Insularity and disconnection from reality are major threats to the effectiveness of foundations. Because of the powerful distortion generated by the endowment, people often have trouble disagreeing with us, and we often have difficulty interpreting the feedback we get.
Therefore it is especially important for us to actively seek and consider external viewpoints. To do this, we enlisted our long-time communications partners, Strategic Communications & Planning (SCP) to conduct an external “audit” of grantee and non-grantee experts about their views of how the foundation might use communications and related strategies to further expand its influence and improve the health care of older people. SCP interviewed 24 stakeholders in four major areas of expertise: public opinion and mass communication, public policy and advocacy, health professions education and training, and health care systems and practice change.
We were pleased that a majority of respondents saw the Foundation’s current work as worthwhile, and suggested only minor to moderate course corrections rather than radical change. However, while interviewees see us as a leader within the field of aging, they generally agreed that we have little recognition outside the field. Perhaps because of this, few respondents expressed support for adding an emphasis on influencing policy or public opinion to our portfolio.
While not a communications issue, per se, many respondents felt we can do a better job connecting our academic training work and the realities of practice. They recommended using communications efforts and other means to increase the linkage between academic/training efforts and practitioners/practice change.
None of this feedback is particularly surprising. However, it is very helpful to have data to support our hunches and to inform our work going forward. If you’d like to find out more details about our communications audit, you have two choices: the summary, or the full monty, complete with (unattributed) quotes.
We welcome additional feedback, dispute with our interpretation, or questions. Feel free to post on the blog, write me, or use our guaranteed "anonymous feedback machine" link. You, too, can be part of shaping our communications strategy.