Philanthropy

Three Ways To Give Back During The Holidays For and With Our Kids

Posted on by Case Foundation

As November slips by, many of us have been occupied by autumnal activities — hunting down pumpkin spiced treats of all sorts, cozying up with extra layers of clothing, and cheering on a new season of fall sports. It’s also the beginning of the holidays with celebrations that are largely centered on giving, making this a great time to think about becoming a “Philanthro-Parent.” Whether you are a parent, teacher, neighbor, friend or relative, you can encourage the kids in your life to change the world for good and inspire them to give back in their own meaningful way.

And it’s not just about doing good during the holidays either. There are huge benefits for children who engage in acts of kindness that make generosity a valuable year-round pursuit. In addition to being healthier and living longer, researchers have demonstrated that kids who volunteer and “do good” have improved friendships and self-esteem, and perform better in school.

So how can you help the children in your life embrace the gift of giving? Here are three ways to make your season even brighter for you and your up-and-coming philanthropist.

Give better gifts
I’ll confess that if it weren’t for online shopping my niece and nephews would never see a box with an Auntie Louise tag. For many of us, there isn’t much time to run around to take care of gift wish lists, especially during the busy holiday season. But like with many things in life, we should take the time to slow down with our gift hunting. Let’s take an extra minute to make some of our purchases give back by using AmazonSmile (Amazon donates 0.5% of the eligible purchases to a charity of your choice). Let’s scour the wrappers for a fair trade label on that chocolate treat for our little snackers. Let’s do a couple more Google searches to find gifts that give back. It won’t be time wasted and we’ll feel even better once the wrapping paper starts flying. 

Share gifts
A lot of us take advantage of this season to donate gently used coats and cold weather gear as we replace clothes for our ever-growing kids, or to do a clean sweep of the toy box once presents are opened. Perhaps this year we can go one step further and encourage our child to choose one of their new toys or presents to donate. Or perhaps we can help our kids dream up ways to use their presents to benefit others, like using the new art set to create a poster for a fundraiser. We can tap into the power of choice that can actually enhance our kids’ altruistic endeavors with this twist on giving around the holidays.

Be a gift
Many of us learn better by doing, and it appears this is also true for giving back. Studies indicate that volunteering at a young age can create lifelong social and civic engagement in our kids. So, to help get you started, here’s volunteering ideas for kids from PBS, a list of thousands of children volunteer opportunities from Volunteer Match, a link to find your local food bank from Feeding America and a truly thoughtful curation of “40 Ways Kids Can Volunteer from Toddler to Teen” from author Laura Grace Weldon.

This holiday season, together with our kids, let’s make our gifts give more, share more deeply and be a blessing to others. We’d love to hear about your thoughts; please share your ideas on Twitter using #KidsGivingBack. Before I wish you Happy Holidays, I’ll let the infectiously joyful Kid President remind us that “The perfect gift is the something that makes the world better.”

Be Fearless Spotlight: YWCA of Northwest Georgia

Posted on by Case Foundation

This Spotlight is crafted in partnership with BoardSource and authored by guest writer Caitlin Kelly as part of a special blog series by the Case Foundation featuring Be Fearless stories from the field. Follow along with us as we meet people and learn about organizations that are taking risks, being bold and failing forward in their efforts to create transformative change in the social sector.

It takes guts to stop a capital campaign right in the middle — not to mention returning the funds already raised. But Holly Tuchman, CEO and Executive Director of the YWCA of Northwest Georgia (the Y), is a woman with a truly fearless approach to achieving her organizational goals.

Having opened the first domestic violence shelter in Georgia over 35 years ago, the goal of the Y is to empower women and work for peace, justice, freedom and dignity for all people. With the support and dedication of their community, the Y’s work focuses on programs to reduce domestic violence and sexual assault, ultimately “helping clients lead safe, healthy and self-sufficient lives.”

When she arrived to lead the Y, just over eight years ago, she found a main building constructed in 1962 in desperate need of renovation and a domestic violence shelter with bunk beds so old and rickety that the Salvation Army refused to take them. Radical change was necessary, but she was determined to see it done smoothly, thoughtfully and strategically.

