My son, Jonathan, asked me to present his Eagle Scout rank to him during a Court of Honor on Saturday, Jan. 7, 2012. It’s more than 1,800 words. But you only get one chance to do something like this for your son. Enjoy.

It’s a tremendous honor to present the rank of Eagle Scout to any young man. The feeling is indescribable when your son asks you to present the award to him. And when I learned I would be joining Mark Branaman as he presents the rank to his son, Dean… let’s just say this will be a day that will be long remembered by our families, friends and the Scouts, parents and leaders of Troop 778.

You’ve seen how their moms were their first Scout leaders. Mark and I became assistant Scoutmasters when Jonathan followed Dean into this troop. Mark and I bunked together during the troop’s 50-mile hike on the Appalachian Trail two years ago. He is a loyal and steadfast leader. Michelle and I are blessed to have Mark and Stacey as true friends.

I’ve thought a lot about the Appalachian Trail hike while preparing for this day. An Eagle Court of Honor is a mountain-top experience. Up on the mountain, you enjoy the view and see how far you’ve traveled. But today also is like the final day of a long hiking trek. You take your pack off for the last time. It feels good to get the weight off your shoulders and hips. You eat regular food instead of trail food.

But you find yourself looking back and reliving countless memories and experiences. Some were fun, others were hard. You learned new lessons and relived previous lessons.

Every young man who earns the rank of Eagle Scout completes a unique journey. It can never be duplicated. When Jonathan and Dean are awarded their medals today, each will remember the experience in their own unique way. I challenge both of you in the coming days to take a few quiet moments and reflect on your Scouting journey. Hold the medal in your hands. Close your eyes and recall the lessons you learned.

Here are the words that came to me during my meditation. Persistence, Courage, Character, and Humility. Where did those come from?

Jonathan stands on the shoulders of great grandparents on both sides of our families who came to this country from Germany and Ireland before World War I and during World War II. They came through Ellis Island with a mere suitcase packed with their life’s belongings. The qualities you possess were passed to you from previous generations. Now, you have a responsibility to continue this legacy. Your great grandparents left a legacyof spirited determination. A hundred years from today, your children, grandchildren and great grandchildren may look back on a second-generation Eagle Scout who worked to make his community, country and world a better place.

Persistence. Few people know this, but Jonathan was born with hypotonia or a lack of muscle tone. When he was less than a year old, neurologists told us he may never kick a soccer ball or carry a backpack. But Jonathan was persistent. He responded so well to therapy that by the time he started kindergarten, his muscle strength and coordination was equal to other boys his age. In athletics, he never gave up. I looked back on some team photos of his soccer teams that I coached. We never had a winning season. Some years, we only scored one or two goals. But Jonathan and at least five other young men on those teams earned the rank of Eagle Scout.

Jonathan again displayed determination on his high school cross country team. His coaches wondered if he would be able to complete the three-mile race his first year. He never won a race, but his character, leadership and persistence convinced his coaches to name him team captain during two seasons.

Character. Mrs. Starnes became furious one day when she returned to elementary school classroom and smelled something sweet. One of her fifth graders had disrupted her desk. Visibly upset, she reminded the students about the rule that no one was to touch or take anything on her desk. And yet, someone had taken the lid off her tube of lip gloss and left it on the edge of her desk. Who would take her lip gloss and use it?

The room was silent. Finally, Jonathan stood up. He looked around at his classmates and then at his teacher. “Mrs. Starnes, I’m sorry, it was me. I ran out of glue stick and I used the tube on your desk to paste my pictures on my poster.” As he held up his project, all of the art work came sliding off.

I share that story as an example of courage, conviction and character.

A few years later, our family decided we would help our neighbors who were battling flood waters by sand bagging in Old Town Fenton. It was Good Friday, the last day of spring break, and Jonathan wanted to sleep late. But his mother prodded him out of bed and we were the first volunteers to sign in at 8 a.m. We were filling sand bags outside of Joe Clarke’s Restaurant and Bar when a reporter and camera crew from NBC Nightly News came by. They started interviewing Michelle. She told the story of how she was unable to help with sand bags during the great flood of 1993 because she was pregnant and on bed rest. But the child she had was here today, filling sand bags. I’m thinking to myself, Wow! What a great story! This is going to make the national news.

