The March 2011 meeting of Public Policy Communicators NYC focused on Website Impact Without Redesign – What are some of the most important functional elements you need to have on your website to drive traffic and increase audience interaction, but that don’t require an expensive, all-consuming site make-over?

Jai Sen led our discussion.  He is a digital communications consultant with deep experience in interactive media, website and application development, and user experience design. He has led a wide variety of projects in the commercial and nonprofit sectors, including the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation site redesign, and has most recently been an integral part of the team that relaunched the Atlantic Philanthropies website. He is currently working on the digital presence for the D5 coalition, an organization formed by grantmakers promoting diversity and inclusion in philanthropy.

Add-ons Not a Substitute for Design

Sen began by differentiating the elements we would be talking about from an actual redesign, saying that a redesign constitutes a total re-think of how you present and structure information online, it is usually time-consuming and budget-intensive and it addresses goals larger than simply driving traffic and increasing user interaction.

I have to admit that I thought the assembled participants would largely comprise communicators who simply didn’t have the money to do a redesign and were looking for some low-cost methods of sprucing sites up a bit.  But when Sen polled the room to ask how many had recently or were currently involved in total redesign, almost all hands went up.  So clearly folks interested in this topic aren’t looking to avoid a redesign, but are really looking for the latest tools and extra functionality to build upon existing sites.

Three Ways to Add Impact

Sen next listed three categories of add-ons that he would be helping the group to explore:

1. “Basics” that build on content already on a site or assets (like images) owned by an organization but not in use
2. Functional elements that can be “embedded” from outside sources
3. Plug-ins and APIs (Application Programming Interfaces, a way of bringing outside sites’ feature sets into one’s own site)

Before getting into the first area of add-ons, Sen made the case that it is important for nonprofits and foundations to have a clear understanding of who is currently coming to the site, what they are coming for and what types of elements appeal to them.  He strongly advocated using Google Analytics and other measurement tools available on Facebook and YouTube to get a snapshot of existing traffic and an accurate starting point to build your add-on plans and then to measure the results of your experiments in adding functionality.

In the “Basics” area, Sen focused on blog functionality, which he made clear is not necessarily about producing lots of editorial content, but really about serialized and timely presentation of content of many varieties. He said the blog function is “easy publishing with lots of impact.” Serialized publishing (blogs functions) are easily installed at little cost. They also vastly improve organizations’ abilities to optimize social networking capacity. Any timely content can be presented in blog format, from events to news, and users are familiar and comfortable with it.

Sen showed an example of the Japan Society, whose home page appears to be based on a serial publishing (blog) function.  He noted how the page, despite its unusually large number of navigation options, appears visually dynamic and always fresh.  He said it also nicely demonstrates the next area of “basics” that he intended to discuss: adding lots of big-impact pictures.

While he didn’t put forth the platitude that a picture tells a thousand words, he certainly demonstrated that this is an eternal truth as he showed examples of the Robert Wood Johnson home page that makes good use of pictures that show the implications of its work to help draw in visitors and navigate the vast array of information on the site. Sen discussed how the Robert Wood Johnson redesign project was about moving from a text-heavy, dry look and feel to one that made the foundation’s work and mission immediately clear and apparent through the use of compelling photos of the organization’s work.

Sen says that images are easy to manage and insert into online content and instantly enhance the “reading” experience.  You can use free services like Flickr and Picassa to host images, but such services can provide many other tools that he would discuss later. He then showed a screen shot of the Rainforest Alliance home page, which, like the Robert Wood Johnson site, makes good use of high-impact photos to make the experience of using the site not only more appealing, but also easier to relate to. Audience members added from their own experience that you can obtain images through your own work or through sites like iStockPhoto and Creative Commons licenses. Sen commented that Creative Commons licenses (which allow anyone to use copyrighted material, as long ans the owner or creator of the material is acknowledged) can be a great way to raise awareness about your organization and even drive traffic. Just make sure that you do indeed get permission to use any image you use on your site and clearly indicate ownership of images you put online by using a copyright notice or Creative Commons statement.