This was easier said then done. At the time the organization was losing $30,000 to $40,000 a month. “I had no idea it was as bad as it was,” she says. “After much discussion with our board of directors and community stakeholders, we decided to stop the capital campaign.” Tuchman returned the money to astonished donors, explaining there was now a new team and new approach in place.

Rooted in the new approach was the replacement of the Y’s swimming pool. A long-time symbol of a traditional Y and a fixture in the community, it was replaced with 12 transitional apartments for women fleeing domestic violence—giving them a safe space to stay while they continued to heal, live a violence-free life and work towards self-sufficiency.

Working closely with their engineer and interior designer, both of whom offered some skills pro bono, meant Tuchman and the Board could push for an attractive yet affordable final result all could be proud of. The shelter’s bunkbeds were falling apart; advised to keep them to save money, they insisted on new, more welcoming furniture instead. They were able to expand the Y’s training room space, counseling department, and office space for administrative and programmatic staff.

Tuchman, along with Capital Campaign Chair, Kim Gresh and a committed and compassionate board, re-launched their capital campaign with the new direction in mind. They infused the team with a real sense of urgency. “We just don’t ever stop! We work for our clients 24/7, 365 days a year. Our staff never quits!” As the only YWCA of its kind in Georgia, devoted to aiding women fleeing domestic abuse, “we’ve had many successes. But we have also had clients who unfortunately became a domestic violence murder victim. But we keep on going, because the next person needs our help,” she says.

Being bold and taking risks are essential parts of Tuchman’s professional DNA and have helped to make the organization stronger. “We launched our [new] capital campaign in early 2009, at one of the worst times we could possibly have started, and we finished it with no long-term debt,” she says. The campaign raised $7.28 million over five years, which allowed them to renovate their building and shelter. All renovation was completed this past May—bypassing the original sum of $6.5 million that a fund-raising consultant they’d hired had already told them was impossible. “It wasn’t enough,” Tuchman replied firmly. “We raised probably another $500,000 beyond that.”

But Tuchman doesn’t do it alone. She relies heavily on the expertise and energy of an unusually large board, with 30 members, eight of them men. Talk about reaching beyond your bubble! “When I first came to the YWCA eight and a half years ago, we had to petition our national organization to allow men to join our board.” She did so for a compelling reason: “We could have lost $1 million in donations if we didn’t.” In fact, when she began asking men for donations to the capital campaign, the pushback was real: “You want me to support your organization, but I can’t be on your board?”

That is no longer the case. In addition to the eight male board members, the board will also welcome its first male chairman in July 2016, the culmination of a lengthy process of conscious growth. “It was a combination of a couple of things,” she explains. “We started Y’s Guys, a committee of men who wanted to talk to men about domestic violence, and we created a men’s breakfast to get men involved in the issue. If we’re going to stop domestic violence men have to stand up and say ‘This isn’t acceptable in our community.’”

The board, which meets monthly, offers Tuchman and her staff skills most useful for “the big picture” like marketing, fundraising and finance. “They offer the strategy and our financial ability to sustain the organization. They’re not micro-managers. They stand along us and fearlessly lead.”

Feeling inspired? If you’re ready to begin your own Be Fearless journey start by downloading our free Be Fearless Action Guide and Case Studies.

Be Fearless Spotlight: Fixing a Leaky Pipeline

Posted on by Case Foundation

This Spotlight is authored by guest writer Caitlin Kelly as part of a special blog series by the Case Foundation featuring Be Fearless stories from the field. Follow along with us as we meet people and learn about organizations that are taking risks, being bold and failing forward in their efforts to create transformative change in the social sector.

Last year, a number of well-known tech-focused companies released information about their employees that relates specifically to race and gender. The results shone a light on the deeply rooted challenges this sector faces when it comes to diversity. Breaking through those obstacles remains a challenge for women and minorities in particular—one that the Kapor Center for Social Impact (Kapor Center), based in Oakland, California, is boldly tackling every day.