Then the cameraman pivoted his tripodand the reporter pointed her microphone toward Jonathan. She asked the question, “So, what is it like to be a child born during the great flood of ’93 and to be helping sand bag now as a young man?” He turned to her and said, “Well, I’m just glad to be doing all I can to save the liquor store.”

Jonathan was at his influential best during the year he was chaplain aid for the troop. He enjoyed leading nondenominational services. But he failed to prepare a service and forgot his Bible on one campout. As Scouts and leaders formed a large circle of chairs in the cabin, Jonathan noticed a pile of unclaimed clothing thrown in a corner. In a few minutes, he was leading a devotional with pair of long johns, a stocking cap, t-shirt, one sock and one glove in the middle of the circle. His lesson of how many small things come together to make a whole left the leaders scratching their heads and wondering how a 13-year-old could think of using lost-and-found items to pull together a lesson in minutes that would gently challenge their faith or open their eyes.

There’s no more challenging job in Scouting than to serve as Senior Patrol Leader of this troop during a week of summer camp. During Jonathan’s year, he insisted that no leaders coach, contribute or in any way influence the youth leaders. We had close to 18 Scouts who were attending summer camp for the first time. There were many challenges, obstacles and problems for all the patrols and youth leaders.

On the last night of camp, Jonathan came to me in tears. After a long talk with his Scoutmaster, he had the humility to admit that he had made a significant strategic mistake. Instead of openly and publicly shunning the assistant Scoutmasters and parents, he realized that he should have used their knowledge, experience and insights to coach the youth leaders. It still would have been a Scout-run troop. But a week of Scouting—the program known as the game with a purpose—could have been played better and more meaningful lessons could have been learned if coaches were allowed to coach and the team captain encouraged the players to listen. But it was a lesson that he will never forget and a lesson that too few young people get the opportunity to experience and learn.

Jonathan and Dean worked together, side-by-side, throughout their youth. Two years ago, Dean was the Assistant Senior Patrol Leader when Jonathan was Senior Patrol Leader. But in reality, they were co-leaders. Dean helped Jonathan in areas of weakness and Jonathan assisted Dean where he needed help. Each complimented the other. They were never judgmental, jealous or envious of the other. It has been a very special relationship. Jonathan, if you don’t know it already, you are very blessed to have a friend like Dean Branaman. And chances are, your appreciation of that true friendship will be more valued as the years go by.

Today is a benchmark in your life. Today, you stand at a pinnacle at the end of your youth. Some memories will fade, but you will always remember something about this day.

The final memory I will leave you with is from our high adventure trek to the Florida Sea Base. We finished our SCUBA certification in a flooded lead mine in Bonne Terre, Missouri, so we would have more time for diving in Florida. One safety technique you must complete 30 feet under water is to help someone who runs out of air. You must help the person without airby giving them your air supply. Then, you must be able to reach behind your air tank, find your secondary air source, and successfully restore your air supply.

This is the ultimate act of unselfishness and goes against basic human instinct. You give away your ability to breathe so someone else can breathe. Jonathan had no trouble completing this requirement in the cold water of an underground cavern or in the warm waters in the diving tank in Florida. But my prayer is that he remembers the underlying value and message of this exercise—always putting others first.

Jonathan and Dean have not yet experienced the hardest part of being an Eagle Scout. The most challenging part is living up to the expectations that come with being an Eagle Scout. The award is presented to you, not for what you have done, but what you are expected to do.

There will be times ahead when you will meet failure and disappointment. There will be times ahead when you experience grief and discouragement. These are inevitable parts of life. You will not live a full life without handling these obstacles.
During those times, it will be easy to quit or feel sorry for yourself. Don’t give in to this temptation. Instead, I pray you gain strength by looking back on your Trail to Eagle. Then, go out and find someone who needs your help. Give unselfishly of your time, talents or treasure. You earned the medal you will wear today. But it is at that time that you will fully appreciate what it means to be an Eagle Scout.

