A Workshop participant pitches Chicago Sun-Times columnist Mark Brown
Prosperity starts with effective communications! For 20 years, Professional Media Relations (PMR) has been Community Media Workshop’s cornerstone training. This intensive training session is designed for nonprofit communicators to plan media campaigns. Over the course of five Fridays, you’ll learn from The Workshop’s own industry professionals basic public relations skills, how to develop a story, and will get the opportunity to pitch your story to journalists. The course includes one copy per organization of Getting On Air, Online, & Into Print, the indispensible media directory of Chicagoland media contacts. Register Today!
This training has helped numerous nonprofit communicators launch their media campaigns. Read Ingrid’s story about how PMR helped her get a story in the Chicago Sun-Times!
Community Media Workshop’s calendar of Spring trainings are now available to view and register for on our Trainings Page.
Sit down with and pick the brains of Community Media Workshop’s president and vice president at our Professional Media Relations trainings, and get all the information you need to know to catapult your nonprofit’s communications campaigns. Learn how to fully utilize your 2011 Media Guide, design a user-friendly website, take your social media initiative to the next level, and much more!
Spots for Spring are filling up fast, so visit our Trainings Page and reserve your place at one of our informative workshops now!
STORY POWER (Wednesday, June 9- 9AM to 4PM)
“Thank you for offering this workshop! It’s something of an “advanced” course for those of us who are familiar with the techniques of media outreach, etc. but want to strengthen our story gathering, writing and speaking skills. Thanks again!” – Jane Lawicki, Rotary International
The most important tool you can have as a communicator is the power to captivate potential audiences with your organization’s story. Learn how to make your story not just another spiel about your organization but rather a powerful tool to captivate the media, potential funders and future members. Powerful storytelling is a necessity whether you are pitching to traditional or online media.
Story Power is back by popular demand and taught by award-winning storyteller Susan O’Halloran. Susan will empower you with the ability to captivate audiences and move them to action. Register Today! Read the rest of this entry »
Making Media Connections is right around the corner and we want to make sure you take advantage of our EARLY BIRD DISCOUNT. Register before April 30 and get 20% off registration and be entered to win your very own FLIP CAM. Sign Up Today! This year our annual conference highlights how nonprofits tell their stories and develop communications strategies in a digital age.
JOIN US! Making Media Connections annual conference “Storytelling and Strategy in the Digital Age” June 9 and 10, 2010
Columbia College Chicago, Film Row Cinema 1104 S. Wabash, 8th Floor www.communitymediaworkshop.og/mmc2010
For more information on the various panels and workshops, and to register for the Making Media Connections, go to www.bit.ly/mmc2010 or call 312-369-6400. Read the rest of this entry »
Website Design, Content and Usability – NEW
9 a.m. to noon, Thursday, April 29
With: Emily Lonigro, LimeRed Studio
$95, REGISTER
Ever wonder what makes a killer Website? Or how some sites make sense right away, while others over think or miss the mark completely? What’s the connection among online beauty, brains and brawn? This session will offer quick (and not so quick) fixes to get your site looking and behaving better and more for anyone who has to maintain, redo, or create a nonprofit Website.
Emily Lonigro is a branding and web design specialist who combines insightful marketing strategy with distinctive design execution. Before co-founding The Web Farm with Keidra Chaney, she started LimeRed Studio in 2004 to help small businesses and nonprofits enhance their marketing collateral with stellar design.
Writing To Make The News
9 a.m. to noon, Thursday, March 18
$95 REGISTER
Learn the basics and more: how to write a press release, the difference between a media alert, news release, and pitch letter, and how to produce polished versions of all three. Along the way, Alton Miller, author, press secretary to the late Harold Washington, and Columbia College dean offers insights into effective public relations. Learn:
• Pre-writing and preparation
• Editing to strengthen your writing skills
• How to deliver your messages in the context of an integrated marketing communication campaign
If you struggle to communicate your story ideas to the media, then it’s time to learn new writing techniques. Learn successful techniques to write clearly and concisely in ways that help deliver your messages starting as soon as your next news release.
Trainer: Alton Miller is currently associate dean of the School of Media Arts and a tenured associate professor at Columbia College Chicago, where he teaches public relations writing and political PR. The first half of his PR career (1965-85) was in the performing arts. From 1985-87 he was press secretary to Chicago mayor Harold Washington, and his PR work has continued in politics and arts advocacy, including work as communications director for Sen. Carol Moseley Braun, City Treasurer Miriam Santos, and the Illinois Arts Alliance. He is the author of three nonfiction books, including a memoir, “Harold Washington: The Mayor, The Man.” In 2005 he received his M.F.A. in Writing from Goddard College. His thesis was a political novel, “Chicago Power & Light.“
Take Social Media to the Next Level
9 a.m. to noon Thursday, March 4
218 S. Wabash – Rm 806
You have the Facebook page, you’re on Twitter, and you’re dabbling with many other social media platforms. Now, learn to use the tools to the max to tell your organization’s stories better and faster than you thought possible.
In this training you will learn how to:
• Assess which social media tools are right for your organization and strategy
• Craft a brand message to move online audiences to action
• Connect social media to existing/traditional advertising and communications
• Coordinate social media tools so your blog, Facebook page, Twitter feed, etc. present the same message
Adam Thurman has used social media and other strategies to help Court Theatre achieve some of the highest grossing productions in their more than 50-year history. He recommends this workshop for leaders who can make strategic decisions about your social media and overall policies.
Register Today! Cost $95
About Adam Thurman
Adam is president of Mission Paradox, a consulting firm that focuses on marketing and branding issues. As part of Mission Paradox he has led presentations and workshops for Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs, the Civic Knowledge Project and the Arts and Business Council.
He is also director of marketing and communications at Court Theatre, one of the largest nonprofit theatres in Chicago. During his tenure as director of marketing the theatre has had some of the highest grossing productions in their more than 50-year history.
Adam is a former board member of the League of Chicago Theatres and has served on the Illinois Arts Council’s Advisory Panel. He has been recognized as an Emerging Leader by Americans For the Arts and the Theatre Communication Group. He has also been featured in Time Out Chicago, the Chicago Tribune and Chicago Artist Resource.
Emily Culbertson lead a "social media need to know" workshop and Sue O'Halloran presented her popular storytelling workshop in Lansing in November.
Learn to tell stories that sing and use channels that work!
When: 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Thursday, March 4 DATE TBA!
Where: ARISE Detroit, 5830 Field, Detroit
We’ve postponed the next in our popular series of day-long conferences on nonprofit communications to make sure that we have enough time to get the word out about the event and that folks are able to make time in their schedules to get there! If you have questions, please contact Gordon Mayer.
Want more information? Read about a similar event, held in Lansing in November, here. See feedback from participants at that event here.
Co-sponsored by Michigan Nonprofit Association and ARISE Detroit, underwritten by Charles Stewart Mott Foundation.