The Kapor Center wears its mission on its sleeve: “We believe that when the community of tech leaders reflects the diversity of the United States, tech will play an integral role in closing gaps and disparities that exist in this country,” the organization’s website states. “Via proven methods from the for-profit and nonprofit fields, we work in partnership with a diverse set of stakeholders to maximize social impact.” Over the years, the Kapor Center has focused its efforts on audacious, “gap-closing” endeavors. The “gap” in these cases refers to a number of challenges facing society today—gaps in academic achievement, access to health care and economic opportunity, as well as gaps in income, information and social mobility.

TheGap_Kapor Center

To achieve these lofty goals, the Kapor Center funds a variety of groundbreaking initiatives and entrepreneurs aimed at stopping what it calls the Leaky Tech Pipeline, which creates roadblocks for African Americans and other underrepresented communities of color in the tech-innovation fields. Currently, African Americans account for less than 3 percent of programmers, developers, engineers and other tech-focused talent. As a result, although African Americans are generally early adopters and users of technology, their intellectual capital is almost nonexistent in the development of new apps and tech systems, leaving in question how germane the products are to their daily lives. To address this gap, the Kapor Center has initiated several interventions, including efforts to provide greater access to educational opportunities for African American and Latino students.

One such intervention has emerged from a program called the College Bound Brotherhood, which supports college and 21st-century career readiness for Bay Area African American males. Created in 2008, the Brotherhood is the first network in the United States to focus on African American male students and connect them to college readiness programs and local resources. Using a Networked Improvement Community model—in which organizations, parents and school districts learn from, support and build with one another to become more solution-oriented toward issues specific to their community—the Brotherhood aims to place 3,000 African American males on a college-bound and college-completion track annually.

Justin Davis, a former professional basketball player who serves as a Program Officer for the Kapor Center, joined the organization in order to “pay it forward” after benefiting from the opportunities that similar funded programs offered him as a young male of color, including college prep services. Davis attended Stanford University on an athletic scholarship, studying communications, then played with the Golden State Warriors.

“In 2008, foundations weren’t investing heavily in black males’ achievement or black-male-centric initiatives,” Davis notes. “We would like to think we were seeing ahead of the curve of what was a pressing issue needing philanthropic support.” Davis says that as a result of the Kapor Center’s early investments in black males, it has been on the front lines of a larger movement, providing not only financial resources, but also “our tech inclusion lens” to such initiatives as President Obama’s My Brother’s Keeper, the Executive Alliance to Expand Opportunities for Boys and Men of Color, and the California Executives’ Alliance to Expand Opportunities for Boys and Men of Color.

Davis embraces a bold approach when advancing the work of the Kapor Center. Fearlessness to him means “being unapologetic about serving underserved communities, especially black and Latino, especially with regard to technology.” Noting that the tech industry is “highly homogeneous and not truly reflective of America in general,” Davis says that “our priority and focus is on creating a more diverse tech sector, so we made several investments in community-based organizations and nonprofits serving these groups. Being fearless means we’re very vocal and outspoken about this being an issue. These doors are not welcoming for people of color! And even for the few people who get in, is there a culture that retains them?”

Davis is an athlete at heart, and his competitive nature drives his work. “How do you get better at philanthropy? How do you get better at serving communities of color?” These are key questions that he challenges himself and his team to consider. “I’m always thinking about ways to improve our work and our organization.”

Davis asks, “How can we make the best investments that snowball and create a tech sector that welcomes these men? Our challenge has been trying to understand where to make those investments, as there are no blueprints for how to do this through grant-making. We’ve been making investments outside our comfort zone.”

Reflecting the skill set he developed while working with the Kapor Center, Davis has gone on to rebrand the College Bound Brotherhood, helping it to focus solely on diversifying the world of tech. That meant cutting off funding to some grantees while gambling on new and untested investments. “As part of our pivot to focus exclusively on tech, we parted with some of our long-term grant partners,” Davis says. “In doing so, an opportunity presented itself to support a number of nonprofits who weren’t receiving much interest or funding for their work aimed at exposing communities of color to coding.”