Sen moved next to the category of “embeddables.” Among the most common and essential for nonprofits and foundations are “social shares” that create easy links to Facebook, Twitter and other social media, and allow users to easily share your content through those mechanisms.  He said these embeddables are very easy to add to a site and are really just image links.  He showed an example on The Atlantic Philanthropies site that has prominent embedded social media icons and talked about some of the successes that organization has had with them.

The next type of “embeddable” he discussed was video.  He made the case that using a service like YouTube or Vimeo is better than hosting video on your site for a number of reasons, mostly because you don’t have to worry about hosting considerations like bandwidth since the videos are housed on (and streamed from) the outside service. Audience members raised questions about whether YouTube or Vimeo is preferable. Sen has recommended YouTube to most of his clients because it allows you to customize the video playing page to look like your own branded site and has more users that may find your organization through keyword searches.  Still, he said, Vimeo is a good option that many nonprofits are finding useful.  Either is very easy to incorporate into your organization’s site.  They also allow for statistical analysis of traffic and easy sharing.

Slide shows are also increasingly popular and easy-to-deploy tools that lots of nonprofits are using.  And, users are much more likely to click on a link to a slide show than to view a video.  Sen said that Flickr and PictoBrowser provide two excellent, easily embeddable tools to create and display slide shows.  The shows can be simple pictures with captions, or they can be created with timed advancement and voiceover and music. It just depends on how much time and effort you want to put in.

He showed another example from The Atlantic Philanthropies site where a slideshow was seamlessly integrated into the site.  He also showed an example of a YouTube video embedded on The Atlantic Philanthropies website, which uses YouTube to house all its video. He said that, because Atlantic used YouTube to host the video and had tagged the video with lots of keywords, it had driven traffic to the organization’s website, thanks to YouTube’s large user base.

There are other embeddables that allow organizations to give site visitors audio and podcasts.  The group talked a bit about embeddables that allow a site to display publications in a magazine format with flipping pages and stunning graphics.  One of the best, and easiest to use formats for doing that is Issuu. Like YouTube, Issuu hosts the publication and can drive more users to your site when people search its site on keywords.

Sen then moved our discussion into the third category of add-on: Plug-ins and APIs.  Many are familiar with APIs like Twitter feeds that show up-to-the-second display of how your organization or key topics are being discussed on Twitter. Also in the API category are Facebook Connect features like showing on your site Facebook members who have “liked” your organization so that viewers can see their friends that also follow you on Facebook, or allowing visitors to sign in to your site with their Facebook logins.

The group spent a generous amount of time talking the many great attributes of Google Maps and the related APIs that nonprofits and foundations can use with it to display information in geographic form – for example showing where projects are located, the reach of an organization’s membership, or the prevalence of certain social conditions.

Sen also touched upon the Google Charts API, which generates charts and graphs instantly and can be used to dynamically display data.

He said the main plug-in features nonprofits and foundations should be aware of are those that facilitate community and social features for popular content management systems like Drupal and WordPress, two platforms that are extremely popular with foundations and nonprofits.

As is nearly always the case with PPC, the conversation continued on past the conversation leader’s presentation and brought up specific challenges and questions from assembled members.  A good deal of the conversation looped back to the idea of doing good analytics to know what your audience uses and likes and providing more of it.  Sen said, “you want to give the audience more of what they want, make it useful, accessible and shareable.”

Sen’s presentation is available online in pdf format at: www.sen-associates.com/ppc

Additionally, The Communications Network’s Bruce Trachtenberg later shared this very helpful and extensive list of “57 Things You Can Do Right Now to Improve Your Website” http://www.dhcommunications.com/2011/03/57-things-you-can-do-right-now-to-improve-your-website/ Check it out.  It has lots of great ideas.

Website Impact Without Redesign – How can you introduce functional elements that drive traffic to your website and increase audience interaction  without an expensive, time-consuming redesign?

We’ll be going beyond obvious enhancements like video, links to social media presences and recordings of webinars, and think creatively about functionality that enhances the unique mission of each of our organizations.

