How to Use Blogs and Other Means to Share Ideas: Tips From Experts

Blogs, podcasts, streaming video, viral distribution — the possibilities seem endless.

Add to this the fact that many people say they feel barraged with information, and it can be difficult for grant makers to determine the best way to craft communications efforts that take advantage of new technologies.

“There was once a very simple set of choices, and the news media was the target,” says Bruce Trachtenberg, executive director of the Communications Network, “whereas today anyone with a computer is your audience.”

To help cut through the clutter, nonprofit communications experts offer the following advice:

Get to know your peers. When Kate Bullinger joined Atlantic Philanthropies, in New York, in April 2006 as its first director of communications, she made a point of introducing herself to colleagues at other large foundations. The tip may sound obvious but can often be overlooked by busy communications managers who get mired in internal relations.

Know your audience. Before adopting new tools, it’s critical to assess the intended recipients of your message, says Alberto Ibargüen, chief executive of the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, in Miami.

“Ask whoever you’re trying to affect how they use information,” he says. “What platforms do they use? What makes them come back again and again to those places? Then you’ll know what your audience is and what their levels of acceptance are, and can go from there.”

Mr. Trachtenberg agrees: “Don’t just put something out there simply because you can. Research is always an important tool, because once you know what somebody knows or doesn’t know, it gives you something to base your decision on.”

Hire staff members with different skills. Assuming the foundation has more than one communications official, grant makers should assemble a public-relations team with varied but complementary skills.

For example, at Atlantic Philanthropies, Ms. Bullinger oversees a department of eight people, including two communications executives.

Padraic Riley has a background in public relations at Burson-Marsteller, and Stuart Schear has worked at the Markle and Robert Wood Johnson foundations and at The NewsHour With Jim Lehrer. It was once a natural progression for journalists to be hired for such positions, says Mr. Trachtenberg, because they entailed what was broadly called “media relations.”

But, he adds, “the methods of getting the message out have obviously become more complicated and complex.”

Have a plan. Marc Fest, vice president of communications at the Knight foundation, says the first step is to define the people a foundation wants to reach.

Next, determine which so-called Web 2.0 technologies can work best to accomplish that goal — blogs, forums, and e-mail lists, for example — and hire someone to manage the technology if necessary.

Finally, says Mr. Fest, “constantly nurture participation” via invitations, networking links, and the like and have a plan to deal with any inappropriate content people try to submit.

Think beyond the communications department. It’s essential to integrate communications approaches into a foundation’s overall grant-making strategy, says Andrew Solomon, vice president for public affairs at the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, in Chicago.

One way to do this is to reach beyond the traditional communications department and ensure that program officers, in particular, are equipped to communicate effectively with the news media, policy makers, and others.

Kristen Grimm, president of Spitfire Strategies, in Washington, says that the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, and several other large grant-making organizations have sent their program officers to workshops for training in how “to think more ambitiously about communications.”

Be honest about efforts that failed. But at the same time, says Mr. Fest, don’t be afraid to experiment with different tactics. He cites an example in which Knight tried to solicit online comments on its annual report but didn’t get many responses.

“It used to be if you tried something new, it had better work out perfectly or you looked stupid,” he says.

“Now it’s the other way around: If you don’t make enough mistakes, it shows you don’t experiment enough,”Mr. Fest says. “Just as in science, if it weren’t for all the trials that didn’t work out, you’d never get to that vaccine, that outcome.”