Without such focused support, Davis adds, the effects of a growing tech sector on black and Latino communities were mainly “displacement, career unreadiness and gentrification.” The Brotherhood’s investment strategy paid off: “Two to three years later, we had people so thankful for [our] taking the risk to help them grow and develop.”

While the Kapor Center is strengthening the tech pipeline for people of color, Davis is quick to point out that “there are many entry points—from a novice coder to successful entrepreneur.” He notes that not all students in the College Bound Brotherhood have been introduced to coding, but like many Americans they’re “connected at the hip to technology via cell phones or gaming consoles. We simply want to expose these young men to exactly where that technology comes from and inform them that there is a lucrative career available to them if they’re interested. We aim to build meaningful relationships with tech companies so they remain cognizant of the importance of having multiple doors through which talent of color can comfortably walk.”

The Brotherhood collaborates with more than 40 agencies and organizations, each of which contributes to the network model. Much of the success of the program is due to the engagement of unlikely partners. “They’re the big tech firms just down the road. We’re knocking on the door and getting into those closed walls,” Davis explains.

The “tech inclusion” full court press is working, he says with satisfaction. “Oh yes! We’re sitting down now with C-suite staff and doing workshops on this issue in front of hundreds and hundreds of their staff,” Davis says. “These conversations have paid dividends in the sense that we are no longer knocking on the doors (as much), but are now often answering the knock on our door.”

Feeling inspired? If you’re ready to begin your own Be Fearless journey start by downloading our free Be Fearless Action Guide and Case Studies.

How to Go Over The Edge in Three Steps

Posted on by Case Foundation

Over The Edge (OTE) takes you to great heights for a great cause. On Saturday, October 18, 2015, the height was 365ft and the cause was brain cancer research.

Brain cancer is the second leading cause of cancer deaths among children and young adults. More than 600,000 people in the US are living with a brain tumor diagnosis and another 66,000 new diagnosis are expected this year. Meanwhile, there are only four brain tumor treatments approved by the FDA. [See Accelerate Brain Cancer Cure (ABC2)’s new website for more information.]

The common goal of finding a cure for brain cancer motivated 80 plus participants to rappel off the top of San Diego’s Grand Hyatt. My sister and I were just two of the many “edgers” who went over in memory of a loved one that we lost to the disease. We went over for our grandmother, Elisabeth Clark, and for all of those who are fearlessly fighting the disease today.

Here’s how we got the courage to take that first step over the railing and go over the edge:

    1. Do it for an Organization Worth Going Over the Edge for

ABC2 teamed up with OTE for the third year in a row to raise money for brain cancer research and awareness. ABC2 is a grantee of the Case Foundation and a nonprofit organization that drives cutting-edge research and treatments for brain tumors.

In 2014, OTE for Brain Cancer raised over $215,000 to support San Diego-based brain cancer research. The total for 2015 is still growing, and you can keep up with this year’s fundraising progress here!

ABC2’s mission is to invest in research aimed at finding the fastest possible route to a cure. They let urgency conquer fear by taking bold strides in brain cancer research. They aren’t afraid to be unconventional in their tactics to raise awareness about brain cancer—including rappelling off the side of a building!

    1. Rappel Down a Building with a View

If you’re going to go over the edge, why not enjoy the view while you’re up there? For the third year, OTE for brain cancer rappelled 365ft from the 33rd floor of the beautiful Manchester Grand Hyatt San Diego, the tallest building on the San Diego waterfront.

When standing on the edge, don’t look down, but be sure to take in the view! From the top, edgers get a breathtaking view of the Pacific Ocean and downtown San Diego. You’ll be back on the ground before you know it, so take advantage of the once in a lifetime opportunity and take your time. It’s not everyday that you’re higher than the seagulls flying over the San Diego marina!

    1. Be Fearless.

You’d be surprised to discover what you’re capable of when you reach beyond your bubble and be fearless.

Walking backwards off the edge of a 365ft building is no easy task. However, the strength and inspiration necessary to make the descent can be found in the survivors’ courageous battles against the disease. If they can fight against brain cancer, you can go over the edge!