We have a great discussion leader who will help kick our thinking into high gear:

Jai Sen is a digital communications consultant with deep experience in interactive media, website and application development, and user experience design. He has led a wide variety of projects in the commercial and nonprofit sectors, including the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation site redesign, and has most recently been an integral part of the team that relaunched the Atlantic Philanthropies website. He is currently working on the digital presence for the D5 coalition, an organization formed by grantmakers promoting diversity in philanthropy.

Here are the specifics on the next PPC-NYC meeting:

What:  Brown-bag lunch (that means bring your own lunch!)

When:  Wednesday, March 23, 2011; 12:00 – 2:00 p.m. (informal networking from 12:00-12:30, program begins at 12:30)

Where:  Ford Foundation, 320 East 43^rd Street (between 1^st & 2^nd Ave), New York, NY

Topic:  Website Impact Without Redesign. Jai Sen will lead our group discussion.

RSVP:  Space is limited and our last several sessions had waiting lists, so please let me know that you are coming by emailing me at mremaley [at] ppcnyc [dot] org

The November 2010 meeting of Public Policy Communicators NYC was all about how to develop effective communications plans.  We set out to examine:

- How to produce realistic, focused communications goals and objectives.

- How to gain clarity and agreement on the specific target audiences and the modes of communication best suited to reaching them.

- How to get REALLY REAL about time allocation with both staff and organizational leadership on trade-offs, opportunism and sticking to a plan.

Edith Asibey – who has been a consultant to many foundations and international nonprofits on this topic, is a board member of our partner The Communications Network and is currently doing just this kind of work on a daily basis at The Atlantic Philanthropies – led our discussion.  And, of course, the PPC members in attendance contributed lots of great thinking about how the concepts we were discussing played out in their work.

Edith began by stating her position that communications planning is a prerequisite for effectiveness.  “How do you know if your communications are effective?” she asked.  You simply can’t know if you haven’t taken the time to create a real plan against which to measure success.  Further, while large-budget organizations may have the luxury of spending in a way that throws lots of resources onto the wall to see what sticks, those with limited resources face an even greater imperative to plan in ways that directs resources only to the efforts that are most likely to have the greatest impact.

She asked the group to consider two questions: First, how would you rate the quality of your existing plan? It became clear that very few in the room considered their plans particularly good, let alone excellent, and quite a few had no plan at all. Second, she asked the group whether or not their organizations actually stick to the plans that they create. The commonalities in the responses showed that many of us are in the same boat – one that leaks.

That second question also produced a line of conversation among participants that became one of the strongest themes of the day: How do you create a plan that is targeted and strategic, but also allows for flexibility and responsiveness to opportunities within the news hole?  Some said that you can create a plan that actually allows for that kind of flexibility – one which has a limited number of deliverables but which also has more loosely defined areas where new opportunities will be pursued. Others said you simply had to live with knowing that you will never fulfill your plan in its entirety. “If you stick to a plan exactly, then you probably won’t really be that successful,” one person asserted. Edith said that planning for flexibility can actually help deal with unpredictability and challenges by defining priority areas, so that those opportunities that fall outside the priorities don’t become distractions.  But, she said, sticking to the plan and pursuing other opportunities will always be a balancing act.

Steering the conversation toward specific ways of making more productive communications plans, Edith presented an example from a media campaign she led in Paraguay several years ago. She talked about the ambitions of the campaign and showed the goal statement that the campaign organizers had developed in the planning process: “Raise awareness of the Paraguayan population about the major environmental problems facing the country: deforestation, soil degradation, water pollution, loss of biodiversity.”

To many of us in the room, it seemed like a decent goal.  Edith said that, in fact, this was an example of a “monster goal,” one so broad and ill-defined that it could not adequately focus the work or lead to any understanding of how well one had moved toward achieving the goal.  Several people in the room commiserated, saying that they had all seen communications plans that sought to “raise awareness” among a general population, among “media,” “thought leaders,” “within the community” or other hugely general audiences that provided little guidance in how to really target and reach key people within those populations.

