The Smart Communications Podcast

Making sure your clients and other key stakeholders are happy can be difficult. What do they really need and want from you? Tune in to understand how to be more mindful about engaging donors and clients every step of the way with Sarah Durham and Farra Trompeter.

What are the most important skills to have on your in-house creative team? Learn how consistency, production, breadth, and the right experience can make your creative team flourish by tuning in.

Big Duck’s Farra Trompeter and communications professional Chris Tuttle discuss the importance of captions and alt titles, how to use color palettes, creating an inclusive team, and specializing your communications. Listen in to learn how your communications team can be more inclusive.

Big Duck pros Sarah Durham and Claire Taylor Hansen discuss the do’s and don’ts of design—how and when to use white space, how less is more, typographic hierarchy, and staying on-brand with little frill to get in the way. Listen in to learn more about how you can design as a non-designer for your nonprofit.

Ochen Kaylan, Senior Developer at Advomatic and attorney, is passionate about online privacy. He discusses how to store and manage your donors’ and clients’ information, when enough information is enough, and how your own information is being used. Tune in to learn more.

“You’re never going to get 100% buy-in...” is one of many lessons Elisabeth King, Director of Communications for Lycée Français de New York, learned during her organization’s rebrand. Over two-plus years, she oversaw a process that thoughtfully involved over 2,000 people—students, parents, teachers, and staff. Listen in to hear how she undertook this complex change management process and navigated buy-in. You’ll get tips for involving your community in a significant organizational change, too.

Ambar Mentor-Truppa, VP of Communications at the Shriver Center on Poverty Law, chats with Big Duck’s Gil Mejia and Sarita Joseph about the rebranding process. Formerly a communications consultant to nonprofits, Ambar shares her collaborative approach, ensuring all key stakeholders have a say in the decisions that affect them.

Sandy Zimmerman, Big Duck’s Art Director, shares her experiences freelancing for nonprofits and managing new freelancers at Big Duck. She offers tips for organizations looking for freelance designers and writers, including where to find them, how to vet them, and logistics around hiring.

Michael Hoffman, CEO and founder of Gather Voices, shares his perspective on how nonprofits can harness community-made video to create more engaging, honest, and diverse content. His new tool allows nonprofit communications teams, large or small, to collect, manage, edit, and publish videos submitted by the communities they serve.

Vince Warren is the Executive Director of the Center for Constitutional Rights and a frequent guest on MSNBC, Democracy Now, CNN, and other news channels. He joins us to talk about communications as a tool to advocate more effectively. He shares an example of how CCR leveraged the media to shift public views about stop-and-frisk in New York City, tales from appearing on FOX News, and recommendations for media relations rookies.