• First, the absence of any posts during the last half of 2011 was largely due to family obligations. My mother, 85, was diagnosed with dimentia in September and hospitalized later that month with a dangerously low sodium level. She made a successful recovery and is now in an assisted living facility. As her Power of Attorney, this required a tremendous amount of time and energy to evaluate her legal and financial standing.
• The marketing and communications efforts of the Greater St. Louis Area Council, Boy Scouts of America were successful in 2011. There were many changes after a new executive director started in March. Several changes were made in the executive leadership that required new and expanded responsibilities.
• My oldest son, Jonathan, was accepted to the University of Missouri-Columbia and Southern Illinois University at Carbondale. His first choice is the University of Minnesota, but we’re still awaiting word from the Golden Gophers. His Eagle Scout Court of Honor is next Saturday, Jan. 7. There’s a tremendous amount of planning and preparation required for college and the Court of Honor.

During the next few days, the intention is to write a few posts on some issues and lessons learned in marketing and communications during the last few months. They include new skills and abilities that nonprofit communicators must possess to be successful with today’s media. Another area is the strength and credibility that a business can gain from their philanthropic work.

May you be blessed with peace, joy and prosperity in 2012.

Term Limit Ends Six-Year Stint With Community Service Public Relations Council (CSPRC): The June lunch meeting marked the end of a great experience with this organization. The organization made drastic improvements in its programs and conferences during the past decade. It was an honor and a pleasure to serve on the board with so many talented, dedicated and passionate marketing and communications professionals who are devoting their talents assist organizations in making our community a better place.

Teaching A Three-Hour Course At the Nonprofit Fundraising Institute: The University of Missouri-St. Louis’ Nonprofit Management and Leadership Program holds an annual fundraising institute in June. It was a privilege to teach the course, “All Donations Begin With Communications.” There were approximately 25 in attendance and they represented a variety of nonprofit and charitable organizations. Many participants shared wonderful stories of how they were first motivated to make a charitable gift. The common thread was that each one of them were influenced by a story about the organization’s work. We started out with an interesting perspective with the blog post from Dan Pallotta, “Don’t Sell Your Soul, Market It,” on Harvard Business Review. Some results from the annual Cygnus Donor Survey, “Where Philanthropy is Headed in 2011″  were reviewed.

Work Highlights: Even though President Barak Obama was in Joplin, Mo., on the day before Memorial Day, the Boy Scouts’ annual Memorial Day Good Turn at Jefferson Barracks National Cemetery received good media coverage, including a front-page photograph in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. The Greater St. Louis Area Council’s Annual Meeting and Recognition Dinner was another success. Twenty four adult volunteers received the Silver Beaver Award, the highest recognition a Boy Scout council can bestow. (View a PDF of the awards booklet.) The 2010 Annual Report was presented and approved. Colt Wahl, a 12-year-old Boy Scout received a Heroism Award for assisting his father after he fell 20 feet from a tree during a hunting trip. (Read a story in the St. Louis Review.)

Awards: Finally, the council received two National President’s Marketing Awards during the Boy Scouts of America’s Annual Meeting in May in San Diego. The council won the competition for best website and best 100th anniversary material for the marketing and communications plan for ScoutQuest 100, a council-wide encampment for 20,000 Scouts, parents and leaders in Forest Park. Both awards recognize the hard work, effort and dedication of many staff members and volunteers to provide outstanding marketing and communications for all the council’s stakeholders.

1. Discipline: Meet the deadline and never lower your own expectations.
2. Thoroughness: Get all of the facts and then get more
3. Become an extrovert: Always be curious about others and their stories.
4. Remember your reader: The best writers don’t write for themselves; they’re always working to serve the reader. 
5. Be meticulous: The slightest sign of sloppiness communicates a lack of professionalism.
6. Take a good photograph: There’s no better experience than looking at a striking image while reading good writing.
7. Persistence: Never give up. Writing is rewriting.
8. Courage: Ask tough questions and pursue the facts. 
9. Develop a thick skin: Don’t take it personally when an editor is rewriting or reorganizing your text. Every story or article could be improved in some way.
10. Confidence: Work hard enough to show others you’ve done your best.

Thanks, Professor Ward, for caring enough to be a demanding teacher.

During the last six months, three of the largest nonprofits in St. Louis named had departures of executive directors–the Greater St. Louis Area Council, Boy Scouts of America, the Girl Scouts of Eastern Missouri and St. Patrick’s Center. The combined annual budgets of the three organizations is more than $40 million and they have tens of thousands of donors and clients or members.

