Perspectives: Kevin O’Keefe of O’Keefe Communications
Kevin and Catie O’Keefe founded the eponymous O’Keefe Communications in Washington, DC in 1979. Over the next three decades they’ve watched the video and event-production industry change its technologies from bulky boxes of videotape to memory cards the size of a quarter. They’ve navigated the rise of social media and the demise of the synchronized slideshow presentation and have driven expectations toward finely crafted multi-screen presentations in light-sculptured spaces. Thriving through economic downturns by keeping the focus on the client and the client’s job security has given O’Keefe Communications a “big trust factor,” as Kevin O’Keefe put it when we spoke with him from his office in the nation’s capital. (more…)
Popularity: unranked | Category Community, Marketing, interview | | View Comments
Written by: Christopher Gardner, Ph. D
Perspectives: Don Akchin, Director of Don Akchin Strategic Communications
Don Akchin
Don Akchin, Charm City resident for twenty-five years (“I’m still a newcomer”), has turned his reporter’s training and love of writing into a successful enterprise of marketing mission-based and community-development groups like St. Ambrose Housing Aid Center, The Baltimore Collegetown Network, and the Bon Secours Spiritual Center. Beginning his professional career writing for The St.Petersburg Times newspaper, he still considers himself “a recovering journalist.” After leaving the paper in the mid-1970s to pursue a job with the 13-30 Corporation (which later became Whittle Communications), he worked with print magazines and made TV-news format videos for high-school and college kids. During his tenure at 13-30 Corporation, he realized that he was moving accidentally into marketing. Since 2006, he’s kept a lively and information blog, “The Accidental Marketer.”
“I started out as a writer and I am here to help [nonprofits] with communications. But along the way I realized that in fact I was talking about marketing. So to me it was ‘accidental.’ I think that many of the people in marketing positions in nonprofits are there ‘accidentally.’ They were promoted from being the assistant to the president or they were in HR but were called upon to do fourteen other things, and one of those was communications, or PR, or marketing.” He sees numerous intersections between writing, fund-raising, marketing, and communications. “You don’t need a Ph.D. to do this.” Marketing is about story-telling.”
Popularity: unranked | Category Marketing, Web and Print, interview | | View Comments
Written by: Christopher Gardner, Ph. D
Perspectives: Bernell Grier, CEO of Neighborhood Housing Services of New York City
Bernell Grier, CEO of Neighborhood Housing Services of NYC
The board of directors of the Neighborhood Housing Services of New York City recently appointed interim chief executive officer Bernell Grier as the CEO of the organization. Ms. Grier has built up an impressive resume as a banker having over her career serving as EVP, Retail Community Banking; SVP Middle Marketing Lending; Community Development Director; and credit program co-manager – all before moving full time to NHS of NYC. As COO, Bernell helped steer the NHS offices in New York City’s five boroughs through the rough waters of the collapsing housing market, and has continued to work to expand NHS’s base of donors and projects. We had the pleasure of talking with her on a bright June morning in midtown Manhattan before her full docket of business got under way.
Bernell’s career trajectory is a wonderful example of how preparation and consideration can meet serendipity, as she has moved between the corporate and nonprofit worlds with ease, a smile, and a strong sense of calling to community. Her first job as a teenager living in Harlem, New York, was as a Community Outreach Coordinator with “Neighborhood Board No. One.” She began with a plan to teach mathematics in the very public school system that gave her the good start she enjoyed, so she went to City College of New York for teacher accreditation in education and math. The need for a summer job took her to Chase Bank Manhattan, where her people-skills were already evident enough that she was offered a spot in management training. One is tempted here to say “And the rest is history.” But ‘the rest’ is where it gets interesting.
Popularity: unranked | Category Affordable Housing, Community, Grants and Funding, Nonprofit, Revitalization, interview | | View Comments
Written by: Christopher Gardner, Ph. D
Perspectives: Linda Cronin-Gross, President of LCG Communications
Linda Cronin-Gross, President of LCG Communications
We have been reaching out to some of the influential people in the nonprofit/mission-based/greening/housing (etc.!) communities to hear about the work their organizations are involved with and how these individuals got involved in that work. Their insights and experiences can inspire us all as we continue our work in our chosen areas.
