Spotlight: Worldbuilding through Strategic Communication & Values-Based Narratives
August 7 @ 8:45 am – 3:30 pm CDT
Virtual Workshop – Live/Online
Fee: $135 for MCN members / $175 for nonmembers
Join experts from the communications, advocacy, anti-bias education, and fundraising fields for a day of learning focused on sharpening your ability to share your nonprofit’s story. Whether appealing to a donor, building relationships with clients, or moving policy forward, your impact will be stronger if your story genuinely shares your organization’s values.
This full-day, virtual training offers four 60-minute sessions that offer insights and implementable tools for communicating what your nonprofit does well by centering its values and inviting your audiences to see themselves in your story and the possibility of the world your organization is building. Worldbuilding through Strategic Communication and Values-Based Narratives is designed for nonprofit communications, advocacy, and fundraising leaders, executive leadership, and board members serving on fundraising and policy committees.
We know it’s difficult to carve out large chunks of time in your day for professional development, so we’ve spread the sessions out over a full day, with breaks in between. You will have access to the session recordings for three months!
Schedule
All times listed in Central Time. (More details to be added soon.)
8:45 – 9:00 a.m. // Welcome and Setting the Stage
9:00 – 10:00 a.m. // Belonging as Core to Communicating Your Nonprofit’s Story
In a time when our world feels ever more polarized and divided across differences, it is increasingly important to create spaces and communities of belonging where every person can feel seen, valued, and appreciated. Belonging leads to increased connection, productivity, and engagement and is at the intersection of diversity, equity, and inclusion. In this webinar, we will introduce a framework for creating the conditions for belonging that focuses on identity affirmation, equity, responsiveness, respect, relationships, and a sense of agency. Participants will discuss and explore ways to operationalize the conditions for belonging, remove barriers to belonging, and take actions to create more belonging for all in their workplaces.
Objectives:
• Making the case for belonging at work- our organizational and personal WHYs
• Explore a framework for creating the conditions for belonging
• Identify action steps to begin to operationalize belonging in your own workplace
Presenter: Rebecca Slaby, Executive Director, AmazeWorks
10:30 – 11:30 a.m. // Nonprofit Advocacy: How to Tell Your Story Using Values-Based Narratives
Strategic communication is a critical component of advocating for public policies that support the communities that nonprofits serve. In this session you will strengthen your advocacy muscles by learning how to use a values-based narrative to engage in and drive legislative policy work and equity-centered goals in your nonprofit and the sector as a whole. You don’t need to be a public policy expert to participate in this session. Participants will come away energized, knowing how values-based narratives can guide their organization’s communications through close examination of common advocacy tools, such as letters to the editor, social media, annual reports, and newsletters.
Presenter: JaNaé Bates, Co-Executive Director, ISAIAH
1:00 – 2:00 p.m. // Campaign Narratives of Abundance
Presenter: Betsy McDermott Altheimer, Owner, Table Forte
2:30 – 3:30 p.m. // Worldbuilding for Do-Gooders
To craft messages that mobilize durable support for your mission, you need to help others imagine a new and better world. The powerful literary tools of science fiction and fantasy can help you do just that. This session brings together your favorite fictional worlds with real-world success stories. You’ll leave prepared to create brand-new worlds that you can use right away to communicate in visionary new ways.
Presenter: Ash Chudgar, Founder, Chudgar Consulting
Event Details
This virtual event will take place on the Zoom platform. Your access link will be emailed to you the day before the event after 12 p.m.
This session will be recorded. The recording will be made available to registrants after the live event.
Captioning is provided automatically through Zoom. For information on requesting CART, ASL, or another accommodation, please visit our Registration Policies page.
Small Team Rate: Register three people from the same organization at once and the fourth registration is free! To register online, one person will login to their MCN account and will add colleagues to your group – your fourth colleague will be free! Visit our Events and Registration FAQ page (choose “How do I register multiple people?” from the FAQ options) for instructions on how to complete online group registrations.
To learn more about events, registration, and payment, visit our Event & Registration FAQ page.
Speaker Information
Betsy McDermott Altheimer, founder of Table Forte, is a coach, fundraising consultant, writer, visual artist, collaborator and strategic advisor. She thrives on supporting transformational change in individuals and nurturing vital, responsive, healthy organizations, networks and communities. Betsy is certified by the International Coaching Federation as an Associate Certified Coach (ACC) and trained in Executive Coaching at the University of Saint Thomas. She continues to study somatic and embodied leadership with Coaches Rising, Generative Somatics, and the Strozzi Institute. She holds a B.A. in visual art from the University of Wisconsin Eau Claire and studied nonprofit management at Virginia Commonwealth University. Her work combines leadership coaching and organizational strategy to align purpose, build clarity, and momentum. Betsy has raised over $50 Million for racial and economic justice, arts and culture, design, community development, health, environmental, and education organizations. It is her greatest joy to partner with inspiring humans as they do incredible things.
Minister JaNaé Bates is co-executive director of ISAIAH. With over a decade of academic and professional experience in ministry, social justice, and communications, JaNaé has helped develop and implement “Race Class Narrative” framework in both MN and across the U.S. Her focus in work, life and ministry is about making space for others to experience redemption and justice.
Ash Chudgar is a communications strategist that helps do-gooders in the Twin Cities and beyond find language for their biggest ideas. Before founding Chudgar Consulting in 2014, he spent over a decade helping students think about language and meaning at the University of Chicago and Macalester College. His consulting practice draws on the tools and techniques of literature, the relational ecology of Internal Family Systems theory, and the wisdom of liberation movements. Chudgar lives with his husband and two small orange cats in Northeast Minneapolis.
Rebecca Slaby, executive director of AmazeWorks, leads in working with schools, communities, and organizations to create equity and belonging for all. She gives workshops on Anti-Bias Education with a focus on cultural responsiveness, bias, identity and stereotype threat, and intercultural communication and conflict and co-authored the AmazeWorks Elementary and Secondary Curriculums. With a MEd from DePaul University, she has 15 years of experience teaching middle school humanities/social studies and has worked with schools on issues of equity, inclusion, and justice on institutional, state, and regional levels. She has been a racial justice facilitator for the YWCA Minneapolis since 2015 and is a trained cultural competency facilitator for the Professional Educators Licensing and Standards Board for the state of Minnesota. She has served on the Minneapolis Public Schools Equity and Diversity Impact Assessment (EDIA) Committee since 2020 and on the boards of Upstream Arts and First Universalist Church of Minneapolis. She has presented at the Overcoming Racism, Minnesota Council of Nonprofits, Forum on Workplace Inclusion, and local, regional, and national education conferences. She holds a certificate of Executive Leadership from the University of St. Thomas and teaches courses on equity-based pedagogy at the University of Minnesota.
