The Smart Communications Podcast
210 episodes — Page 3 of 5
Episode 111: How can your organization stay human-centered in an artificial world?
Farra Trompeter, co-director, chats with Allison Fine and Beth Kanter, co-authors of The Smart Nonprofit, Staying Human-Centered in an Automated World about how we can reduce potential harms such as embedded bias and surveillance capitalism, and share some insights into how nonprofits can prevent these harms from taking root.
Episode 110: How can technology create an equitable world?
How can tech better meet community needs? Farra Trompeter, co-director, chats with leading public interest technologist, Afua Bruce, and CEO of NTEN, Amy Sample Ward about their book “The Tech That Comes Next, How Changemakers, Philanthropists, and Technologists can Build an Equitable World.” and how to use technology for social change.
Episode 109: How can workers tap into their own power and voice?
How can organizations promote worker democracy? Learn how worker-ownership can help solve social problems and ways to share leadership with your team and community. Farra Trompeter, co-director, and Esteban Kelly, executive director at the US Federation of Worker Cooperatives (USFWC) and worker-owner and co-founder of Anti-Oppression Resource and Training Alliance (AORTA), chat about these topics and more in this episode of the Smart Communications Podcast.
Episode 108: How can you promote legacy giving?
Farra Trompeter, co-director, interviews Lori Kranczer, founder and CEO of Everyday Planned Giving, about her work in the planned giving space and how organizations can develop their legacy giving programs and have better connections with their donors.
Episode 107: How can you approach succession planning?
Episode 106: Protecting one's time: How can wellbeing play into decision-making?
How do you describe how you make decisions in your role? Hannah Thomas, director of learning and innovation at Big Duck, talks with Fatima Jones, senior director of marketing and communications at the Apollo Theater, to discuss how to set up boundaries to protect your time and wellbeing and how to enforce these boundaries in your decision-making process.
Episode 105: Why do government agencies need strong brands?
How do government agencies use communications to connect with the public? Listen as Ally Dommu, director of strategy, and Charlotte Levitt, director of marketing and communications at the NYC Campaign Finance Board (CFB), reflect on CFB’s rebrand journey and shed some light on the factors that go into branding for government agencies.
Episode 104: How can you embrace the challenges of changing your name?
Why would an organization consider changing its name? Farra Trompeter, co-director, and senior copywriter, Ryan Gerhardt, dive into the joys and pains of naming as part of the branding process.
Episode 103: Tiny Habits: How can small changes change everything?
It’s a new year! Do you have new behaviors you want to adopt or unwanted behaviors you want to stop? Tiny Habits is a simple and effective method to change behavior. Learn how to change behaviors or adopt new ones with Farra Trompeter, co-director and Edith Asibey founder of Asibey consulting.
Episode 102: How can you create a healthy workplace in remote settings?
How can your organization prioritize wellness and productivity? Farra Trompter, co-director, talks with Meico Marquette Whitlock, founder and CEO of Mindful Techie, in this episode packed with ways to add a more mindful approach to your work-life and tech-life balance.
Episode 101: How do you know when your nonprofit has a jargon problem–and what can you do about it?
Jargon is common in the nonprofit sector. For some it can communicate knowledge, but for most people, using jargon, acronyms, and complicated phrases can be alienating.. Big Duck’s founder and board member, Sarah Durham chats with Bill Furmanski, senior director of communications at the Fair Labor Association about de-jargoning the messaging in your organization and how to make sure your audiences can understand who you are in plain language.
Episode 100: How can nonprofits apply the principles of Emergent Strategy to their communications?
Never a failure, always a lesson. Trust the people. Move at the speed of trust. These are just a few principles of Emergent Strategy by adrienne mareee brown. Hannah Thomas, director of learning and innovation, and Priscilla Hung, co-director of Move to End Violence, discuss being adaptive, thinking with abundance, and centering your purpose.
Episode 99: Who should be on your communications team?
