When Bruce Trachtenberg came to me soon after last year’s annual Communications Network conference in LA and asked if I might be interested in executing a national survey of foundation communications professionals, I was super stoked. It wasn’t just because I had once been the communications director of the public engagement and survey research organization Public Agenda for six years and I am a huge social science data freak.
I was most excited to be a part of Communication’s Network’s “2011 Survey of Foundation Communications Professionals” because, coming out of the LA conference, I was deeply aware of just how much communications for social good has changed since the last survey in 2008.
I think that most of the time, social science research essentially provides evidence and some hard numbers for hypotheses that are already fairly well accepted. This research was exciting because, while talking to our colleagues at the annual conferences is immensely helpful, there really isn’t much in the way of solid information about how the whole of the field is actually approaching its work on a daily basis. The research is focused on foundation communicators, but it also has many insights for nonprofit communicators related to how foundations are prioritizing their communications funding and their relationships with grantees.
“Foundation Communications Today: Findings from the 2011 Survey of Foundation Communications Professionals” contains some serious revelations. For one, we found that there are hardly any differences in the actions and priorities of those who invest time and resources in creating formal communications plans and those who do not. And yet, there does seem to be at least one crucial difference between the two groups that may make such processes a worthwhile investment of time (you’ll have to read the report to get the 411 on that teaser).
The “Websites, Online Capacity and Social Media” section of the report contains some of the information Bruce and I found most fascinating. For example, the organizations of nearly half our respondents now have blogs. In this section, as in the all the others, we really tried to connect various pieces of information from across the questionnaire. We wonder aloud why, since respondents say they want to do so much more with multimedia, the average budget allocations for multimedia are so small. We also go beyond the finding that almost all foundations are now engaged in social media to look at the differences between private and community foundations on which types of social media work best for them.
We covered much more territory in this survey than the 2008 survey in about a third fewer questions. Still, the survey was a significant investment of time for those who participated (we know just how valuable 20 minutes can be in a foundation communicator’s day), so we are immensely grateful to all who participated and provided both essential quantitative answers and some immensely insightful qualitative responses.
The last section of the report presents some of the questions that occurred to us as we examined the data – implications for future discussions among us all. We hope that you will take us up on the invitation to ask the questions that arise as you read the report. My personal feeling is that the best research provokes even more questions than it answers. I hope you will flatter us with many questions and comments.
About Michael Hamill Remaley
Michael Hamill Remaley is the President of Hamill Remaley Communications. Previously, he was Director of Communications at the Russell Sage Foundation and Prior to that was Vice President and Director of Communications at Public Agenda. He has held a variety of positions at organizations such as The Harwood Institute for Public Innovation, The Pew Charitable Trusts, TCC Group and the Center for Social Policy and Community Development.