Nora Ferrell brings more than 10 years of communications experience in the public policy arena to the Community Media Workshop. Prior to joining the organization, she was the Communications Director & Editor at Minnesota 2020, a progressive think tank focused on education, transportation, economic development and health care. While at the think tank, Nora kept Minnesota 2020 in the news despite the ever-changing media landscape and helped the organization grow its social media and online presence through an active blog “Hindsight2020,” daily website stories, and Twitter and Facebook engagement.

Before joining Minnesota 2020 in November 2008, she was a Senior Account Executive at Valerie Denney Communications (VDC), a public interest public relations firm in Chicago. During her eight-year tenure at VDC, Nora oversaw communications work for the Healing Our Waters’ national campaign seeking federal funding to restore the Great Lakes. In March 2008 she managed the planning and implementation of a 900-person community development conference for LISC/Chicago’s New Communities Program.  Other clients included: the MacArthur Justice Center, a public interest law firm; the Crescent Ridge Project, one of Illinois’ first wind farms; the Illinois Poverty Summit; The Joyce Foundation and the Metropolitan Planning Council.

Nora also served as Vice President of the Lawyers’ Committee for Better Housing board and conducted media and message development trainings at the Workshop. In 2007, Nora’s media work around police torture in Chicago won the Publicity Club of Chicago’s Edwin J. Shaughnessy’s Quality of Life Award, one of the highest honors awarded by the Club each year.

Nora earned a BA in Journalism and Mass Communication from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She is happy to be back in Chicago with her husband and son.