In developing more meaningful goals that drive good plans, it is essential to gain clarity and SPECIFICITY about:

-       Goals (these are the ways in which you want the world to be different within 3, 5 or 10 years, and which your communications efforts will have contributed to making happen)

-       Objectives (while we did not cover it in detail during the meeting, I would like to include here an excerpt from Asibey’s “Are We There Yet?”: Objectives are different from goals: they are more specific and have a shorter time frame, typically one to two years. Think of objectives as a series of benchmarks on the way to your goal. Most likely, you will have a few intermediate objectives that will progressively lead to your goal. A good objective should be SMART: Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Result-focused and Time-specific.

-       Audiences

-       Messages

-       Messengers

-       Tactics

-       Measurements

The process of gaining clarity and specificity about these elements will lead organically to an effective and focused communications plan.  In fact, Edith said, specifying audiences is the only way to create good strategy. In the Paraguay example, she suggested, as an alternative to working with such a broad goal, to instead create a series of concrete, incremental objectives that would anchor a much better communications plan.  As an example, she suggested an objective that looks like this:  “Secure support of 30 mayors in the most affected provinces to protect water sources.” This objective not only focused on mayors—a well defined target audience – but also honed in on the environmental element that had the greatest potential impact on the whole system.

This led to a discussion of one of the other major themes of the day: the often delicate relationship of communications to “program.”  Clearly, when communications become central to the organizational discussion about how to achieve goals, some tensions arise about the right mix of communications efforts that are integrating “program objectives” and efforts aimed at heightening general awareness of the organization, improving its reputation.  Some in the group expressed some anxiety about asserting themselves too strongly into the work of “program,” and said that their charge within the organization was to stick with media relations aimed at improving general awareness of the organization.  Others embraced the idea of stepping back from the frequent task of trying to place OpEds from the President of their organization and helping the organization think through how communications could really help achieve program goals.

Asibey noted that the ability to play the role of internal consultant on how communications can produce program results may depend on how long you’ve been at the organization and how much trust has been established. She said it helps to sit down with program folks and really understand what they want to accomplish and learn more about their target audiences so that you can figure out how communications can help reach them.  Those discussions with program people will also help flesh out the messages and messengers that will resonate with target audiences.

She said that, if your plan includes audiences described simply as “policy makers,” “funders” or “the media,” it is not specific enough.  She cited an example of an organization she worked with that, instead of laying out categories of people they wanted to reach, went through an extensive process that resulted in exactly 450 named individuals that they wanted to influence.  Once they identified those exact individuals who they believed could advance their objectives, they developed messages and modes of communications tailored to how those individuals receive information.

The remainder of the discussion ranged over participants’ experiences trying to force greater specificity to how the imperative to focus on core audiences squares with the new pressures many of us are feeling to spend more of our time and resources on social media, the effects of which seem to be diffuse at best.

Edith conceded that even good planning won’t solve all of these challenges, still “Specificity is very satisfying!”

Many in the group expressed a desire to talk more about this subject and delve more deeply into the planning process, which lead to a discussion of planning resources. One attendee said that PPC-NYC member Nancy Schwartz, who runs the Getting Attention! blog, is a great resource and an effective consultant helping communicators develop good communications plans.

Other PPC-NYC members who do consulting in this area include:

Douglas Gould, Douglas Gould & Co.
Rochelle Lefkowitz, Pro-Media Communications
Amy Sutnick Plotch, Amy Sutnick Plotch Consulting
Michael Remaley, HAMILL REMALEY breakthrough communications
Farra Trompeter, Big Duck Communications
Lisa Witter, Fenton Communications

Asibey’s communications evaluation report “Are We There Yet?” also provides great insights into communications planning and how to go about it.  Those seeking communications planning literature should also check out the Knowledge section of The Communications Network’s website at: http://comnetwork.org/knowledge_research

Several prominent foundations, to their great credit, are doing a good job of fostering public dialogue on how to support community journalism and international reporting. But a related concern has, at least to my understanding, gone largely unacknowledged.  That is, the uncertain future of independent documentary photography.  But interestingly, documentary photographers are coming to the aid of foundations and nonprofits.

