Here at GMT we're seeing a trend among our current members and groups we're talking to about potential membership.  Everyone is facing financial difficulties, that's no surprise.  But what we're hearing is that the first cuts to be made are to the communications program -- whether it's a team of people or one person or a handful of services used by the organization.  And once tho

   Have you heard folks talking about Twitter and Twittering but you’ve been afraid to ask what it is?  I tuned into a Network For Good webinar hosted by Jason Cormier on November 5 date to find out more.

A memorable and effective marketing tagline is often the envy of all who are looking to build their brand.  Read about a number of nonprofits who got it right:

Vote for the Best Nonprofit Taglines -- 2008 Getting Attention Nonprofit Tagline Awards

Place your vote today for the first Getting Attention Nonprofit Tagline Awards. These tagline finalists have been carefully culled from the more than 1,050 taglines submitted to the recent Getting Attention Tagline Survey. They're all fantastic, but they all can't be the best.

The organizations behind these taglines have done a fantastic job in putting eight words or less to work to build their brands. Now it's your turn to select which are the best in class.

Vote today – Getting Attention blogger and e-news publisher Nancy Schwartz (www.gettingattention.org) wants to know what you think. It'll take you 7minutes or less; polls close Friday, June 20th.

P.S. Please spread the word to colleagues; the more votes, the more accurate the results.

I had the opportunity to attend the Planning and Conservation League's annual Symposium this past weekend. There were many sessions to choose from but one in particular caught my attention. The topic was using maps to persuade and mobilize. The presenters were Larry Orman and Tim Sinnott from GreenInfo Network and Rebecca Moore from Google Earth Outreach.

Larry Orman started off with a great point: we're overloaded with geographic information. We've got access to road maps, mash ups, interactive maps, climate change maps, election maps, and geotagged photos. But Larry pointed out that mapping is about having a point, not just about showing data.

Why are maps a popular choice for displaying cross-sections of information? One reason is that data is not an obstacle. It's available and much of it is free. Also, computers and mapping software are less expensive. And new generations of folks are map-savvy.

GIS (geographic information system) is one mapping tool that marries data and places. GIS can be used to analyze information, such as land use, commercial development, pollution impact, and to define alternative outcomes.

Maps, in general, can be used to tell a story or convey a message. Mapping tools let you unfold data in layers to reveal parts of the story. It is important, Larry emphasized, that you think about mapping as communications. Technology is whizzy and great, but it is still critical that you have a good story. You need to know who your audience is, what your message is, how much time people will have to view your map as well as at what distance and in what context.

Rebecca Moore reinforced that maps can be very effective for telling a story or delivering a message, particularly when you don't have much time to deliver it. She noted that maps can change an abstract concept into something personal for people. When done right, maps can show what is at stake instead of just telling what is at stake. They can inspire action, influence decision-makers, reach the media, and impact public policy.

If you are interested in using maps as part of your outreach strategy, there are a number of tools to try:
-- Google SketchUp
-- Google Earth
-- ArcExplorer
-- Interactive mashups
-- GeoPDFs

While there are many examples, two in particular you may want to view are:
-- Ocean Conservancy's "A Preventable Tragedy"
-- Appalachian Voices' "I love Mountains" campaign

And finally, if you want to read more, try these resources:
-- Google Earth Blog
-- ESRI Conservation Program

Happy Mapping!
Bobbi Russell

I was taking the Metro home on Tuesday evening and happened to get on a 4 car Blue Line train in the middle of rush hour. If you don't live in the D.C. area, I should note that this is a real pain in the neck as it typically means overcrowding and delays due to folks trying to jam into the closing doors. This doesn't happen as much when Metro runs 6 or 8 car trains. Still, on this super hot day, I was lucky enough to have a seat and a very entertaining train conductor.

Many riders were cranky and were complaining loudly about the overloaded train. Our cheerful conductor used humor to try to soothe the masses. When one passenger asked him why a 4 car train was being run during rush hour, the conductor made an announcement to the entire train. It went something like: "You know, I'm not sure why we're running this 4 car train at the peek of rush hour. I'm just the driver but I recommend that you go home and email someone about it. Go to www.metroopensdoors.com and tell someone what you think."

He said this a number of other times during my 20 minute ride, suggesting that if Metro received 3,000 emails -- one each from everyone on the crowded train -- maybe they would make a change to the service.

Now, I couldn't say exactly how many, but a portion of the riders were tourists. They don't care about long term Metro crowding and are likely not going to send an email to Metro when they get home from vacation. But the rest of us daily commuters were really an engaged audience. We looked around to one another, smiled and even laughed at the conductor's attempts at humor. We bonded. And I thought to myself, I will send an email about this issue.

I was on my way to dinner, so by the time I got home later that night, I didn't think to send that email. But if in the moment when someone was stepping on my toes and the person sitting next to me elbowing me while applying her poppin' lip gloss, I would have sent a text message. If our conductor announced text instructions instead of a website address, I would have sent a text to Metro from my cell phone right then.

The experience made me think that maybe nonprofit organizations should think about the use of print ads in Metro trains, in Metro stations, on buses, at bus stops that encourage people to text about particular issues or donate to an organization through their cell phone provider. Give commuters something proactive to do while they're waiting for the next train or en route to their next destination.

