“How to Be Heard: An Overview of Key Communication Strategies for NGOs”
17 June 2021
3 - 4:30 p.m. EDT
Watch on Demand:
Organized in collaboration with the Global NGO Executive Committee, American Counseling Association, Council of Negro Women, International Public Relations Association & Latter Day Saints Charities
This 90-minute workshop will be a live, virtual, immersive, interactive workshop providing information, skills, and actual tips for NGOs that can be implemented immediately to help amplify messaging and campaigns from their organization and the United Nations.
The workshop will assist NGO members and leaders in developing an understanding of the components of organizational communication, the importance of sound communication plans, the technical issues involved and how best to utilize social media for the greatest impact regardless of geographical, budget, or staff considerations. The first two components of this workshop encompass how NGOs create and distribute their own news being done under THEIR control. These efforts may come from social media, blogging, emails, newsletters, podcasts, videos, and teleconferences.
The last component focuses on ways that others, like traditional media outlets, can generate recognition for an NGO. Those NGOs who are successful in this type of effort gain valuable exposure and validation. NGOs will learn how news organizations utilize an NGOs information for stories.
This communications workshop looks at the internal and external aspects of how an NGO can gain exposure and influence.
Attendees can expect to gain at least ten key pieces of advice that will help their NGOs enhance their communications effectiveness, especially as they work toward achieving the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, address critical contemporary societal issues, and be able to use these strategies in a post-pandemic world.
By participating in this workshop, attendees can expect the following:
- Understand the benefits of social media as an integral component of how NGOs communicate their value, their mission, and their message;
- Insight into effectively utilizing social media and traditional communications models to engage members and constituencies; and,
- Learn about key components of new, emerging, and traditional methods of communicating and amplifying NGO and UN messaging.
Workshop Programme
Moderator
Richard Yep, CAE, FASAE is the Chief Executive Officer of the American Counseling Association, the largest membership organization of professional counselors in the world. He currently oversees a staff of 60 and a $14 million budget. ACA has more than 50,000 members. Rich has worked for ACA for 30 years, 21 of which as the Association’s CEO. He is also the President of the American Counseling Association Foundation. Rich has a lifelong commitment to social justice and finding ways to easing the burden of those who are oppressed and underrepresented. He has presented on various issues impacting not-for-profit organizations relative to communications, advocacy, public policy, leadership development, and association management. Rich has served as the organization’s NGO representative and he is currently a member of the Communications Subcommittee of the Global NGO Executive Committee. His professional affiliations include the American Society of Association Executives (ASAE) where he is a past Chair of the Committee on Diversity and Inclusion, completed a term on the ASAE Board of Directors, and was named an ASAE Fellow in 2012. In 2017, he received ASAE’s Key Award which honors an association CEO who demonstrates exceptional qualities of leadership and a deep commitment to voluntary membership organizations as a whole. Currently, Rich is on the CAE Commission and is a member of the Key Professional Associations Committee. For ten years Rich served on the Board of Trustees of Excelsior College, an institution based in Albany, New York that is dedicated to adult learners. His support of Excelsior is rooted in his personal experience in working with individuals facing personal and professional challenges, but who are dedicated to improving their lives through education. Rich is a Chair Emeriti of the board. During the July 2018 Commencement, Rich was recognized with an honorary doctoral degree from the College. Rich holds an undergraduate degree from the University of California, Santa Barbara and a Masters in Public Administration from the University of Southern CA.
Presenters
Katrina Lee is a graduate of the University of Southern Mississippi. She began her career at the prestigious GCI-Atlanta (now Cohn Wolfe)—a globally recognized public relations firm. There, she excelled in media relations and crisis communications? honing her skills as an accomplished writer and results-oriented creative thinker for clients such as Johnson & Johnson, The Novare Group and Cousins Properties. As a Public Relations and Communications Strategist, she has been fortunate to work with various clients such as the award-winning firms of Dreamweaver Brand Communications and HipRockStar Marketing, and successfully ran an effectual campaign that led to the appointment of State Representative Kionne McGhee who now serves as the Florida House Minority Leader. Katrina is a member of PRSA and ColorComm and currently works as the Public Affairs Strategist for the American Counseling Association.