Communications and marketing professionals play an important and pivotal role for the new executive director during this period. Social media and web 2.0 functions can help communicators do a better job at helping the new director make a good first impression and provide a channel to communicate vision and priorities.

How important are first impressions?

Michael Watkins, author of The First 90 Days, recently defended the importance of chief executive officers getting off to a good start. He was challenged by Kevin Kelly in a post, The CEO Revolving Door, on the blog, CEO Insight on the Bloomberg Business Week website.

Kevin Kelly

“Business readers have snapped up 500,000 copies of a book called The First 90 Days, by Dr. Michael Watkins, who has served as a professor at the Harvard Kennedy School and Harvard Business School,” Kelly wrote.  “And since Franklin D. Roosevelt’s days, voters have thrilled to hear politicians describe all they will achieve in their ‘first 100 days.’ It makes for entertaining reading or political theater. But as for substance, it’s as thin as spun sugar.”

Watkins responded on a post, Improving Leadership Transitions Is Not Short-Termism, on on Harvard Business Review’s, The Conversation, blog. Leaders always will be judged during a transition. They must be quick to learn and absorb information while creating a positive and productive atmosphere.

Michael Watkins

“It’s that transitions are times when momentum builds or it doesn’t, when opinions about new leaders begin to crystallize,” Watkins wrote. “It’s a time when feedback loops — virtuous cycles or vicious ones — get established. Significant missteps feed downward spirals that can be hard to arrest. So it’s far better for new leaders to get off to a good start by building personal credibility and political capital, rather than dig themselves into holes and have to clamber back out.”

This period of transition for an executive director of a nonprofit is a critical time for communications and public relations professionals. In some cases, quickly establishing the presence of a new executive director helps move the organization rapidly forward. Introductions are made. Visions are communicated. Styles are expressed.

An example of a poor first impression took place almost a decade ago. The executive director held a staff meeting on his first day on the job. A staff member asked how the new director wanted to be addressed. Would he prefer to be called by his first name? Mister?

“I don’t care what you call me,” he told the entire staff. ”Just don’t call me dumb a – -.”

Two things were clear after that first meeting. One, the executive director was previously called by that description. Two, the executive director’s previous performance probably warranted that description.

A communications plan to introduce the executive director during their first days on the job is essential. However, executive directors must be willing, aware and humble enough to see how important an effective communications plan can be during their first days.

Moments after the Greater St. Louis Area Council, Boy Scouts of America, selected Ronald S. Green to be only the 10th executive director in the organization’s 100-year history, he recorded an introductory video. It was posted on the council’s YouTube channel and Facebook page. It can be viewed below.

During a breakfast meeting last week, Ron mentioned that he’s reading The First 90 Days.

Tuesday, March 8, 2011
11:30 a.m. to noon: registration and networking
Noon to 1:15 p.m.: lunch and program
Meeting Fees: members: $25; non-members: $35; students: $20
Meeting Location: Sheraton Clayton Plaza Hotel, 7730 Bonhomme Ave., St. Louis, MO 63105
(Complimentary parking is available in the hotel garage. Make reservations no later than noon on Friday, March 4th. Walk-ins may not be able to be accommodated. Cancellations must be made at least 24 hours in advance; no-shows will be billed.)

Photo by photobunny

The Regional Arts Council dared to ask arts organizations to share one of their most important assets–their mailing lists. They also requested transaction information and developed a strategic and collective marketing tool. The Database of the Arts (DART) allows St. Louis cultural organizations to:

• Collaborate on marketing by sharing information about culture customers
• Target mailings to the best possible prospects
• Grow St. Louis audiences rather than compete for the same patrons
• Increases sales of season subscriptions, individual performance tickets and institutional memberships using the “six dirty little secrets” of the for-profit catalog world.

In the first year of using the shared database, there was a 430-percent return on investment.

Arts and cultural institutions suffered the greatest losses of all non-profit organizations during the last two or more years. However, DART is proving to be critical key in developing constituencies and increasing the return on marketing investments.

John Elliott of the Elliott Marketing Group (EMG), the lead architect in designing the DART program with the Regional Arts Council, will share what you need to know about creating productive partnerships and stretching resources. He will share the keys to developing an innovative direct marketing program using database tools like DART and show how non-profit organizations can succeed when they collaborate.