“Documentary photography does face many great challenges because the media industry, which is changing so quickly, is not adequately supporting this important work,” The Magnum Foundation’s President Susan Meiselas told me.  As a leading photographer for nearly 40 years whose work has appeared on the front page of The New York Times, has been exhibited on the walls of The Whitney Museum of Art and was honored with a MacArthur Fellowship, Meiselas speaks with authority.

“Even though photographers are accustomed to flexible work arrangements and producing work that they must convince outlets to distribute, the fundamental changes occurring in the media world are choking off funds for the development of documentary photography projects.  That’s why we created the Emergency Fund,” Meiselas says. “We are attempting to take up the challenge of creating a new economic model to support work that focuses on critical issues.”

Media organizations are cutting back and supporting far fewer photographers in projects where they go into the field and produce the images that powerfully illustrate the humanity, the messiness, and the beauty of our world.  Meiselas says that independent documentary photographers play a very special role, approaching social issues with an open mind and not trying to produce images that support specific foregone conclusions about the nature of an issue. But the fact that they are not tethered to organizations leaves them unsupported.  Which is where the Magnum Foundation comes in.

The Magnum Foundation is working with social purpose organizations through its BE SEEN initiative to pair them with exceptional documentary photographers to tell their own stories through images.  For example, in 2009, the Woodcock Foundation provided support for Ashoka, one of its grantees, to collaborate with photographers to begin documenting the projects of Ashoka Fellows through the use of photography, video and multimedia.  The plan is for their work will be showcased in “an exploratory web landscape populated with stories about individuals overcoming obstacles to improve their own lives and communities, inspired by the social entrepreneurs whose insights were a catalyst for social change.” The Woodcock Foundation’s support of the pilot produced two exceptionally engaging examples of multimedia storytelling, and Ashoka is currently seeking funding to complete the vision of documenting the work of 30 Fellows.

The Magnum Foundation has a particularly impressive history of working with human rights organizations. Meiselas’s own 30-year history of working with Human Rights Watch has included a series titled “In Silence: Maternal Mortality in India.” It is an arresting example of how stories can be told powerfully with strong documentary photography (the multi-media for the project was produced by Magnum in Motion, which assembles visual narratives for online and offline platforms, including screenings in museums, festivals, and workshops.).

The Foundation’s BE SEEN initiative additionally provides personalized service and advice on how organizations can optimize their visual communications efforts.

The Magnum Foundation has a brochure that makes a strong case that “powerful images can open minds.”  I asked Meiselas about the nature of documentary photography as it relates to the proliferation of photographic images that come from the cell phones of average citizens in African villages, the streets of Tehran and the hills of West Virginia, and which are being used by media outlets to show the “reality” of conditions on the ground.

“Images abound, surely. There are tons of images being uploaded every day and they are hard to perhaps distinguish at times, especially when they are so decontextualized… it’s sort of like noise, cacophonous noise with no clarity,” she said. “But documentary photography can produce a coherent story, a narrative structure with a progression of images that evokes deeper meaning. I very much welcome the accessibility of digital democracy and love that citizens are able to photograph their own experiences, but I think that professional documentary photography has an important role to play in modeling narrative story telling through visual images.”

The Magnum Foundation is closely associated with Magnum Photos, the collective of independent photographers founded sixty years ago by such luminaries as Henri Cartier-Bresson. One of the priorities of the foundation is to make the extraordinary and growing archives of Magnum Photos more accessible to foundations, nonprofits and other social purpose organizations.

Meiselas and I talked at length about how BE SEEN differs from the growing number of stock photo services available on the internet.  “BE SEEN is not a ‘click & buy’ process, we actually want to talk to you and find out what you are trying to accomplish, think about what kinds of images are available in the archive and work with you to find the right images.”  And, while service is one of the important differences, anyone can browse the Magnum Photos archives online unassisted.

Having used many of the stock photography services in my work as a director of communications, I was very curious to see the difference for myself.  As an experiment, I did a search on “religion” at Magnum Photos and then at iStockphoto.com. The resulting images told me everything I needed to know and definitely supported Meiselas’s case.

