Photo by Carrie Sloan on Flickr.com

It’s not news that the Great Recession has taken its toll on nonprofits and those they serve. The mom on food stamps for the first time, the widow who lost her home to foreclosure, the shuttered community counseling center–these are all important stories that put a face on the economic downturn. But how do nonprofits move beyond these personal stories to spur systemic change?

Our free Brown Bag forum happening next week on Tuesday, Reframing Stories of the Great Recession, looks at how agencies can reshape their communications strategies to move to a narrative that engages policy makers in the midst of city and state budget crunches and ongoing belt tightening in the philanthropic and nonprofit sectors.

“Demand outweighs the supply because budgets are being slashed across the board. I think this narrative is tired” says Thom Clark, president, Community Media Workshop. “Nonprofits need a media strategy that goes beyond recounting the human impact of an agency’s financial dilemma. The media is hungry for new angles to tell the ongoing recession story. Nonprofits should be at the center of this news frame.”

The panel discussion with some of Chicago’s top journalists and policy makers includes Laura Washington, Woods Fund; Mark Brown, Chicago Sun-Times; Chip Mitchell, WBEZ; Sarah Karp, Catalyst Chicago; Ralph Martire, Center for Tax and Budget Accountability; Amisha Patel, Grassroots Collaborative; Amy Rynell, Heartland Alliance; and the Workshop’s Thom Clark.

When/where: Tuesday, August 24, 8:30 a.m. to 11:30 a.m., Columbia College Chicago, 33 East Congress, Room 219

Visit the Workshop’s website or call us at 312-369-6400 to sign up today.

We just posted our fall workshop line up, and the trainings have a lot to offer anyone looking to sharpen existing skills (check out Branding for Nonprofits) or learn new tricks (we have a basic and an advanced social media training this fall). Community Media Workshop is dedicated to helping nonprofits tell their stories, so we’ve tried to keep these affordable and accessible for you when budgets are tight.

I’m excited about the first training in the series–Social Media to Build Awareness. It’s an advanced social media training for people who know the basics but are ready to use these tools like Twitter and Facebook more strategically to drive traffic and engage audiences. I think this is important for anyone trying to use social media in an effective, efficient way.

I also recommend checking out the Workshop’s  one-day Media Boot Camp. We purposefully scheduled this training for Saturday, October 16, because we know weekdays can be hard sometimes for busy executive directors, board members and volunteers. That said, anyone is welcome to sign up for Media Boot Camp with Thom Clark, the Workshop’s president. (FYI-He just did this training at our Making Media Connections 2010 conference, and people loved it.)

We’re also offering a few free brown bag lunches, including one on July 22 on how to build successful campaigns. Just bring your lunch and enjoy.

Take a look and sign up! We’d love to see you this fall.

If you know the Workshop then you know the summertime is when we update our annual media guide, Getting On Air Online & Into Print, draft new articles and how-to pieces for the front section.

The more things change

When it comes to getting your news releases and breaking news to metro outlets, little has changed. But when it comes to services available for media relations, Web 2.0 communications, and other tools–wow, there’s been a lot of change!

New services have sprung up, old ones have added services–and some prices have gone up while others have gone down.

Thanks to the Internet we have many, many more choices than we used to for gathering clips–for example if your boss appears on the morning or evening news, it’s much easier and more affordable to buy that clip than it used to be. Why might you want to do that? Well, to add to your own videos later, of course! Not only do online links to TV programs expire, the quality online may well be less than a DVD you can hold in your hot little hands. (Or a file you download from one of these many new services).

Here’s a list of top resources we’re planning to include in the upcoming media guide–please let me know in the comments or by email if we’re missing any: Read the rest of this entry »

About 45 nonprofit communicators, everyone from the Battle Creek Community Foundation to the organizing group JONAH to the local Montessori school turned out for Tell Your Stories – Battle Creek, produced by the Nonprofit Alliance and led by Susan O’Halloran and Christine Cupaiuolo Thursday. They liked it! Here’s what folks said afterward and here are some notes, handouts and etc. from the day of the event. Read the rest of this entry »

…said Chicago Associated Press editor Sarah Rafi Friday during the Workshop’s concluding a morning-long pitching workshop with six reporters and some 20 participants in our winter session of Professional Media Relations.

AP Chicago editor Sarah Rafi with citizen journalist editor Geoff Dougherty of Chi-Town Daily News and urban affairs/housing reporter Sara Olkon of the Chicago Tribune.

“Try to think of your organization in a broader context,” Rafi continued. “There are a lot of other groups doing poverty. Why does your group’s work stand out? What’s the trend story, the jumping off point.” Geoff Dougherty of Chi-Town Daily News, Sara Olkon of the Chicago Tribune, Ben Joravsky of the Chicago Reader, Natalie Moore of Chicago Public Radio’s Englewood Bureau and Newstips editor Curtis Black all took phone pitches from participants, gained new sources, and “I got four or five story ideas,”Joravsky reported.

Todd Schorle, a consultant to nonprofits, and Carol Gulyas of Columbia College Chicago’s library, were among a couple dozen users of Getting On Air, Online, & Into Print CD-ROM edition at a user session this morning.

“Don’t think of our CD-ROM media guide as a database,” our new media manager Demetrio Maguigad, who leads the guide development team, told the group. “It’s a mass of data that you can bring into your own databases, whether you use Microsoft Excel, Outlook emails, or some other method to manage contacts.” Read the rest of this entry »