The Harvard Family Research Project separated from the Harvard Graduate School of Education to become the Global Family Research Project as of January 1, 2017. It is no longer affiliated with Harvard University.
Volume VII, Number 1, Winter 2001
Issue Topic: Strategic Communications
Ask the Expert
We asked two experts, both representatives from foundations, to address the role of strategic communications on philanthropy today. How can strategic communications contribute to achieving desired outcomes for both a foundation and its grantees, and how can foundations support the strategic communications efforts of their grantees?
Karen Lake, Director of Communication, W.K. Kellogg Foundation
“At the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, the Marketing and Communications Department is part of a bigger unit known as Impact Services, which is comprised of the Marketing and Communications staff, as well as staff from Policy, Evaluation, Organizational Learning, and Technology. All of the Impact Service areas work together to support programming goals. In Marketing and Communications, this means providing direct support to programming staff for a range of activities. The department is responsible for conceptualizing strategies and for developing quality communication tools to advance Foundation goals. As part of this process, it integrates and refines the themes and messages that tell the Kellogg Foundation story. Although printed and electronic materials may be the most visible signs of Marketing and Communication activities, a more lasting product of the department's collective efforts is changed public perceptions and behaviors that advance the Kellogg Foundation mission.
“The Marketing and Communications Department seeks to connect with both internal and external audiences. Increasing programming impact—fostering systemic change for societal benefit through public dissemination of lessons learned from grantee efforts—is one crucial dimension of the Department's work. Another is leveraging learning—expanding the impact of programming within the Foundation to increase organizational effectiveness and inform program decisions.
“To accomplish these goals, the Marketing and Communications Department assigns a communication manager to work closely with staff in the programming units. Similar support is provided to administrative units in the Foundation. The communication manager functions as an internal partner in each phase of programming—from conceptualization of strategic approaches and the production of communication tools to the analysis of impact on target audiences. Whether the task is accessing resource data, identifying related trends and key audiences, developing strategies and tools to reach targeted groups or packaging and disseminating information about impact, the communication managers are responsible for managing and integrating strategic communications to advance program directions and increase return on the Kellogg Foundation's investment.
“The ultimate programming goal of any foundation is to achieve greater impact for social benefit. Foundations seek solutions to societal problems—solutions that can be applied to other communities on a local, state, national or even global scale. But finding workable solutions is not enough. To achieve maximum impact, the ideas and information that come from grantee experiences must be distilled into communication strategies to inform a wider audience. Only by placing new knowledge in the hands of decision-makers—policy makers, parents, teachers, farmers, health professionals, colleagues in philanthropy and others—can a foundation hope to achieve its objectives and accomplish its mission.
“Marketing and communications staff are actors in philanthropy. As such, part of their job is to help engage and empower foundation grantees to both embrace and use the marketing and communication tools to bring about lasting changes.
“A goal of the Kellogg Foundation is to ensure that staff members leave grantees with the skills and competencies needed to continue their project long after the Foundation's funding and involvement has ended. This may be accomplished through workshops, direct technical assistance, and advice and consultation. It also may include linking grantees to people and resources in the field who can help them achieve their goals.
“Ultimately, the Foundation hopes grantees will recognize the value and importance of integrating marketing and communications into their work. Beyond that, it seeks to instill critical planning, implementation, and follow-up skills with grantees. It wants them to be able to deliver the right message in the right medium at the right time to the right audience. By being able to do this, the grantee will be able to advance it goals, maximize organizational resources, and capitalize on opportunities in the larger environment.”
Grant Oliphant, Director of Planning and Communications, The Heinz Endowments
“ It's fair to turn this question around and ask how any foundation that is serious about its obligation to create value could realistically expect to do so in today's world without a strong communications capacity. The outcomes most foundations seek involve either promoting learning, through the dissemination of knowledge, or changing social and individual attitudes and behaviors. Both of these, at heart, are communications challenges, and we live in what is arguably the most complex communications environment in human history.
“At The Heinz Endowments, we have been working to develop a more coordinated approach among our five program areas around a shared set of organizational goals. As part of that process, we have increased our emphasis on communications, going so far as to connect that role with strategic planning and evaluation as part of a portfolio of services designed to heighten our impact and measure our effectiveness, both within programs and as a whole organization.
“We have learned that it is important not only to prioritize strategic communications planning at the level of the foundation, but also to invest in building the capacity of key grantee organizations to draft, execute and coordinate strategic communications plans of their own. Grantees are often seen by foundations as part of a broad effort to improve public policy, move public will, or affect how people and communities make decisions. Yet these organizations typically are adept only at the traditional, one-on-one service model and have little or no grounding in the varied communications techniques demanded by the complicated media environment in which we all now find ourselves. Moreover, they rarely have a clear sense for how their efforts relate to the work of other grantees or to the broad goals of the foundation.
“A strong communications planning process can help a foundation and its grantees identify shared goals and opportunities for unified action. The template for such a process is fairly simple. It begins with basic steps: clarifying the project or mission and its relation to the overall mission of the foundation; delineating the partners or players involved; and identifying the key target audiences and the changes in knowledge or behavior that are desired.
“The next step is to develop and test messages for delivery to the target audiences. During this phase, it is not only important to know how the target audiences understand, react to and potentially act on the messages to be delivered, but also crucial to know the context in which those messages will be delivered. At what policies or behaviors will the messages be directed? What is the policy environment for those issues at that time? What events might be happening in the target area at the time the messages will be delivered? What other messages have recently been delivered to those audiences? The answers to these questions may change the strategic approach to message delivery.
“Concurrently, the foundation and its grantees can be collaborating on a plan for the effective delivery and support of these messages. The plan should include first the building of an infrastructure for sustained communications, and second, the implementation of that infrastructure to achieve communications goals.
“The building of the infrastructure may include the creation of networks for communications and advocacy among organizations with similar missions. While like-minded organizations routinely undertake communications initiatives, sometimes these initiatives are more patch than quilt. Their lack of coordination can limit the ability of organizations to become potent advocates or to leverage successful programs and learn from unsuccessful ones.
“Strategic communications is not a panacea; it is not the solution to every challenge. But it is almost always part of the solution. And the communications planning process, when conducted in an inclusive fashion that invites grantees in and devotes as much time to listening as to speaking, invariably will help foundations and the organizations we fund to challenge cherished assumptions and to become more effective voices for change.”