Campaign Messaging, Creative Strategies, and Media Series
Photo: Charlotte Mecklenberg Food Policy Council collaboration for mural painting.
The world runs on words. Learn how to get the most out of yours.
We’re again partnering with Spitfire Strategies for a 3-part communications series about health equity messaging, creative and cultural strategies for campaigns, and engaging the media.
$1000 Support: Up to 10 food councils or organization that participate in all three trainings, share a brief summary of a campaign strategy using the training tools, and have an organization to accept the funds have the opportunity to receive $1000 to support the implementation of their health equity campaign.
Part 1:
Messaging Community: Translating Health Equity into Common Values
Thursday, March 2, 12:30 – 2:00pm (virtual)
This webinar is the precursor to the Culture and Creative Strategies session at the Forging our Food Future: 2023 Community Food Gathering.
Part 1: Messaging Community: Translating Health Equity into Common Values
Translating values and high-level concepts into community messaging and activities is more than ‘cut and paste’ language. Today’s polarized political conversations often stop discussions of equity and power before they have even started. This messaging webinar will help your food council align your work, high-level and grant-maker values with messaging and concerns within the community, from policymakers to community leaders.
Mark Dessauer will use the Spitfire message box to address the values and barriers for these priority audiences and build messages to engage them. Participants will have some pre-work to identify their priority audiences (decision makers, community leaders and key partners) and their barriers to action.
- Participants will explore the key health equity values and develop community translations to use for messaging.
- Participants will identify their priority audiences and corresponding values and barriers with health equity.
- Participants will develop messaging for priority audiences that translates health equity into their community’s context and values.
- Participants will be able to develop their council’s messaging and deploy it through specific messages and tactics
Engaging Community: Creative and Cultural Strategies
Thursday, March 16th
at Forging our Food Future: 2023 Community Food Gathering
Engaging Community: Creative and Cultural Strategies
Thursday, March 16th, 9:00 – 11:45am
Part 1:
- Your work encompasses so much more than food. Power, justice, work and health are key to your mission. As your organization works within the community and wants to engage different audiences, standard tactics of tabling or a media conference do not help. Being creative can make intersectionality come alive. The question many groups face is how. Should you work with faith communities, engage college sports, local celebrity chefs, the local yam festival, or create a mural or a flash mob? How do you reach and work with the local community and creatives to move your message? Part 1 of this Spitfire Strategies training will explore the best creative and cultural strategies to consider when engaging your community in ways that will align with your mission, messaging and resonate beyond your expectations.
Break – 10:15 – 10:30am
Part 2:
- After hearing examples and ideas in Part 1 of this training, let’s brainstorm your organization’s specific projects to engage your community and talk about strategies to engage specific audiences in a creative way. This is a great opportunity to get real-time workshopping and feedback on creating creative strategies right for you and your community. We will discuss everything from wild, expansive tactics and the budgets, staffing and insurance needs to make them happen.
Speakers: Wyatt Closs, Spitfire Strategies & Mark Dessaurer, Spitfire Strategies
Part 3:
Covering Community: Ensuring Media Coverage
Wednesday, April 5, 12:30 – 2:00pm
The webinar will be recorded and the deck will be shared with food councils to use after the Culture and Creative Strategies session at the Forging our Food Future: 2023 Community Food Gathering to get the coverage they need to promote their work.
Covering Community: Ensuring Media Coverage
Messaging: Check. Cultural Strategy: Check. Media Coverage? This webinar will provide strategies and guidance to ensure you have the media relationship and coverage for your campaign. Media is often cited as an essential element of a successful communication campaign even though attaining coverage may not help an organization reach its objectives. Many organizations seek media coverage without a strategic plan to make the most of their coverage. With a constantly changing media landscape, keeping up with the latest trends – and knowing how to keep your issue front and center – is critical.
Spitfire’s Mark Dessauer will help participants learn how to make the most of traditional media opportunities – print, radio and television reporters – as well as new communication vehicles, such as social media and podcasters. Food Policy Councils will learn best practices in creating a strong media outreach plan and develop strategies for making the coverage you do generate go further toward supporting your goals (and covering their community engagement).
- Participants will gain an understanding of the current media landscape in their community and how they can access the best media to forward their strategy.
- Participants will develop their strategy for media outreach.
- Participants will learn successful methods of pitching the media and elements of a successful pitch.
- Participants will develop an after-action plan to make the most of their media coverage
