Guest speaker communications measurement maven, Katie Delahaye Paine, provided an overview on how to effectively measure, evaluate and report on communications results.

Pitching a story in today's ever changing news media landscape is HARD—even for the very experienced communicator. So at the next Good Communicators Exchange meet up, we will to look at the latest research, best practices and tips for increasing the likelihood of "getting to yes."

Strong listening skills enable communicators to understand the thoughts, feelings and ideas of the people they wish to influence. Essential information for creating messages that engage target audiences and convince them to take action. We were joined by an expert guest speaker, Lisa Dropkin, Principal, Edge Research, who explained how opinion research, surveys, focus groups and other two-way communications can help nonprofit communicators craft messages that engage and convince target audiences to donate and take action. ​

Good Communicators Exchange members know how to gather and tell a compelling story, but what about all the other challenges and responsibilities that go with nonprofit storytelling? We discussed: - Storytelling Ethics - Legal Issues - Building and Managing A Story Bank - The Complexities of Storytelling Across Cultures - Participatory storytelling as a force for community-led social programs and empowerment

We discussed: - Myths and facts about the purpose of a communications roadmap. - Failing before starting: The vital planning step most communicators fail to do. - Measurement: Gauge the return-on-investment (ROI) of communications activities. - Planning as a Leadership Skill: How to “manage up” and stop organization leaders from ignoring the communicators expertise by assigning tactics rather than presenting goals and requesting recommendations for communications activities to help achieve those goals.

We discussed:​ - You can either manage your time and workload, or it will manage you. - How to find, reduce or eliminate the time wasters in your day - Consistently focus on knowing and completing that which is most important. - The benefits of a horizontal To-Do list. - Be amazed by what you can achieve by uni-tasking rather than multi-tasking.

The first meeting and discussions of USA Good Communicators Exchange.