Love conquered fear as the cheers from the crowd below gave strength to the edgers above. Some superhero edgers were brain cancer survivors themselves, and many others were being fearless in honor or in loving memory of friends and family. Together as one, it was a day bursting with love, support and hope for a cure.

Want to see what going over the edge is like? Check out photos from OTE2014 or watch the video below of my OTE experience this year:

 

“Making Ideas Move” at ComNet 2015

Posted on by Case Foundation

More than 500 social sector communications professionals from foundations and organizations across the globe gathered this month for engaging dialogues on using the power of digital storytelling to drive social impact, demystifying design and the making of movements. They joined together for the Communications Network conference in San Diego themed “Making Ideas Move.” Fellow communicators from organizations like the Ford Foundation, Grantmakers for Effective Organizations, Carnegie Corporation of New York, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Center for American Progress, Rockefeller Foundation, World Wildlife Fund, ONE Campaign and many others trekked to sunny California for the two-day learning event.

Here are highlights from two of the sessions that I participated in over the course of the convening and takeaways on how to move ideas forward, by making big bets and failing forward.

  • Fireside Chat with Soledad O’BrienI had the pleasure of joining Soledad O’Brien, one of the most well respected working journalists of our time, on stage for a fireside discussion on opening day. Our talk included a discussion on: the changing dynamics of news agencies; the rise of Millennials and how they are consuming news; and her launch of Starfish Media Group. A multi-platform media production and distribution company, Starfish Media Group is dedicated to uncovering and producing empowering stories that take a challenging look at the often divisive issues of race, class, wealth, poverty and opportunity. O’Brien produces two hit series “Black in America” and “Latino in America,” which are among CNN’s most successful domestic and international franchises.

    O’Brien also created the Starfish Foundation, an organization that sends young women to and through college. The organization has supported dozens of young women in their educational pursuits, believing that they too can succeed when faced with difficult circumstances. In her book, The Next Big Story: My Journey through the land of possibilities, O’Brien shares valuable lessons and insights into her journalistic career, many of which we discussed during our time on stage.

    “My storytelling is an exploration of the world’s problems—that people have the potential to do good and make good and seize from the bad if they will only make a choice to do it,” she noted. O’Brien also shared her lessons on failure with the audience, saying, “Making mistakes should be about learning lessons, not wallowing in failure.” You can watch the complete interview, below (beginning at 14:55):

https://vimeo.com/142297055

  • “You’ve Got the “Big Idea”, How the Heck Do You Execute It?”I also joined the panel discussion “You’ve Got the “Big Idea,” How the Heck Do You Execute It?” with Kate Emanuel of the Ad Council, Alex Kennaugh of the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) and Amy Levner of KaBOOM! We shared with attendees how communications can turn big, audacious goals into a tangible, executable and measurable strategy—that doesn’t take years to achieve—and how to use smart research to achieve those goals.

    Case in point, NRDC aims to combat food waste in the U.S., where 40 percent of food goes uneaten equating to more than $165 billion in wasted food each year. Kennaugh explained how the NRDC published an essential guide called the Waste-Free Kitchen Handbook, packed with “engaging shopping checklists, creative recipes, practical strategies and educational infographics” offering an easy ways to save food and money. Meanwhile, Levner explained how research confirms that play—physically active, imaginative and interactive play—is a powerful, healthy living solution that benefits the whole child. KaBOOM! has teamed up with the 50 Fund and the NFL Foundation to support nine counties of the Bay Area alone, helping to transform sidewalks and spaces that encourage activity.

I look forward to joining Communications Network in 2016 as they head to Detroit and gather social sector leaders from foundations and nonprofits who share the belief that big ideas, coupled with smart and strategic communications, have the power to transform society, improve lives and change the world.

Be Fearless Spotlight: The West Foundation

Posted on by Case Foundation

This Spotlight is authored by guest writer Caitlin Kelly as part of a special blog series by the Case Foundation featuring Be Fearless stories from the field. Follow along with us as we meet people and learn about organizations that are taking risks, being bold and failing forward in their efforts to create transformative change in the social sector.