The stock photos are staged and clichéd.  They are Anglo-centric and explore very little of the unknown.  The Magnum Photos, on the other hand, are visually stunning.  They have texture and extraordinary vibrance. The variety of subject matter that came up on my Magnum search was vast and fascinating.  Each image seemed to tell a singular story that might lead to other related images that would tell a fuller story, and they made me want to learn more about the subjects in the photos.

Magnum Foundation has attracted supporters like Open Society Institute and The Atlantic Philanthropies, but still, there are many who are not yet aware of the state of independent documentary photography or what this kind of photography can accomplish for social purpose organizations.  Meiselas’s metaphor of “noise” versus “clarity” got me thinking about a parallel with foundation support for public radio. It seems to me that Magnum is to stock photography what National Public Radio is to talk radio.  Magnum and NPR both strive to demonstrate that investing in excellence produces insights and discoveries that commercial sources rarely do.

One of the Magnum Foundation’s most immediate objectives is simply to have more foundations and nonprofits know that the work of its photographers is available. So check out the Magnum Photos archive.  And think about whether or not pairing with a documentary photographer through Magnum Foundation might be a productive way of developing images that powerfully tell your organization’s story.

Before going into the substance of the discussion, it should be noted that this was the very first event held in Atlantic’s new conference center in Tribeca.  Atlantic has promised to make the space available for the use of its grantees and partners. So if you are planning an event in New York City and have a relationship with Atlantic, keep that space in mind.

The panel was comprised of E.J. Dionne, columnist for The Washington Post, Judy Feder, Professor of Public Policy at Georgetown University and Senior Fellow at Center for American Progress, and Richard Kirsch, National Campaign Manager of Health Care for America NOW!

Moderator Marcia Smith started off the discussion by asking the panel to reflect on what had been learned in the process of watching health care reform efforts unfold.

Richard Kirsch began by saying that his organization had functioned as a “midwife” to the birth of reform legislation and helped make it happen by telling the stories of people and how they were being adversely effected by the system. And, they worked to get large numbers of legislators to sign onto their stated principles. He said his main take-away was that they “had made grassroots and net-roots the basis of their work – and that’s what works.” He added later that bringing together the largest possible coalition of progressive organizations to advocate for reform had been essential and that “you could never win health care from inside the beltway.”

Judy Feder said that she had several take-aways.  One was that a major challenge in the process of getting to reform success was convincing those who already have health care coverage that reform was indeed in their best interest, “and that has yet to be done, really.”  Another lesson is that legislators will respond to the message that “you have more to lose from allowing the status quo than in taking action.”  And also that “every progressive fight is going to require absolutely 100% effort because the margin of victory is for the foreseeable future going to be so very close.”

E.J. Dionne said that he came away thinking the lesson is simply to “keep comin’ at ‘em!” You have to have patience and hang in there in the fight, you need to have a “formula ready” to start with, but accept that there will be some defeats along the way, and keep on going. He added later that there is something to keep in mind about polling on health care and that is that “most people in polls say they are happy with their health care insurance because at the time they are being polled they aren’t experiencing any health crisis that requires them to deal with their insurance companies, aren’t being denied coverage or having to put out large outlays. Wait until they aren’t healthy, then the polling results would be different!”

As the conversation unfolded, Judy Feeder reflected on the significance of what was passed. “What we passed was a national commitment to make sure everyone is insured, we expanded Medicaid, and we set a floor of coverage for everyone with subsidies. AND, we have established a public system for long-term care – that’s HUGE!”

The discussion then moved toward “what next” and Feder said, “the opponents of reform are not going away, so we really need to deliver on implementation.

She said cost containment remains the most challenging thing that hasn’t really addressed.  “For one thing, Medicare needs to become a more effective player to force cost containment, and then the rest of the system will follow.” She also noted that for people who previously had health insurance coverage, premiums are going to keep going to go up, and since the Obama Administration now “owns” health care in America, they better do something to address that. Additionally, she said actually enrolling people in the plans will be a challenge, since things will be different from state to state. And yet, having the federal government engage in aggressive enrollment efforts while simultaneously avoiding the perception of “federalizing” health care is very important. She also warned that “we didn’t get enough money in the legislation for the subsidies, and that’s going to be a big problem.”