Sarah Durham, Big Duck’s founder, and Kivi Leroux Miller, founder and CEO of the Nonprofit Marketing Guide, share tips that will help any nonprofit strengthen their communications team and improve its capacity to succeed.
Episode 98: How can you build inclusive processes in branding and beyond?
At this moment, it’s important to slow down and create more inclusive teams and processes. Join Farra Trompeter and Dr. Renee Rubin Ross as they discuss participation and equity and share tips on how to make branding more inclusive.
Episode 97: How nonprofit communications have changed over the years
Nonprofit staff have become more sophisticated in prioritizing the goals, audiences, strategies, and tactics to guide their communications. Listen in as Sarah Durham and Farra Trompeter talk about the changes in communication approaches and activities and the importance of communications in the nonprofit sector.
Episode 96: How can you use donor personas to guide your communications?
How can you use donor personas to guide your communications? At Big Duck, we define personas as tools that define a segment of your audience, who they are in connection to your work, what they care about, how to best reach them, where to find them, and more. Farra Trompeter chats with Mica Bevington, US director of communications and development at Humanity and Inclusion about how their team defines personas.
Episode 95: Equity: How can we design organizations where everyone thrives?
Equity helps leaders create more inclusive organizations using human-centered design and behavior change principles. Farra Trompeter talks with Minal Bopaiah, founder of Brevity & Wit and author of “Equity: How to Design Organizations Where Everyone Thrives” about her passion for equity and why it is critical for nonprofit organizations.
Episode 94: How can you update an iconic brand?
A classic brand identity is hard to change. Old perceptions about your organization’s brand or internal shifts can be challenging. Listen in as Sarah Durham talks with Mark Graham, chief marketing & communications officer at American Friends Service Committee about AFSC’s distinctive brand and the organization’s journey to evolve its iconic identity.
Episode 93: What can a good tagline do for your nonprofit?
Ever wondered what a good tagline can do for your organization? In this episode of the Smart Communications Podcast, Farra Trompeter, partner and chief growth officer, discusses taglines, brand strategy, engaging community in your brand, social justice, and more with Chandra M. Hayslett, communications director, from the Center for Constitutional Rights and Ambar Mentor-Truppa, vice president of communications, from the Shriver Center on Poverty Law.
Episode 92: What’s the future of virtual events?
COVID-19 has changed everything and nonprofits have shifted how they offer programming and services from in-person to digital channels. Virtual events, galas, and conferences can help us connect and reach more people. How do we create experiences that are engaging and memorable? Chris Tuttle, founder and principal of TuttleCo, discusses the future of virtual events with Farra Trompeter, partner and chief growth officer, in this episode of the Smart Communications Podcast.
Episode 91: Why should you challenge urgency in your communications?
Urgency can present itself in a number of ways and is a key characteristic of white supremacy culture. Former senior strategist Laura FIsher, and chief growth officer and partner, Farra Trompeter, discuss how urgency can impact your organization’s team and offer useful ways to question it in this episode of the Smart Communications Podcast.
Episode 90: How can you leverage your brand to connect with your community?
Your brand is how your organization expresses its voice. Knowing whose voices are being centered in your brand strategy and assets is a key element to developing or shifting your brand, and making sure the process is inclusive is essential. Listen in as Sarah Durham, CEO, and Farra Trompeter, partner and chief growth officer, share insights on how to use your brand to connect with donors and your community.
Episode 89: How can Google Analytics help you achieve better digital results?
Google Analytics is a powerful tool and can help you understand how people use your website. Sarah Durham sits down with Heather Wozniak, technical strategist at Advomatic to discuss ways you can get started using Google Analytics to make strategic decisions about your content.
Episode 88: What are the latest trends in nonprofit communications?
If you are a nonprofit communicator, the Nonprofit Communications Trends Report, a yearly report released by The Nonprofit Marketing Guide is a great fact-based, research-based tool about marketing and communications within nonprofits. Sarah Durham chats with award-winning author, and founder and CEO of The Nonprofit Marketing Guide, Kivi Leroux Miller about the impact these trends have had during the COVID-19 pandemic in this episode of the Smart Communications Podcast.