“We make big bets with small gifts,” says Emily West, executive director of the West Foundation, a 56 year-old Indianapolis-based family foundation working in the international community development sector. With assets of $6 million, a staff of two and four board members, the foundation doles out approximately 45 grants a year. Gift size ranges from $10,000 to $30,000 and grantees can be surprisingly unorthodox. Issuing non-traditional grants is one measure of their fearlessness, says West.

“Foundations, particularly small ones, tend to be quite conservative and often believe they must give only to large, well-established organizations to ensure that not a penny of their grant will be wasted. And yet small foundations occupy a special niche in that they have the luxury of gifting at lower levels and taking the risk to assist emerging non-profits,” she says, arguing that large foundations, such as Ford, Rockefeller and Gates, would find it impossible to help these organizations find their footing. “Imagine how many grants Gates would have to give at the $10,000 level in order to give away the amount of money required of foundations on an annual basis (five percent of the earnings of the fund). They couldn’t – they would collapse under the weight of the number of grants they would have to make and the mountain of paperwork it would generate. But at our size, it’s manageable.”

She adds that “Gifts to small organizations that have never yet had a $10,000 gift, whether made in the U.S. or internationally” can be a real game-changer. Once other funders see that what looks like a risky investment has, in effect, paid off, they soon step up with much larger gifts—making small family foundations like hers crucial as a first indicator of a non-profit’s viability.

A great example was their $15,000 grant to Ubuntu Education Fund, a U.S.-based non-profit serving Port Elizabeth, South Africa. It was the first of its kind for the organization, and provided a small program expansion to offer counseling services to children whose families included HIV/AIDS patients. Ubuntu was favorably evaluated by the foundation as it serves a city ravaged by HIV/AIDS with residents who are ultra-poor (those living on $1.25 U.S. or less). And it turned out that the foundation’s bet on Ubuntu was a good one, as only six months after receiving that $15,000 gift, Ubuntu was awarded a 60,000-pound grant ($93,951.00 U.S.) by the Elton John AIDS Foundation. Today, Ubuntu has grown to become an important partner to the South African government in HIV/AIDS awareness, prevention and treatment, and has built a $6 million community center to further its work at the request of the citizens of Port Elizabeth.

Irish potatoes harvest woman kid_jan 2013

Taking risks on non-profits without a proven track record is all about establishing trust, says West. “With early stage organizations, that may take various forms,” she notes. “In evaluating the potential of an organization, you may see that they are very well organized regarding best practices from an administrative and/or programmatic standpoint, or they may have a business model that is extremely innovative. Sometimes you gauge the passion of the funder for the mission of the organization and have great faith in that person. There are many factors at play, and some are more tangible than others. Much of our work right now is devoted to nailing down exactly what they are so that we can promote them to our colleagues and encourage other small foundations to be confident risk takers.”

Embracing failure is also a necessary party of risk-taking, and the West Foundation has a philosophy on that as well. “We gave a $10,000 grant to Vittana, a young organization whose goal was to crowdfund post-secondary education tuitions for students in developing nations through new loan models with indigenous micro-finance institutions (MFIs). I thought it was a brilliant idea, and we funded their start-up in the Philippines,” West says, but the organization closed its doors within two years due to its inability to acquire funding for its model. Nevertheless, she sees that grant as a success. “Their model worked, and is still working with the Filipino MFIs where it was established, so good came out of our investment. Vittana also accrued much local knowledge of the field and has passed that on to other crowdsourcing organizations such as Kiva. So their work will live on to benefit others in the sector.”

The West Foundation has set for itself the audacious goal of becoming one of the leaders of a philanthropic movement to motivate donors to do more risk-taking, take a public policy approach by considering administrative as well as program delivery gifts, and listen more to what non-profits are telling them about their needs. In working towards this objective, they are formalizing their program for emerging non-profits so that they can measure the success rate of the organizations in scaling up their donation levels after receiving that first $10,000 grant. West is assisted in this by her program officer, Samantha Alarie-Leca, and her board members, all some twenty-five years her junior, but sharing her passion for assisting the Global South and her willingness to take calculated risk. “They are highly engaged,” she says. “They’re the ones who’ve provided the most input on developing our new program, and we’re very fortunate to have such an amazing group of young women devoting their time and energy to us.”