The series of interviews continues with Linda Cronin-Gross, founder and president of LCG Communications (Brooklyn, NY). She has been in the worlds of politics and public relations since the late 1970s, and she founded LCG Communications ten years ago in an effort to educate nonprofits on the benefits of strategic communications for progressive, issues-driven organizations and campaigns as well as for small businesses. She is a member of the National Writers Union as well. Linda Gross’s success has not been linear or without challenges (like walking a straight line through the lobby of the Rockefeller Center with a teary-eyed political candidate). Yet her perseverance and good humor have been critical to the success she and her firm have enjoyed over the last decade. So how did she grow from music teacher to adviser and communications specialist to greening groups and progressive organizations throughout New York?
Popularity: 1% | Category Community, Greening, Nonprofit, Politics, interview | | View Comments
Written by: Christopher Gardner, Ph. D
A Conversation with Dave Michaels of Ecoprint
Image via Wikipedia
This month marked the 40th anniversary of Earth Day, and once again green is back in fashion. For some companies, like Ecoprint, green has always been in season. Based just north of Washington D.C., this printing company was founded by an environmental activist who participated in the first Earth Day and proudly proclaims its “environmental leadership since 1977.” Today Ecoprint is forging ahead on a number of fronts, demonstrating many ways for graphic arts businesses to become more sustainable environmental stewards.
MKCREATIVE has worked with many printers over the years and has always required they use soy-based inks and paper from sustainable sources on clients’ print jobs. We’ve also required that they take other longer-term measures to demonstrate their commitment to the environment. Ecoprint ‘s commitment is on another order of magnitude. We see them as kindred spirits: both Ecoprint and MKCREATIVE are run as businesses that are trying to create positive social change through sustainable practices. Both organizations are providing services to clients who make a difference in their own communities, while also offering education and guidance.
Popularity: unranked | Category Climate Change, Community, Nonprofit, Sustainability, interview, printing | | View Comments
Written by: Marco Kathuria
Resources And Tips To Start Writing Grant Proposals
As the tax season rushes upon us all, we wanted to offer a few resources for those who will be searching for and/or expanding their outreach to grant-giving organizations. One of the points that almost every one of the consultants we researched made is the fact that those grant-giving organizations WANT to give away their money. What they are looking for is a good, focused, and enthusiastic ‘sell.’
This video from ‘The Nonprofit Toolbox’ is an interview with Jane B Ford, a teacher and writer who has worked the the non-profit sector for three decades. Her interview begins with a discussion of her company, The Joy Path, which focuses on small to mid-size community based non-profit organizations. From there she discusses some great tactics to help anyone set up a successful grant application. For example, she stresses the fact that ‘the clarity of the mission… then the focus, and the people (who are getting the organization to succeed in its mission).’ And she also points out the trend of even national philanthropic groups is to seek out well-situated local missions with local ambitions.
Popularity: unranked | Category Community, Grants and Funding, Nonprofit, interview | | View Comments
Written by: Christopher Gardner, Ph. D
A Conversation with Steve Frillmann, Executive Director, Green Guerillas
A community garden created by local residents with the help and support of Green Guerillas
Each month we look at a marketing challenge faced by many of our clients. This month the issue is when, or if, to switch from print to web-based and social media, and we chose to present it through the eyes of one of our clients. We recently spoke with Steve Frillmann, executive director of Green Guerillas, a nonprofit organization that supports hundreds of community gardens (and gardeners) in New York City.
We’ve been working with the Green Guerillas for more than 12 years, a relationship that began when Marco Kathuria volunteered as a muralist/photographer/videographer for a project working with children to create colorful murals within community gardens in New York City. Out of that relationship came a realization of a “shared DNA” – a commitment to enrich the lives of city residents, one neighborhood at time. The collaboration with the Green Guerillas evolved into the creation of the organization’s graphic identity and communications toolkit. The marketing mix and the strategic direction it has taken has evolved over the years as a result of the close collaboration between MKCREATIVE and Steve Frillmann.
We began our conversation by asking Steve to give us his perspective on how he sees the Internet:Direct Mail mix for his own organization, considering that converting one’s communications from print to Internet is all the rage in business and nonprofit circles. But how useful is a great website if the bulk of your constituents visit the Web infrequently, or never? (more…)
Popularity: unranked | Category Community, Greening, Revitalization, Sustainability, Urban Farming, interview | | View Comments
Written by: Marco Kathuria