By Magdalena Beltrán-del Olmo and Roni Hooper

Foundations have historically had an uneasy relationship with communications. One reason for the apprehension may have its roots in early philanthropists who believed in the virtue of anonymous giving. However, many foundations now recognize the value of communicating their work, but have difficulty defining what the communications program should look like. After all, the goal of communications is not always clear in the field of philanthropy.

For-profit corporations communicate to sell products or services. Nonprofit organizations, in general, communicate to attract clients to their programs, to increase awareness about public issues or to raise money. It may appear that most foundations, with the exception of community foundations, do not need to communicate because they have no product to sell or money to raise. But this is certainly not the case.

Like any type of organization, a foundation exists to fulfill its mission. If no one knows what that mission is, then the work becomes virtually impossible. Therefore, at the most basic level, the core message of a communications program should be the foundation’s mission statement. From there, it is a matter of defining who the audiences are and what information those audiences need to become partners in fulfilling that mission.

The mission of The California Wellness Foundation (TCWF) is to improve the health of the people of California by making grants for health promotion, wellness education and disease prevention. Since its inception, TCWF has shaped its communications activities around that mission. We are often asked why we have a communications program, how it is structured, and how we work with our grantees to convey our shared messages. Our answer is summed up in two words: "strategic communications." While it may sound like jargon to some, we have not yet found a better term to convey the simple elegance of communicating effectively to a variety of audiences.

In recent years, the use of and discussion about strategic communications have grown increasingly popular in the philanthropic and nonprofit sectors. For us, it is simply "telling a good story." Telling our stories in ways that not only appeal to our audiences — but also engage them in our mission — takes hard work, but we believe we do it well. In this Reflections issue, we hope to share what we have learned about communicating TCWF’s mission by tailoring messages to reach specific audiences through the use of compelling stories.