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5 great places for training (and some sunshine, at least thematically speaking)

Here's a nod to folks offering solid digital campaign, leadership and organizing training + a super timely example of powerful advocacy content from NPCA.

5 great places for training (and some sunshine, at least thematically speaking)
Don't look into the sun.

Hey there Friday people. Welcome to new friends from the UK, Michigan, New York, Florida Massachusetts, California, New York, D.C., North Carolina, Virginia and beyond. Glad you're here!

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Got Skillz?

We're all so busy we sometimes wonder if maybe we could benefit from learning some new skills in our field. Maybe getting some new ideas. Or maybe that's just me.

A friend asked me if I had suggestions for good digital campaign trainings. I had a few ideas so I thought I'd share them here. I know the folks running and presenting at these. They're solid. These are great places to catch up on skills as well as meet and learn from other practitioners.

Trainings and Workshops

My friend Elana Levin helps run New Media Mentors , a nonprofit training organization connected to Netroots. They run a digital academy and all sorts of workshops.

The Center for Digital Strategy run by Brad Caldana offers all kinds of virtual training events. Brad's really built a great network of practitioners who can share their up to date experience. Loads here on digital campaigning, fundraising and I'm seeing some sessions on AI, too.

Beth Becker's Becker Digital Strategies runs trainings on email campaigning and digital organizing. Beth and her team have real life experience and everything they do is worth considering if you have some sweet sweet capacity building budget to spend.

Few people know more about the intersection of digital campaigning and politics than Colin Delany. Check out his site, epolitics.com, and upcoming trainings like Digital Advertising in Politics, Part I: Nonprofits, Advocates & Activists on March 26.

Dirk Slater runs Fabriders and does workshops that deal a lot more with facilitation, adult learning, designing events and trainings. Most of us in the campaign and digital world greatly underestimate the value of facilitation and how people take in info and learning. These workshops are useful for anyone doing functional strategy work.

Have website and web strategy questions? Laura Quinn has a wealth of resources and archived videos on site planning, UX, testing and more!

Been in a good training for campaigners and digital folks lately? Let me know.

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Timely and Relevant Content Example

I've written about a dilemma facing comms and digital teams at advocacy organizations right now: a lack of relevant content that meets the moment and helps people. We can do so much more.

So it's great to share an example from NPCA (National Parks and Conservation Association). They launched a National Parks Advocacy Crash Course.

NPCA National Park Advocacy Crash Course page. The lede says "Here's how you can cut through the noise and make a difference for national parks.
NPCA National Park Advocacy Crash Course page

I'm not sure when the Advocacy Crash Course content launched. It's undated and presented as evergreen, which it is. Regardless, it positions itself as a reliable resource for all kinds of people, a good SEO page, and it sets up all sorts of follow-up content.

NPCA getting loads of engagement around this on LinkedIn which, as any tech bro will tell you, isn't a place for politics. (Think work isn't political? Tell that to all the folks fired the past month! 😡)

They're also using the Advocacy Crash Course and related content to back up advocacy campaigns like today's Day of Action to Save National Parks. Again, this is great advocacy engagement for LinkedIn. No doubt all this content is being used in email and other social platforms (like the NPCA Instagram account).

LinkedIn post from NPCA: A Day of Action To Save National Parks. Includes the url NPCA.ORG/DIAL

Content (and content strategy) driven by user needs underlies all of this. That's what makes it possible and differentiates it from standard "take action" content.

If you worked on this project I'd love to talk with you about how it came about and the underlying structures of the organization and team.

Bright Ideas

Interesting things I've bookmarked and actually read this week.

If TechDirt can be a democracy blog then maybe a few more nonprofits can start talking to their supporters about democracy. 🤷 "This isn’t about politics — it’s about the systematic dismantling of the very infrastructure that made American innovation possible," writes Mike Masnick.

Want a sense of the dynamics surrounding the role of influencers and creators in the info and news space? Read News Organizations Are Starting to Embrace Creator-Model Journalists by Klaudia Jaźwińska in Columbia Journalism Review. Be forewarned, Charlie Kirk is in the header photo. Blech. Relatedly, WTF is up with Gavin Newsom's Kirk-assisted self-immolation?

Do nonprofits have an overreliance on foundation funding? If so, should foundations fix that? Gara LaMarche says yes to both questions in Inside Philanthropy. The proposed solution, matching funds, seems underwhelming: "...foundations themselves that hold the tools to begin to crack civil society groups’ unhealthy dependency on foundation funds. They should start using them now by empowering the organizations they fund to multiply their grants with matching dollars from engaged citizens." An 80% tax rate on billionaires (and maybe just burning the structures of capitalism to the ground) seems like a better idea.

The future of the internet is likely smaller communities, with a focus on curated experiences is a must read for nonprofit folks, especially those thinking bout the intersection of community and content. The Verge and Vox Media did a bunch of research on how people think about social platforms, AI, news and community. Fascinating.

Unfortunately, this is a feature, not a bug: How Trump's cuts are crippling journalism beyond the United States. [Gretel Kahn, Marina Adami and Eduardo Suárez / Reuters Institute]

I've seen a proliferation of nonprofits, organizational leaders and progressive folks setting up newsletters on Substack. I get why an individual would turn to Substack for what is essentially a blog. It's free and easy to set up. I've been there! Just know that you're losing a lot of control of your business, content and marketing strategies while providing eyeballs to a company whose founders are funding Trump on their way to a big payday. No nonprofit should be operating on Substack. Period. Emphasis! Anil Dash offers more truth to power in Don't Call it a Substack.

An 80-year old Republican in the Philadelphia suburbs has messaging guidance for Democrats? Read the story [gift link] behind one man's $50,000 full-page New York Times ad telling Donald Trump to resign. Clip below and read the full text on Reddit.

Closing lines of Grant Grissom's ad urging Trump to resign: Imagine an elder speaking to a gathering of children: "There are two fierce tigers in my spirit: Anger-Hatred and Love-Compassion. They are fighting to the death." A fearful child asks: "Which will win?" The elder replies: "The one that I feed." You have fed us a diet of your anger and hatred. It has divided us and made us sick. But in so doing, you have shown Americans of all colors, of all faiths, how dark our nation can become when our leaders act without wisdom, honor or integrity; how precious is our democracy and the love of neighbor that Jesus commanded.
Closing lines of Grant Grissom's New York Times ad urging Trump to resign.

Future Community Jobs

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P.S. The legendary Roy Edward Ayers Jr. passed away this past Tuesday, March 4th, at the age of 84. You could do about a thousand things today that wouldn't be better than enjoying his Glastonbury 2019 performance of Everybody Love the Sunshine. Be good to each other!

Roy Ayers stands in front of a microphone on the stage at Glastonbury.
Roy Ayers performing Everybody Loves the Sunshine on a sunny Glastonbury stage in 2019.

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