The Denver Commission on Aging hired our team in early 2015 to facilitate a strategic planning retreat. The group sought to engage both current and new members of the Commission in critical thinking about a vision for older adults in the City of Denver and the Commission’s role in moving that vision forward. The resulting report [...]
By Scot Kersgaard, JVA If a crisis develops that causes the media to call, do not say something you will regret later. Do not speculate. If taken by surprise, take the reporter’s number and tell them you will call back by a specific time. Keep a list of all media calls, names, names of media [...]
By Scot Kersgaard, JVA You should not ignore the elephant in the room. A loose elephant can cause a lot of damage. For many nonprofits, that elephant is crisis communications. Here’s hoping you never have a crisis, but if you ever have one, being prepared can make all the difference. What constitutes a crisis varies [...]
By Scot Kersgaard, JVA Many newspapers these days allow readers to post their own stories in the community news section. The morning I wrote this,The Denver Post Your Hub section for my city included an article written by one of JVA's clients about a grant they received. This was included in the print edition of the [...]
By Amber Alarid, [Joining Vision and Action] Being an executive director of a nonprofit is hard work. It doesn’t matter if the nonprofit has hundreds of employees and a budget in the millions, or if it is a brand new organization relying on volunteers for everything. Sure, the stresses are different, but there are many [...]
By Scot Kersgaard, JVA Whether you have had success with earned media or not, often a faster and more effective route to getting your organization some ink in the press is through the submission of an op/ed, short for opinion or editorial. If your nonprofit work lends itself to the writing of an opinion piece, [...]
By Scot Kersgaard, JVA A well-written press release is a thing of beauty. There, I said it. To approach the writing of a press release in any other way is to shoot yourself and your organization in the foot. When you send a press release to the media, one of three things can happen. 1) [...]
By Scot Kersgaard, JVA When you are pitching stories to the media, unless you have an over-the-top story or you are an over-the-top pitchman/-woman you will hear “not interested” a lot more often than “That’s a great story; can we meet in 15 minutes?” How do you get reporters to move from not interested to [...]
By Scot Kersgaard, JVA Media relations is all about storytelling—except when it’s not. Last week, we wrote about finding a story good enough to pitch to the news media. This week, we ask the question: So, who are the media anyway? I have known nonprofit directors who had such good stories, and such a gift for [...]
By Scot Kersgaard, JVA Nonprofits have stories to tell. How do you make YOUR nonprofit stories stand out? If a tree falls in the forest and no one hears it, does it still make a sound? Don’t answer that. It’s a trick question. If your nonprofit has great stories to tell, but no one hears them, are [...]
