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Communications Support
“Creative is the least important, most important department” says Don Draper—and he’s right. Often treated as the “end of the line”—a place to announce institutional decision-making—savvy managers and administrators know that communications is the beginning of how your ideas impact your audience, stakeholders, and (dare we say) customers. Communications strategy is incredibly important, but it can be lost in an instant of poor execution.
For most independent schools and colleges, the right place to start is with a Communications Audit. We’ll review your communications—content, format, strategy, and structure—to help identify new opportunities for greater alignment and effectiveness for your whole organization. Admission and advancement are clear foci of an audit effort since those departments manage the “promise” of your organization to its constituencies… but we also examine the supporting documents and internal communications that help or hinder your ability to deliver on that promise. This match between promise and performance, between expectation and experience, is the essence of brand.
We know how to bridge the gap between planning and execution, business and creative—and we know how to create new, high quality, clutter-busting ideas that set you apart and deliver results. We’re happy to work with your internal team, or if they need extra support we have a network of outstanding creatives on which to draw. Yes, our work has won a bazillion awards, but more importantly it’s delivered tens of thousands of increased efficiencies, hundreds of thousands of applicants, and hundreds of millions of dollars in donations. Examples of Communications and creative projects we’ve performed for schools:
Contact us. We’d love to talk about your project.
We have worked with a wide variety of schools and for-profits, sometimes formally, sometimes behind the scenes. In nearly all cases, public statements are the easy part. The strategies, planning, and positioning work that informs such statements is the more critical work—and it must be done in a way that not only responds to the the crisis, but anticipates the changed institution—and changed lives—that result.
Our experience in crisis communications is unfortunately vast, and we’ve consulted with many organizations over the years. Typically, crisis communications work is entirely confidential, including even the names of most clients. The work of crisis communications is often focus on public comments and media management, but it’s equally important to help people and organizations heal and make meaning from unfortunate events.
The following examples are general in nature and don’t apply to any particular situation or client. A couple of these items are linked to high profile accompanying stories. For other specific, publicly available examples, please reach out to us:
While often it is alumni and parent relations which are most difficult to manage during times of crisis, we have also managed interactions with a wide array of media outlets.
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