| SOC faculty plan to ‘deepen’ summer institute BY MATT GETTY Two weeks into the spring semester, with the first round of papers in hand for grading and a late January cold snap reminding campus that winter’s worst still lies ahead, many faculty no doubt have thoughts of summer. At the School of Communication (SOC), Professors Barbara Diggs-Brown and Maria Ivancin, along with Dean Larry Kirkman, are planning the fourth Institute for Strategic Communication for Nonprofits (ISCN), a unique five-day summer institute offering nonprofits the long-term communication techniques needed to attract and mobilize an audience. “Many communicators begin with the tactics—I need a press release, or a brochure, or a Web site. Perhaps you do, but how do you know you need it, and how do you know what to say?” said Diggs-Brown, who worked with Kirkman to launch the institute in 2003 and currently serves as its director. “There is . . . one way to communicate effectively, and that’s strategically,” she added. Using case studies, group discussions, and presentations from such experts as AARP CEO William Novelli, the ISCN has sought to answer those questions for more than 120 nonprofit communication workers over the last three years. The key is putting communication at the center of the organization’s planning; as Diggs-Brown puts it, “You will not be effective unless you have a [communication] strategy based on a lot of formative work.” Response from institute participants has been overwhelmingly positive, saying that the “informative, practical, and inspiring,” institute “provided concentrated learning and produced concrete plans.” To build on that success, for the summer 2006 program, the ISCN is moving in a slightly new direction. Having nearly doubled the institute’s participants from its first year, the faculty, said Ivancin, want to “deepen” rather than “expand” its impact. Plans for “Year 4, the Reunion” call for reconvening the alumni to help strengthen this growing network among nonprofit communicators. In addition to drawing on alumni, Diggs-Brown, Ivancin, and Kirkman hope to attract some of the two dozen nonprofit CEOs they united for an SOC executive roundtable on strategic communication two weeks ago. Because they make the final decision on communication’s role in their organizations, including these leaders, said Kirkman, is central to the institute’s work. “You need the CEO to bring communication out of the back room, to support it and make it an essential part of the planning process,” he explained. Faculty planners give the ISCN year-round attention because, said Kirkman, “the values of the university and the School of Communication—human rights, social justice, and democracy—inspire our commitment to building the communication capacity of the nonprofit sector. Nonprofits are more and more taking on the critical role of engaging, informing, and equipping the public for action on pressing social issues, and through SOC’s Institute for Strategic Communication for Nonprofits, they learn the tools and techniques, best practices, and strategic approaches that will make them successful.” |