CLICK HERE TO MAKE A RESERVATION

A Pat On The Back, Photo by Jmehre

Many nonprofit communicators feel their efforts never get any respect or recognition. They often believe their marketing and communications initiatives never measure up to the work done by their counterparts in corporate communications or public relations firms. It’s the front-page newspaper story, the magazine cover or the Super Bowl exposure that captures the attention of executive directors and governing boards.

Those two groups often become too focused on the numbers of media impressions. It places unnecessary and ill-conceived pressure on communications and marketing professionals. They often place unrealistic expectations on communicators whose time can be better spent on other initiatives.

A story in the February McKinsey Quarterly affirmed this belief. It praised nonprofit communicators for successes in social media.

The power of storytelling: What nonprofits can teach the private sector about social media shows how nonprofits are doing a better job than their for-profit counterparts in harnessing the power of social media. The article contains an excerpt from The Dragonfly Effect, by Jennifer Aaker and Andy Smith, and includes an interview with the authors. (It also includes an audio file for downloading or streaming.)

One area that Andy Smith emphasizes in the article is for organizations to keep focusing on goals. In the end, if you didn’t raise enough money to meet your operating budget, failed to provide services or programs for your members or clients, or stumbled in recruiting and engaging enough volunteers to fulfill your mission, it really doesn’t matter how many people follow you on Twitter or Facebook.

Many nonprofit communicators underestimate the value of the stories they have to tell. People who work in education, ministry or social services are so busy and consumed with their missions that they fail to make sure their best stories are told. This is where executive directors and board members can help in marketing or communications. It’s so simple for an executive director or a board member to start or use their Twitter or Facebook account to share short success stories.

Nonprofit communications efforts can be small, slow and steady and win the race.

My counterparts in corporate communications and public relations often told me they would love to be telling a story of human compassion or triumph instead of, well, pet food, soft drinks or beer.

Photo by Sean Dreilinger

The Community Service Public Relations Council’s annual Spectrum Conference will be on Tuesday, May 10, 2011, at the Holiday Inn Southwest-Viking Conference Center (Watson Rd. and Lindbergh Blvd. in Sunset Hills, Mo.) The theme for this year’s conference is, “Bright Futures.”

Spectrum is the only one-day conference in the St. Louis metropolitan area that’s designed exclusively for nonprofit organizations. Spectrum offers four program tracks and explore topics of special interest for,

• executive directors and board members,
• marketing and communications professionals and volunteers,
• development staff,
• newcomers to the nonprofit world,
• and those who are in a new role at a nonprofit and need to gain skills in various areas.

Conference attendees can follow one track throughout the day or attend other sessions.

Conference registration isn’t open yet, but if you would like to be added to the invitation list, please send an e-mail to info@csprc.org or call (314) 416-2237.

The Editor and a Reporter. Photograph by Vin Crosbie.

During most of the 20th century, public relations and communications professionals built relationships with journalists with the goal of placing a story in a newspaper, magazine, or on television or radio. Early in the 21st century, there’s much less courting.

Media relations remains important for PR and communications professionals. But with fewer journalists, shrinking newspapers and dwindling audiences, how journalists do their job is changing.

“Journalism, in the broadest sense, has changed today from being a product to being a service,” said Amy S. Mitchell, the deputy director of the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism. ”It has changed from a product that I’m going to give you — here’s what we’ve produced, take it for what it’s worth — to being a service, to serving many more roles that just reporting the news.”

Mitchell spoke at the annual joint meeting of the Community Service Public Relations Council, the International Association of Business Communicators and the Public Relations Society of America on Wednesday, Jan. 19, 2011, in Frontenac, Mo.

Reporting the news is a “critical role, a crucial role,” Mitchell said. “The journalism of today must do more. Journalists today must understand their different audiences — the audiences that are going to find them through search, the audiences that turn to them every day, the audiences that are going to help contribute to their reporting.

“They need to understand different platforms to so their content is not platform-agnostic. Many people were talking about this three or four years ago and said your content could flow freely and seamlessly from one platform to another without really having it matter if it’s on your iPhone, website or in a print product. But that’s not what you want to do.  You need to make your information platform-specific. Consumers understand the difference and the different values that each platform brings. As news providers, we need to understand that difference and put information out that is built to work in that particular platform. And, yes, that means more work.”