Episode 87: Should you go with fixed fee or time-and-materials for that project?
Are you looking to hire an agency or freelancer and questioning whether or not to go with a fixed fee or time-and-materials for the project? This solocast with Sarah Durham examines the differences between the two and what structure is best when choosing who to work with.
Episode 86: Is your website secure and flexible?
Is your website secure and flexible? A lot of the nonprofit sector are not techies. Sarah Durham talks with Dave Hansen-Lange, Advomatic's Director of Technical Strategy about what open source is and tips on keeping your website up to date in this episode of the Smart Communications Podcast.
Episode 85: Is it strategic?
Is it strategic? Strategy is the practice of defining what you want to achieve and identifying the best ways to achieve it. Sarah Durham and Laura Fisher unpack terms like goals, objectives, strategies, and tactics and offer background and examples of how they intersect. Listen in as they answer a few questions frequently by nonprofit communicators, and apply these terms and pressure test for strategy.
Episode 84: What norms should you challenge and disrupt?
What norms should you challenge and disrupt? Sarah Durham and Hannah Thomas unpack “thoughtful disruption” and offer different ways of challenging nonprofit communications norms and assumptions.
Episode 83: Where is the community in your communications?
Who is your community? They often tend to be more expansive than we think. Listen in as Sarah Durham unpacks the word “community” in fundraising and communications with Michelle Shireen Muri, the founder of Freedom Conspiracy, Co-Chair of the founding Seattle chapter for Community-Centric Fundraising and host of The Ethical Rainmaker podcast. Learn about community mapping and more in this episode of the Smart Community Podcast.
Episode 82: How do you center your community as you do research?
Equity is about process and outcomes. Making sure everyone, regardless of color, has the same access and opportunity requires a skillset many of us are striving to learn. This podcast, Sponsored by Bloomerang, examines equity, issues of equity, and equity-focused research, and offers valuable insights for nonprofits looking to make research practices, and their organization more unbiased.
Episode 81: How can you facilitate meetings better
Active listening and research. These are just a couple of key facilitation skills shared in this episode of The Smart Communications Podcast with Ally Dommu, director of strategy, and Sarah Durham as they discuss how to facilitate meetings and why it’s so important.
Episode 80: How does strategic planning impact communications?
No matter what you are working towards in your organizations when approaching both strategic planning and communications it’s important to know what is unchanging, and what is variable. Ally Dommu, director of strategy, sits down with Sarah Durham to talk about developing communications in connection to a bigger organizational vision in this episode of The Smart Communications Podcast.
Episode 79: How do we communicate without communications staff?
Staff cuts and running an organization on a skeleton crew have become an unfortunate effect of the difficult times we have been facing. Sponsored by Bloomerang, here’s an inspirational boost and re-air of one of our most popular podcasts from the Spring of 2018 with Wayne Ho, President and CEO of the Chinese American Planning Council, about how he manages he manages without a communications staff.
Episode 78: Marketing versus communications: what's the difference?
In this episode of the Smart Communications Podcast, Sarah Durham sits down with Samantha Campbell, marketing and communications expert and former Director of Marketing, Communication and Sales at the Apollo Theater, to examine the differences between marketing and communications.
Episode 77: How can your values help during challenging times?
Does your organization practice it’s values in tangible ways? Listen to this podcast to gain insight from NTEN’s CEO, Amy Sample Ward, on how to center your strength using your values during difficult times.
Episode 76: How do you convert crisis donors into regular givers?
Is your organization looking for innovative ways to convert crisis donors into regular givers? This podcast explores how to attract and retain new donors.
Episode 75: Do robots make bad fundraisers?
Do robots make bad fundraisers? In this episode of the Smart Communications Podcast, Sarah Durham chats with Steven Shattuck, author of the book, “Robots Make Bad Fundraisers” and Chief Engagement Officer at Bloomerang, about ways to apply time-tested principles of philanthropy to the modern technology available to fundraisers.
