Report Encourages Foundations to Speak Up to Influence Public Policy

NEW BOOKS

Communicating for Policy Change explores how grant makers can work to influence public policy through marketing and news-media outreach. The report, which draws its advice from conversations with 90 health grant makers, discusses how foundations should plan, develop, and deliver their messages. One section focuses on how to change perceptions of issues, and includes the example of how antismoking advocates have changed the debate about tobacco control: The old approach emphasized smoking as an individual choice related to personal responsibility, while the new approach portrays smoking as “an industry foisting a defective product on an unwitting public.” The report also offers advice on communicating with the news media, supporting the communications efforts of grantees, and evaluating the effectiveness of advocacy campaigns. It concludes with a list of eight Web sites that may provide more tips.

Publisher: Grantmakers in Health, 1100 Connecticut Avenue, N.W., Suite 1200, Washington, D.C. 20036; (202) 452-8331; fax (202) 452-8340; http://www.gih.org; 25 pages; available free for download on the organization’s Web site.