Slogans Teach Public-Radio Listeners About Grant Makers’ Missions

This month National Public Radio listeners may wake up to a new message from the Ford Foundation.

The New York organization, says an announcer with a crisp, clean voice, is “working with visionaries on the front lines of social change worldwide.”

The shout-out, of course, is simply a thank-you note for the millions of dollars the foundation has given NPR. But for Ford and other grant makers, such air time is publicity gold — an opportunity to tell more than 27 million people about their missions and shed their image as the shrinking violets of the nonprofit world.

“These one-lines might be the most important communications vehicles for foundations to reach an elite audience,” says Marc Fest, a spokesman for the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation — which, says its public-radio tag line — is “helping NPR to advance journalistic excellence in the digital age.”

Indeed, Ford’s new tag line, which replaced its description as a “resource for innovative people and organizations worldwide,” is part of a three-year effort to improve how it communicates its work.

To be sure, Ford and others say the so-called underwriting spots are an indirect benefit of their grant making; they contribute because they support the mission of NPR, a Washington nonprofit group that produces All Things Considered, Car Talk, and other programs for local radio stations across the country.

But given that few Americans know what foundations do, public radio has become an unusually important marketing tool. According to a 2003 survey by the Council on Foundations, an association of grant makers, 11 percent of the American public can name a foundation. Not so for NPR listeners.

“They’re aware of foundations at a much greater rate then the U.S. population,” says Vince Lampone, researcher manager at NPR.

An NPR survey of 1,302 listeners this year revealed that the majority of respondents said they were familiar with the various foundations that sponsor public radio. They also said NPR was their No. 1 source of information about foundations and what they do.

For philanthropy officials, the survey confirms what they’ve known for years. In taxicabs, on airplanes, at cocktail parties, they all have met people who can repeat their on-air tag lines verbatim.

Adam M. Coyne, director of public affairs at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, recalls the first time a stranger quoted the Princeton, N.J., group’s NPR description to him. It was 2006 and he was renting a car in Phoenix.

“I put down my corporate card and it happened to say RWJF, and the guy looks up at me and says, ‘Oh, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, helping Americans lead healthier lives and get the care they need.’”

“I thought I had a folder or something laying out,” says Mr. Coyne, “and I said, ‘How did you know that?’”

The answer: NPR.

What Is ‘Verdant’?

Perhaps the tag line that gets the most attention is the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation’s. Its underwriting spot, which is derived from its mission statement, describes the Chicago foundation as “committed to building a more just, verdant, and peaceful world.”

Verdant?

“One of the meanings is green or sustainable,” explains Andrew Solomon, the group’s vice president of public affairs, saying the word reflects the fund’s goal of finding ways to preserve the environment.

It also undoubtedly motivates some NPR listeners to find a dictionary; the foundation gets about a dozen phone calls and e-mail messages a year asking, “What does that word mean?”

Not all grant makers opt to get an NPR credit. The David and Lucile Packard Foundation, which doesn’t currently support NPR, but has done so in the past, has skipped the brief descriptions, says Chris DeCardy, director of communications for the Los Altos, Calif., organization. He says that the foundation prefers the spotlight to be on its grant recipients.

Mr. DeCardy also says that shoehorning Packard’s diverse mission, which includes helping poor families, replenishing marine fisheries, and improving reproductive health, into a sound bite would be almost impossible.

Other foundations echo that sentiment; since most want to include their full name and a Web site address, the 10-second window allotted to them gets full pretty quickly.

“Saying ‘the Annie E. Casey Foundation’ is three seconds!” says Sue Lin Chong, the public-affairs manager for the aforementioned organization, in Baltimore. “It’s not a lot of time.”

Timely Messages

Brevity, however, does have its benefits.

Mr. Fest of the Knight foundation says that when he submitted the terse text of its tag line, NPR executives said it helped crystallize the purpose of the Miami fund’s grant to public radio.

Some grant makers prefer to keep the tag lines consistent, but others substitute them occasionally to be more topical.

The Carnegie Corporation of New York, for example, is in the process of switching its description to promote its 100th anniversary. Come October 1, the foundation’s NPR spot will be a quote from its founder, the Scottish steel magnate Andrew Carnegie, and will mention its centennial in 2011.

But a new tag line can cause confusion, too.

The Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation replaced its standard tag line several years ago with one that applauded entrepreneurs who were starting new “green” businesses. The Kansas City, Mo., foundation then started getting inquiries from people who wanted to learn about Kauffman’s environmental grant making, which it doesn’t do.

Indeed, a public-radio promo can generate some attention that may not be welcome.

Says Robert Wood Johnson’s Mr. Coyne: “I’ve had people ask, ‘When are you going to change it? I hear it all the time!’”