening to the characters, we don’t know how things will resolve, and that’s precisely why we keep

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JACK BAUER JACK BAUER JACK BAUER STORYTELLINGSTORYTELLINGSTORYTELLING

CAN TEACH THE SOCIAL SECTOR

ABOUT


$1BILLIONESTIMATED COST

OF THE MOST EXPENSIVE

PIECE OF ART AT THE BARNES

COLLECTION

MURALIST IN ATTENDANCE

$1,500,000,000,000

FORMER CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST LEADING

A BREAKOUT SESSION

1

1

3NUMBER OF RYAN GOSLING VIDEOS DIRECTED BY THE COMMUNICATIONS NETWORK STAFF

4COUNTRIES

REPRESENTED

0ANIMALS

HARMED IN THE PRODUCTION

OF THIS CONFERENCE

18

10,500,000

NUMBER OF YEARS THE COMNET STAFF SPENT LIVING IN

FLORIDA

VIEWERSHIP OF SCANDAL’S SEASON 3 FINALE

OSCAR NOMINATIONS FOR

ROCKY

5PEOPLE NAMED

DOUG AND JENNIFER ATTENDING, THE MOST COMMON

MALE AND FEMALE NAMES *as of 9/4/14

10

#COMNET14 BY THE NUMBERS

ESTIMATED ANNUAL ECONOMIC IMPACT OF THE SOCIAL SECTOR IN THE US (ANNUAL GDP OF $16.8 TRILLION)

CLASSIFICATION:

LOOKS LIKE A PLANET

B Y ELKE DOCHTERMANN PRESS THIS BUTTON1-123581321

DO NOT PRESS THIS BUTTON

A "PLANET" IS A CELESTIAL BODY THAT: A. IS IN ORBIT AROUND THE SUN. B. HAS SUFFICIENT MASS FOR ITS SELF-GRAVITY TO OVERCOME RIGID BODY FORCES SO THAT IT ASSUMES A HYDROSTATIC EQUILIBRIUM (NEARLY ROUND) SHAPE, AND C. HAS CLEARED THE NEIGHBOURHOOD AROUND ITS ORBIT.

Pluto,Star Trek &Logo Design

When Alan Stern, head of NASA’s New Horizons mission to Pluto, weighed in on Pluto’s demotion from planet status, he suggested alternative criteria to defining a planet. The International Astronomical Union’s three criteria are based on gravity, orbit, and mass. Technical and sophisticated, but still leaving room for misinterpretation. Stern suggests:

1. Is it in Space? 2. Is it round?*3. Does it pass the

Star Trek test?

Yeah, I did a double take there too.

The Star Trek test is simple. When the crew of the Enterprise shows up at any given world and turn on the monitor, does it look like a planet? The audience is not left to wonder, is it a comet? space debris? asteroid? They know intuitively if it’s a planet; they know it when they see it.

I immediately thought of logo design. A logo transcends explanation. An audience will see it and immediately recognizes that one, it is a logo and two, (if it’s a well-designed logo) what the brand or organization is all about.

As an audience, we have collectively, intuitively agreed

on what defines success: whether it’s for a planet or for a logo. While it seems more like magic than science, modern neurological research points more and more to evidence that our decisions are made far less on conscious logic and far more on millions of other input cues, particularly visual ones, that collectively frame our choices. It’s no coincidence that Stern has used a visual test as part of his criteria.

When you’re [re]defining your brand, getting caught up in trying to include all aspects of your program, giving all stakeholders a voice and shining a light on your illustrious history can obfuscate the simplicity of your mission. Get back to basics - Why do you do what you do? When you get into this space, you will uncover the simple truths that drive both intellectual and emotional engagement. Then the trick is how to manifest that core belief visually so that audiences will recognize it and connect.

It’s no small surprise that many of a designer’s best ideas seem to find their genesis on an alcohol-stained napkin, crumpled but retained because we knew there was something there. It’s because after we’ve steeped ourselves in all the research, the messaging, the identity, the image, the promise, the

narrative... we need a break. I’m not suggesting those things aren’t important - they are critical - but a designer needs to see the planet from a distance to discover the visual truth that is your brand. It so often seems that as soon as we stop thinking about the problem, the solution is clear.

We do need the math, the research, the audience analaysis, the many hours of hard work. But to get to a place that is less about trying to incorporate every single facet of your brand into a logo to one that rings true, be clear and simple about your messaging, turn on the monitor, and be prepared to boldly go where no one has gone before.

For over 20 years, Elke Dochtermann worked as a global brand builder in the corporate advertising arena. Two years ago she got smart and became the Chief Creative Officer at Fenton Communications where she works with non-profits and foundations. Her team is responsible for the graphic design of this program. Amuse her at [email protected]

* Only objects large enough for gravity to overwhelm material strength flow into a sphere.

45


Remembering Frank Karel

Coming Soon

“ Getting the word out is essential to bringing about social change…”

WEBINAR:

Lessons from the Frontline of the LGBT Movement

Doug Hattaway and Alex Cole of Hattaway Communications

will join The Communications Network for a webinar exploring the history and impact of strategic communications in one of our country’s most recent and most successful social change struggles - the fight for marriage equality

for LGBT Americans.

Date: Wednesday October 29, 2014

Time: 2pm - 3pm Eastern

FRANK KARELFounder of The Communications Network

1935-2009

WEBINAR:

Open Data for the Social Sector: The PDF is the Enemy

The partnership between

A few words about our “No Solicitation” Policy:We ask all conference attendees to observe The Communication Network’s “no solicitation” policy. It’s a pretty simple list of DOs and DON’Ts and by observing these few rules, you’ll be contributing to making a comfortable meeting space for everyone at the conference.

For Nonprofits:DO bring your business

cards.

DON’T bring proposals.

DO tell grantmakers about your organization’s work.

DON’T ask on the spot if they want to fund your organization.

DO follow up on leads when you get home, as appropriate.

DON’T send everyone you meet a request for funding.

For Foundations:DO invite nonprofits to

follow up with you after the conference, if appropriate.

DON’T accept proposals on the spot.

DO say, “Sorry, this conference isn’t the place,” if you’re faced with a request for funding.

DON’T mistake enthusiasm from nonprofit leaders about their programs for a request for funding.

For Consultants:DO bring your business

cards.

DON’T bring or hand out marketing materials.

DO introduce yourself and your organization to people you meet.

DON’T ask for business.

For Everyone:DO respect the spirit of the

“no solicitation” rule – beyond the obvious DOs and DON’Ts mentioned above.

The Sunlight Foundation & The Communications Network continues with The PDF is the Enemy, a December 2nd webinar that will explore the need to make publicly available information and data better. This webinar comes on the heels of a recent World Bank report on the use of PDFs that, as The Washington Post noted, “dug into their web site traffic data and came to the following conclusions: Nearly one-third of their PDF reports had never been downloaded, not even once. Another 40% of their reports had been downloaded fewer than 100 times. Only 13% had seen more than 250 downloads in their lifetimes.”

Date: Tuesday, December 2, 2014

Time: 1pm - 2pm Eastern

POLL POSITION WITH BILL SCHNEIDER

An exclusive new monthly column for The Communications Network on the ideas and issues captivating the American public from former CNN Senior Political Analyst Bill Schneider, whom The Boston Globe named “the Aristotle of American politics.”

718 7th Street NW2nd Floor

Washington, DC 20001

comnetwork.org

Fall 2014

Documents

#ComNet14 Handbook