Melinda Buchheit, MSWe hosted a series of three training webinars where attendees learned how to communicate effectively about their projects and share them online and with the media. Communication experts from Burness Communications led the training, sharing their expertise in messaging, media, and storytelling. We targeted these webinars to our grantees but welcomed our partner organizations to join us.
Training 1: Messaging
Trainers: Elizabeth Wenk & Chuck Alexander
A message is the crux of the matter – the reason anyone should care about your work – it gives the big picture by providing context, a sense of urgency, and possible next steps. Most importantly, it helps you get your point across how you want. Identifying and crafting your messages before communicating is essential to ensure success and impact. This session will focus on creating messages about your work that resonate with your audience(s) and are memorable. This session will also focus on asset framing – which defines people and places by their aspirations, attributes, and contributions before raising systemic challenges they face.
Below are the resources mentioned in the training and a video recording of the event.
Worksheets: In Session Messaging Worksheet and Being Memorable
Training 2: News & Media
Trainers: Elizabeth Wenk & Ashley Wilson
Not all news is the same, and not everything is news. This session focuses on determining whether or not you have news, the tools you have to share the news and when to use them, and how you can work with and develop long-lasting relationships with the media. At the same time, not all media is the same, and they are looking for different leads and stories. This session will also help you identify suitable outlets for your work.
Below are the resources mentioned in the training and a video recording of the event.
Training 3: Storytelling Across Platforms
Trainers: Elizabeth Wenk & Gideon Hertz
Storytelling is a meaningful way to connect with our audiences and share new ideas. Data and facts matter, but a well-told story is one of the most powerful tools to persuade, educate, or engage. This session will develop a story that helps your audience understand your message and what you want them to do. It will teach you how to develop ideas for your story and share them with funders, media, policymakers, and digital platforms.
Below are the resources mentioned in the training and a video recording of the event.
About Burness Communications:
Our company’s mission is to help extraordinary people tell their stories and share their research and experiences for the good of the world. We are a team of communications experts—strategists, writers, editors, designers, artists, trainers, storytellers, and policy experts—who support nonprofits and foundations in the United States and all over the globe. Over the past 30 years, we have worked with more than 600 organizations to advance social change on issues ranging from vaccines and agriculture development to childhood obesity, healthy communities, education, health care, and dental care access. We do this by working with our partners to promote ideas that inspire and drive social change. We have trained hundreds of organizations worldwide to help them share their research and stories to drive policy and systems change to improve health and well-being for everyone.
