Communications is an essential part of what we do as a community. Environmentalists need to think proactively about strategy, message, distribution of messages and reactions to outreach. How do we set up our organizations to communicate effectively? How do we build the budgets, collect the tools, and raise the funds needed for communications and communications tools?
Many of us do not have communications training nor do we have the resources to spend on expensive conferences and training consultants. We are busy monitoring policy, working in the field, organizing our membership, fundraising, and keeping our groups afloat.
We have collected and developed a bank of valuable tip sheets, reference guides, planning tools, and templates that will help you improve your communications skills. These resources are available to you at no cost. We hope they will help you in your work and in the development of your communications strategy. We also hope that access to these kinds of resources will help your organization face its challenges whether they might be thinking about communications before a crisis occurs or training your experts to be good spokespeople.
We also encourage you to check out the training opportunities listed in the column to the right. Some are free and some have a charge, but we feel they’re worth exploring.
On Wednesday May 20th, 2009, GMT invited Richard K Judy, an experienced PR Professional at the corporate and nonprofit level, to hold an open interview for GMT members.
What operating systems or browsers should you use when running Vocus?
Since Vocus is an internet application, its ability to deliver new features is dependent on the internet browsers that are being used. In this regards, it is very important to keep your web browser updated according to the recommendations by Vocus.
This article by Susan Young, President of Get in Front Communications, gives 15 good tips for what you should do and not do in a press release. It takes into consideration that reporters and other news-eaters may only have at most a few seconds to scan each press release that comes in front of them, and how releases can be constructed to catch the eye of the glancer.
We had some great questions in the session and I wanted to make sure to cover those.
The model we talked about today was primarily for small, private parties, but you can certainly encourage people to throw larger, public events.
Election 2008 Planning Benchmarks
By Holly Minch
Use the following list of key dates to plan your election-year efforts. This list highlights national deadlines around the presidential races, but don’t forget the local equivalents for Governor, Mayor, City Council and other important decision makers.
Ten Helpful Things to Know about Vocus:
1. Saved Searches help you search for results. Saved Searches:
• are user specific
• always save your searches to save yourself time
• help you take advantage of the most up to date contact information
Wednesday July 8th, 1:00- 2:15 Eastern
Wednesday July 22nd, 1:00- 2:15 Eastern
Free Webinar for GMT Members and Users who would like to use the media contact database. Attending a training of this type is required for media database access.