Episode 74: What tagline works??
A good tagline can inspire you to think, feel, maybe even react. In the episode of The Smart Communications Podcast, Sarah Durham and Big Duck Copywriter, Ryan Gerhardt, break down three structures for taglines that can strengthen your organization’s brand strategy.
Episode 73: How do you tackle a daunting project?
Ever find yourself stuck on how to approach a big project that you have to do, but you just don't see how you're going to get it anytime soon? This podcast unpacks the process of tackling projects and offers a roadmap and tips on how to get started.
Episode 72: What is strategy? A refresher.
Whether you consider yourself a pro at setting communications strategy, or you are just getting started, this podcast, back by popular demand, offers useful insights to help you get a sense of the terms: goals, objectives, strategy, and tactics from a non-profit communications perspective.
Episode 71: What are the barriers to effective communications?
In this episode of the Smart Communications Podcast, Sarah Durham examines some of the common barriers that make it hard for nonprofits to establish successful communications. What are the common pitfalls? Tune in and find out.
Episode 70: Are events and galas still effective? Let’s revisit.
To gala or not to gala. In this replay of a 2018 Smart Communications Podcast, Stephanie Thomas, founder of Stetwin Consulting, discusses the value of galas, and whether or not they still work as a fundraising vehicle. Tune in as she shares her over 25 years of experience and offers useful and relevant tips to assist your organization in this new normal.
Episode 69: Where do nonprofits go wrong with communications?
Thought leader and host of the “Nonprofits are Messy” podcast, Joan Garry, talks about what an effective nonprofit communications strategy can look like and provides some tips on how to become a five-star storyteller.
Episode 67: How do you build sustainable momentum into your communications?
Sarah Durham discusses how nonprofits generate sustainable momentum in their communications. She identifies common challenges, including bottlenecks created by leadership micromanagement and a lack of staff accountability, and offers ways to address them. Tune in to hear about the six key elements that can help your organization create sustainable momentum in its communications.
Episode 54: How do you ask for a really, really, really big donation?
Sarah Durham and Eric Javier discuss the 80/20 rule, the ladder of engagement, and how to articulate your vision to donors. Listen in to learn how your nonprofit can get their next really big donation to transform the organization.
Episode 68: Why is a clear voice important for nonprofits?
Sarah Durham, CEO of Big Duck and Advomatic, goes deep into the topic of organizational voice—what it is, how to create it, maintain it, and more. Building on the insights in her book, The Nonprofit Communications Engine, she connects the work of establishing a clear and consistent voice to building deeper relationships and mindshare with audiences. Tune in to learn how you can start developing your nonprofit’s voice and get answers to common branding questions.
Episode 56: How can you make your website friendlier and more accessible?
Advomatic’s Sarah Durham and Amanda Luker discuss how to constantly improve your website, create different ways to experience content, and run accessibility audits of your nonprofit’s website. Learn how you can make your website friendlier to all users, including those who are differently abled.
Episode 66: How can you communicate better via Zoom?
Big Duck CEO Sarah Durham explores ways in which COVID-19 shelter-in-place restrictions have made us all increasingly dependent on video conferencing tools like Zoom. She shares a couple of tips and tricks to get more out of each digital interaction and to also combat the accompanying screen-time fatigue. Listen in to learn how creating “pop-up rules” or norms can improve the experience for everyone involved.
Episode 62: How can you disrupt power dynamics and bring a DEI lens to your major donor relationships?
Sarah Durham and strategist Hannah Thomas discuss how DEI plays an important role in your capital campaigns and other major donor communications. Centering your communications on participants and being aware of how you may be “privileging” your donors is the first step. Tune in to find out how you can reevaluate your organization’s donor centrism.
Episode 65: What happens when people think they know your organization but they don’t?
What happens when people hang on to an old idea of your organization? Learn how Teresa Younger, CEO of the Ms. Foundation for Women, shaped and advanced a well-known brand.