Journalists interviewing people. Photo by Kewei Shang.

Instead of producing content for consumption by the masses, journalists must now spend more time on analyzing the value of the information they are gathering. Mitchell’s research found that the vast majority of news that’s consumed is coming from traditional news outlets.

“We’ve done a lot of different research projects that look at how news is being created and how it is getting out to people,” she said. “We tried to examine a news ecosystem and picked one city to study.”

They chose Baltimore and examined more than 60 media outlets covering the metropolitan area in some capacity. All content produced was studied during a period of a few weeks. They tracked stories to see where the content or information was first created.

“More than 90 percent of what was originally reported was coming from legacy outlets–local television, radio and newspapers,” Mitchell said. “There were a lot of other outlets that were involved in the conversation, discussion and analysis. But the actual reporting of information was coming from the legacy outlets. But those outlets are giving us information at greatly diminished capacity.”

Photo by Shavar Ross

People are still reading, watching and listening to news in the United States, but the way they consume news is changing. And 2011 might be the year that social media significantly influences news consumption.

Those were some highlights from a presentation by Amy S. Mitchell, the deputy director of the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism. She spoke at the annual joint meeting of the Community Service Public Relations Council, the International Association of Business Communicators and the Public Relations Society of America on Wednesday, Jan. 19, 2011, in Frontenac, Mo.

Marketing and communications professionals must always be aware of the media landscape. Communicating through mass media is a fundamental strategy for most organizational communications plans. The Pew research shed light on shrinking newsrooms, budgets and revenues. It also provided a somewhat contradictory profile of a news consumer.

Consumption Continues

Mitchell said the average person spends 70 minutes per day consuming news. That’s an increase compared to a decade ago. They spend 57 minutes per day with radio, televisions and newspapers–the same as 10 years ago. However, consumers are spending another 13 minutes per day getting news on the web.

Photo by PennState Live

“People are not abandoning the old forms,” Mitchell said. “About 92 percent use multiple platforms – sometimes four to six platforms – on a daily basis.”

Online consumption is growing rapidly and is now closing in on television as the place people go for national and international news. Mitchell said the news consumer of today is a “news grazer.” They check the news several times per day in multiple places. The average time spent on an Internet news website is two minutes, 30 seconds–down from more than three minutes last year.

“One way to think about the traditional form of news consumption is a lean-back experience,” Mitchell said. “News today is very much a lean-in experience. Consumers know the information they want and they’re going to go find it. It’s a very different way of processing and accessing information.”

People are checking their social networks to see what their friends are reading and talking about. Mitchell said 62 percent of Internet news consumers use social networks like Facebook. Seventy-seven percent of social network users say they get their news there. Facebook is the third-highest referring site to news websites.

“This is a critical development for news providers,” Mitchell said. “What began as a pass-along effect is now evolving into a way of starting news consumption. People are asking friends and turning to friends for what news they should care about. Facebook is their trusted circle of friends — their search universe — to create their news diet.”

Amazingly Negative Numbers

Mitchell shared some startlingly negative financial information for legacy media, especially the newspaper industry:

• Newspaper revenue declined 41 percent in the last two years. “Financial analysts say half of the losses are because of the economic downturn, the other half are structural,” such as the loss of classified advertising revenue, Mitchell said. “And those dollars are not going to return. Audiences have moved online, but advertising revenues have not.”
• CNN experienced a 36-percent decline in prime-time audience.
• The rate of online advertising fell 48 percent last year. “Online ads cost a fraction of what they cost in a legacy media product,” Mitchell said. “There’s too much space online and it’s hard to find enough advertising to fill it. You can’t ramp up dollar value if you have too much to sell.”
• Approximately $1.6 billion has been lost in annual newspaper newsroom budgets since 2000. “That’s a tremendous amount of loss,” Mitchell said. “More than half of the newspapers in America no longer have a staffer in Washington, D.C. The person who is watching your Congressman or Senator may well be a wire service reporter or someone else.”

There was some good news. Political advertising revenue provided a boost for nearly all media sectors. And newspapers cannot abandon their print products because they are still producing a significant amount of revenue.

Tomorrow: Another post with Mitchell’s perspective on the evolution of journalism.