Only time will tell if the foundation’s current efforts will translate into dynamic change within the sector, but for the time being, West is happy with the direction she, her staff and board are taking. “I believe we are working towards a bold goal,” she says. “We don’t know of many others doing this.”

Feeling inspired? If you’re ready to begin your own Be Fearless journey start by downloading our free Be Fearless Action Guide and Case Studies.

Finding Your Organization’s Digital Road Map

Posted on by Case Foundation

Creating and maintaining a cohesive digital communications strategy – one that brings together proprietary websites, external outlets for content (e.g. Huffington Post, Forbes or Tumblr) and popular social networking platforms (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Snapchat to name a few) – is a critical way for organizations to connect with audiences and solidify their online presence. However, with thousands of platforms and apps to choose from, and new ones emerging every week, it is becoming increasingly challenging for organizations to effectively utilize these communication channels.

As early adapters to new technologies, our team at the Case Foundation has learned from experience that juggling too many platforms can become a distraction when your goal is quality engagement with your target audience. What is an organization to do? The answer—start by creating your own digital road map.

Collaborating with our partners at Weber Shandwick for the Communications Network’s publication Change Agent (in conjunction with the ComNet15 conference), we’ve identified five simple steps for anyone looking to streamline their online channels and more effectively engage their audiences.

  • Define your audience
  • Map out your digital ecosystem
  • Leave room for experimentation
  • Define and realign your content strategy
  • Make adjustments as you go

Our hope is that these tips will help you focus your efforts in the ever-evolving digital sphere!

Digital Road Map 1

Digital Road Map2

Rim-to-Rim to Beat Brain Cancer

Posted on by Case Foundation

This week, Ironwoman BethAnn Telford of TeamBT and endurance cyclist Maria Parker of 3000MilesToACure will cross the North Rim of the Grand Canyon together with a shared mission: to beat brain cancer. In one grueling day, they will race Rim-to-Rim: from the North Rim down to the canyon floor, across the canyon, then up to the South Rim over 21.1 miles with more than 10,000 feet of elevation change.

Telford is an Ironman World Champion triathlete, a serial marathoner and a 10-year brain cancer survivor who has raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for research and development of cures for the disease. As Telford wrote recently in her blog, the Rim-to-Rim journey is “a powerful metaphor for the race to end brain cancer. The canyon represents the valley of death of underfunded research.” Her Rim partner Parker is an accomplished ultra-marathon cyclist and was the winner of the 2013 Ride Across America, dedicating her victory in honor of her sister’s battle with brain cancer. She and her family founded 3000 Miles to a Cure—a charity dedicated to raising $1 million for brain cancer research.

Part of their journey includes the filming of “Crossing the Canyon”—a short documentary film about their passage and the organization. The film will extend their impact beyond the walls of the canyon, inspiring and giving hope to those battling brain cancer.

Proceeds raised from their journey will benefit Accelerate Brain Cancer Cure (ABC2), a Case Foundation grantee and nonprofit organization that drives cutting-edge research and treatments for brain tumors. ABC2 was co-founded by Jean and Steve Case, and Stacey Case after Steve Case’s brother (and Stacey Case’s husband), Dan Case, succumbed to the disease after a fight with brain cancer.

Since its inception, ABC2 has awarded more than $20 million in brain tumor research funding to highly qualified investigators and physician-scientists from more than 40 research institutions. Brain cancer is the leading cause of tumor cancer deaths among children and young adults. There are more than 600,000 people in the U.S. today with a brain tumor diagnosis, and another 66,000 new diagnoses are expected this year. It is a uniquely challenging disease that is in need of strategic, focused research funding.

Together, Telford and Parker will cross the North Rim of the Grand Canyon, into the valley, and climb the other side as they bridge effective treatments for brain cancer. These two fearless agents of change are women whose impact will extend beyond the walls of the canyon, inspiring and giving hope to those battling brain cancer. Good luck to them both!  Follow their journey on Twitter at #CrossingtheCanyon.

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