Then the next day here at GMT we explored mobile advocacy a bit more in a training session hosted by Katrin Verclas of MobileActive and NTEN. She gave many helpful tips about how nonprofits can use cell phones, particularly text messaging, in their outreach campaigns. We talked more about how groups can use text messaging and different kinds of mobile messaging to deliver their messages and calls to actions to members and supporters. We asked her for some impromptu rules for writing interactive and effective text messages, keeping in mind that texts to your constituents need to be interactive and stay within the 160 character limit. She says:
1. Be clear about what very specific action you're asking in the text.
2. Test and retest so you know what messages work; consider testing two different messages at one time (an A & B trial)
3. Consider your audience and whether you should use emoticons, slang, or shortened words in your message (i.e. using "u" instead of "you" and "4" instead of "for").
5. If sending multiple messages with multiple asks, be sure to have a good sequence & flow (test the process so your asks make sense to your audience).

Check out Katrin's blog post about LiveEarth's SMS campaign at
MobileActive.

--Bobbi Russell

Every month, Jason Salzman of Cause Communications and organizer of the True Spin Conference, sends out the Progressive PR Jobs Newsletter. It has great PR tips and a list of jobs in the PR field. You can subscribe to it here.

Every organization needs to develop a message before interacting with the media. This message needs to be reiterated each time you communicate with the press and should stay the same everytime. Make sure that it is clear and easy to understand, and includes the problem at hand and your solution to that problem. If your message is about the excessive pollution of the Susquehanna River, don't stop there. Include your solution to this problem and the actions people need to take.

Use your organizational messages as the foundation of all campaigns or projects. They may have their own 'sub' messages, but should be arteries to your main road.

Also remember that your message shouldn't contain scientific or technological jargon. You understand what you are saying because you work with it everyday, but the general public may not. Your key message may get lost amongst the definitions and terminology. Keep it plain and simple.

A great example comes from Amy Kostant of Environmental Media Services (www.ems.org). You could have your message be: POPs are chemical substances that persist in the environment, bioaccumulate through the food web, and pose a risk of causing adverse effects to human health and the environment. With the evidence of long-range transport of these substances to regions where they have never been introduced and the consequent threats they pose to the environment of the whole globe, the international community has now, at several occasions called for urgent global actions to reduce and eliminate releases of these chemicals.

Or you could decide this is more to the point: POPs are the worst chemicals in the world. 120 countries have agreed to ban them.

Which is more eye catching and effective to you?

If you want additional help, download Bullfighter from www.fightthebull.com. This software finds and eliminates jargon from your documents, in either Microsoft Word or Powerpoint. Download it here: http://www.fightthebull.com/bullfighter.asp.

Good message and new messengers save lives in the outreach to African American community. Andy Goodman does a really nice overview of the impact culture, race and messengers can have on the effectivenes of message delivery. The core message... put infant children to sleep on their backs to save them from sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) did not change but by playing around with the communications campigns saved lives.

The communications message "Back to Sleep" is nice and catchy slogan but saving your baby from death is a pretty strong motivator especcially if all you need to do is remember to put them on their back. The more direct litature and and campaign carried the message more effectively. Andy really hones in on the messenger aspect which played a role but I think the new campaign just carried the core message more clearly. I would guess finding more effective "channels" to the target audinece was hugely important and the final image and messenger shifts made the materials comfortable to distribute and peaked interest.

started distributing brochures (including the one pictured here) that emphasized “safe sleep for your baby,” a phrase that avoided possible confusion. Images of black mothers, fathers, and infants were
used liberally. African American parents were very receptive to the revised campaign ...

Disparities in death rates between black infants and white infants still exist, but the gap has narrowed. Between 2000 and 2003, the number of black infants dying from SIDS dropped 17%, and the more culturally sensitive outreach conducted by NBCDI and other groups undoubtedly helped.

Andy's letter is always worth the read.

Here is a really interesting article on the ways reporters struggle with the presentation of news stories. It is particularly note worthy on the use of anecdotes toward the end of the story and the way the anecdotes stick or hang the rest of the narrative.

It's an exercise. These activists want to more effectively present their messages to the media. I'm volunteering to listen, to ask them questions as if this were a real press conference.

Unfortunately, their presentations deconstruct into a gyration of language; most are too muddled to be written into a story.

I'm struck by how hard they have worked, spending half of a sunny Saturday to thoughtfully shape press releases on issues they care deeply about -- politics, the environment, social services.

So much effort to reach us, the media.

Sounds like many media training gone bad. (look over a sample of the environmental movements' press releases to see what you think)

The question is how do the stories and language we use paint an image of environmental work? Are we reinforcing perceptions of loss and powerless by talking about the loss of species and environmental quality? Is the movement way to wonky and unremarkable?

Where are the stories that stick on environmental issues that tell the power of planning and repercussions of positive and unintended positive side effects created by environmental protection.

Stories worth retelling like Alabama Dune Mouse, The Story of the Wolf in Yellowstone or the hundreds of stories about river protection efforts saving homes from being flooded, clean air efforts protecting children from asthma or smart growth efforts revitalizing lost communities.