Yesterday, more than 30 Strive Network communities participated in a Network-member webinar focused on the different ways that these Cradle to Career partnerships can best communicate their work to the media and to local community members. After Carly Rospert, Communications & Strategic Assistance Associate for the Strive Network, unveiled the brand new Communications Toolkit, two panelists (myself and Director of Public Relations at KnowledgeWorks, Byron McCauley) spoke to communities about how they could communicate their work locally using both traditional and social media outlets.
Working in the Marketing and Communications group at KnowledgeWorks, one of my responsibilities is to support both the Strive Network and the Strive Partnership with their communication needs – which range from editing documents, to conducting interviews, to creating content, to managing their social media. Having managed social media for both, I’ve seen how powerful a platform it is for connecting, amplifying, and networking.
During the Strive Partnership’s tutoring campaign, Be the Change, social media was just one of the mediums used to get the word out. @StriveTogether pushed out information and news articles about the campaign, whose goal was to recruit 2000 tutors for students in Cincinnati Public Schools. After a few tweets were sent out, one community follower replied simply, “Where is the link to apply?” I responded with the link, and the follower soon signed up to become a tutor at a local elementary school.
Both @AchieveGuilford and @Learn4LifeCbus reached out to the @StriveNetwork via social media when their Cradle to Career partnerships were taking shape and establishing themselves. These connections, which were followed by emails and collaboration plans, led to an Op-Ed from Jeff Edmondson that ran in Guilford, coordinated in part by @AchieveGuilford; and social media guidance for @Learn4LifeCbus, which helped inspire the new Communications Toolkit.
Building off of these experiences and many, many more, we were able to form the Strive Network Communications Toolkit. Yesterday’s webinar was a great success, and we’re happy to announce that the new Toolkit is now available for Strive Network members. To access it, log on to the Strive Network Partner Portal.
And if you haven’t already, like the Strive Network on Facebook and follow us on Twitter!