E.J. Dionne said that he is hearing a lot of Republican strategists advising their ranks to “stand down” from opposing health care reform now because they aren’t really able to identify particular pieces of the legislation that people want to repeal (except the mandates and the taxes, which are basically the keys to sustaining the popular aspects of the legislation).

Richard Kirsch said that, even after the passage of the legislation, his organization will continue its campaign to highlight the injustices and bad practices of the insurance industry because it is important in the continuing fight for improving the system.

One audience member asked what was being done about the $50 million campaign of the insurance industry to undermine reforms.  Judy Feder said it is essential to engage now on cost containment.   Another participant asked a related question about whether or not we were ever going to move away from the fee-for-service model of health care delivery that does so much to maximize payments rather than improve care.  Richard Kirsch said that Massachusetts is now the place to watch for debate on cost containment. He said, “Everyone agrees that the delivery system reforms need to happen, but the challenge is fighting the entrenched special interests.” There are many possible ways to go about cost containment, price controls, benefits limits, changing the payment/delivery system.  “We know the pharmaceutical companies, the doctors and others in the healthcare delivery system will fight against cost containment, but we need to figure out who has an interest in cost containment and bring them together to fight for it.  Obviously employers, business coalitions, taxpayers associations, municipalities, states all have an interest in cost containment.  We need to broaden our thinking about who else has an interest in cost containment and organize them.”

As the session drew to a close, E.J. Dionne provided a bit of philosophical advice to progressives for future efforts based on the lessons of health care reform: “In every fight, you need both patience and impatience.  But you need them in different measures at different points in the struggle.  I wish I had a secret formula for when and how much.”

The Atlantic Philanthropies has said that it will post video of the session to its site.  We’ll post a link here when one is available.

The link is now live at: http://www.atlanticphilanthropies.org/atlantic-events

The survey results from our attending members at the last meeting in January (if you weren’t able to attend, you can check notes on the topic of “Using Low-Cost Multi-Media to Maximal Effect” here) revealed that New York’s nonprofit and foundation communication folks are most interested in learning more about “measuring effectiveness of communications efforts,” “communicating through the blogosphere,” and “what ‘branding’ really means for nonprofit/foundation organizations.” I am happy to report that we have lined up a spectacular lead-off speaker on the most popular topic, measuring effectiveness, for our next round-table discussion.

So, here is the information on the next PPC-NYC meeting:

What:               Brown-bag lunch (that means bring your own lunch!)

When:              Tuesday, March 9, 2010; 12:00 – 2:00 p.m.
(informal networking from 12:00-12:30, program begins at 12:30)

Where:            Ford Foundation, 320 East 43^rd Street (between 1^st & 2^nd Ave), New York, NY

Topic:              Measuring the Effectiveness of Communications Efforts.
Edith Asibey of The Atlantic Philanthropies will lead off the discussion.

RSVP:            Space is limited.  Please let me know that you are coming by emailing me at mremaley at ppcnyc dot org

Edith Asibey has recently joined The Atlantic Philanthropies’ team as Communications Executive.  Prior to Atlantic, Edith was the Principal of Asibey Consulting, a firm that helps nonprofits and grantmakers strengthen their strategic communications, advocacy and evaluation practices.  In this role, Edith provided consulting services, led numerous training workshops and developed practical tools available online at no cost.  The latest of such tools is Are We There Yet: A Communications Evaluation Guide, produced in partnership with the Communications Network. Edith also co-authored Continuous Progress, a set of online tools for better advocacy through evaluation created with the Aspen Institute.

I would like to again thank the Ford Foundation – and especially PPC-NYC regular attendees Fiona Guthrie and Alfred Ironside — for helping make this learning series happen.  They’ve been exceptionally supportive and we are extremely grateful. Also, the Communications Network’s Bruce Trachtenberg has been essential to this organization’s success from the very beginning.

I hope to see you on March 9.