Take advantage of or buddy-rate. If you’re attending Making Media Connections, bring a buddy/co-worker and they’ll save 50% on their registration, $124.50 instead of $249.

Here’s an idea: if you haven’t registered yet, register with a 2nd person and split the total cost of Making Media Connections between the two of you. The cost becomes only $186.75 per person. That’s a great deal for everyone! In addition, Making Media Connections registrants can purchase any media guide subscription for a discounted price.  Register here for Making Media Connections.

Only days away…. Register for the 2012 Making Media Connections conference!

One of the Workshop’s key events each year since 1993, our conference is designed for nonprofit communicators: volunteers and staff who are responsible for telling their group’s story through the news media or other channels. We bring them together with journalists looking for stories ‘off the beaten path’ and invite them to join in a dialogue on how to produce news that matters.

“Well-organized conference. Speaker has great passion & energy and used lots of great examples.” – Rachel Dziallo, Erie Family Health

Conference attendees get four key takeaways:

• Training: increase nonprofit communicators’ skills and understanding of the news process, allowing them to better access the media in ways that are effective;
• Sourcing: journalists get leads and sources from among a group that tends to receive ‘spot’ coverage rather than more focused and influential treatment;
• Skill-building:Connecting these two groups with web advocates and nonprofit technologists in order to develop a better understanding of new media to deliver their message and,
• Relationship-building: the conference builds relationships between nonprofit and news outlet personnel. Beyond more and better coverage of nonprofits, their constituents, and their issues, the outcome of our conferences has been understanding and consensus on where nonprofits fit in the news cycle.

Holy Cross Hospital on Chicago’s Southwest Side decided to step up its breastfeeding efforts after hearing a story on WBEZ about the hospital’s newborn breastfeeding rate being the lowest in the Chicago area. That story and subsequent policy change resulted from a pitch made by HealthConnect One’s RoiAnn Phillips to WBEZ Reporter Chip Mitchell at the Workshop’s Professional Media Relations workshop in early 2011.

“The WBEZ stories wouldn’t have happened if I hadn’t taken Professional Media Relations,” said Phillips. “Without the class, I wouldn’t have understood how to frame a pitch and I wouldn’t have had the opportunity to be in the room with reporters.” Read the rest of this entry »