Ryan Koch was appointed the Director of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints’ Public and International Affairs Office in New York City in 2014. In this capacity, Ryan oversees the Church’s outreach to the diplomatic communities in New York and at the United Nations, including representing Latter-day Saint Charities, the Church’s humanitarian arm. Ryan is also responsible for liaising with religious umbrella organizations in New York. Prior to his work for the Church of Jesus Christ, Ryan spent 11 years as a Public Diplomacy Officer for the U.S. State Department. During this time, he served abroad at the U.S. Embassies in Manila, Philippines; Kyiv, Ukraine; and Stockholm, Sweden. He also spent three years in Washington, where he was heavily involved in the State Department’s social media efforts. Within the Church of Jesus Christ, Ryan has served as a Bishop and a Branch President. Ryan has a degree in International Relations from Brigham Young University and speaks Swedish, German and Russian. The son of an Air Force pilot, Ryan has lived at thirty-five different addresses, but has finally found his home in New Jersey. Ryan and his wife Laura are the parents of four splendid children.
Jim McQueeny has had a varied life in journalism, politics, the media business and international consulting. He was a former White House newspaper bureau chief, spokesman for US Senator Frank Lautenberg, the 1980 Carter presidential campaign, and a political show host in the New York television market for a dozen years. Jim’s articles have been published in numerous media outlets, including The Washington Post, The New York Times, The New York Daily News and Newsday. He currently sits on a social justice advisory board at Harvard’s Kennedy School and a board member of the New Jersey Institute for Social Justice founded by former US Attorney General Nicholas Katzenbach. Jim is also the UN NGO liaison fir the Brussels-based International Public Relations Association.
Dulice Leimbach is a co-founder of PassBlue. For PassBlue and other publications, she has reported from New York and overseas from West Africa (Burkina Faso and Mali) and from Europe (Scotland, Sicily, Vienna, Budapest, Kyiv, Armenia and The Hague). She has provided commentary on the UN for BBC World Radio, ARD German TV and Radio, NHK's English channel and Background Briefing with Ian Masters/KPFK Radio in Los Angeles. Previously, she was an editor for the Coalition for the UN Convention Against Corruption; from 2008 to 2011, she was the publications director of the United Nations Association of the USA. Before UNA, Leimbach was an editor at The New York Times for more than 20 years, editing and writing for most sections of the paper, including the Magazine, Book Review and Op-Ed. She began her reporting career in small-town papers in San Diego, Calif., and Boulder, Colo., graduating to the Rocky Mountain News in Denver before she worked in New York at Esquire magazine and then Adweek. In between, she was a Wall Street foreign-exchange dealer. Leimbach has been a fellow at the CUNY Graduate Center's Ralph Bunche Institute for Internationala Studies as well as at Yaddo, the artists' colony in Saratoga Springs, N.Y.; taught news reporting at Hofstra University; and guest-lectured at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism and the CUNY Journalism School. She graduated from the University of Colorado and has an M.F.A. in writing from Warren Wilson College in North Carolina.
Gisel Ducatenzeiler is a communications specialist at the United Nations, working on the team managing the UN's global accounts in nine languages, with more than 50 million followers. She provides regular strategic advice on social media best practices to UN System entities, field offices and Member States, and she has developed exceptional expertise in social media analytics. She brought to the UN a strong journalism background at top international media, including AFP, Radio France Internationale and France 24. She was a radio host for five years, producing, editing and broadcasting her own news show. Gisel has a degree in Information Sciences from Complutense University of Madrid and a Master’s degree in International Journalism from Sciences Po Paris. Fluent in Spanish, English, and French, she is 2011's European Parliament Journalism Prize winner from Spain.
