Producer Handbook: Outreach

We pour our heart and soul—and money—into these programs. We want to share our stories and change the world. Reaching out beyond the PBS broadcast delivers the program to the people who need to see it most.— Shirley Sneve, Executive Director of Native American Public
Telecommunications.

10 reasons to do outreach:

To make a difference.
To deepen and sustain the value and impact of your film.
To build relationships withstakeholders on the film’stopic.
To reach new audiences,building interest in your filmand its subject matter.
To encourage use of your filmin a variety of venues.
To motivate people to act onthe film’s content.
To involve and support specialinterest audiences.
To document impacts of yourefforts that can be reportedback to funders.
To generate anecdotes andimpact data to seek futurefunding.
To attract new sources offunding and support.

As a producer, you move and inform people through your films. No doubt you hope your film will create an awareness of your subject, shift viewers’ attitude about the issue or even motivate people to action. Reaching one or more of these goals can be a tall order, especially with a limited budget. That’s where outreach can help. With even a simple outreach campaign, you can leverage your resources to deepen the impact of your effort, and ensure your film has a life beyond the broadcast.

This guide gives you practical information on the value and process for mounting outreach efforts around your film or films. You’ll find helpful tips and tools for developing an outreach initiative on your own or with a consultant, and managing it with confidence. Along with useful outreach “how-tos,” this guide includes lists, sample documents and worksheets that you can duplicate and freely use as you design your own outreach approach.

What is Outreach?

According to the National Center for Outreach (NCO), wwww.ncoengage.org, an outreach resource and service organization for public television and radio, there are two components to outreach, which are defined as: Community outreach extends the impact of public broadcasting through a variety of media services, educational materials and collaborative activities. Efforts are always in partnership with other community organizations and are designed to engage individuals and foster community participation. Most often initiatives address specific issues of importance and are targeted to a particular segment of the population.

Educational outreach refers to activities that support formal or classroom-based education, as well as informal education that occurs outside the classroom. Educational outreach campaigns provide educational experiences for young people in classrooms, libraries, community-based organizations, etc., as well as supporting the professional development of the adults who work with them. For outreach resources, visit: www.ncoengage.org.

Outreach is part of an overall set of strategies, which include marketing or promotion, that aid in increasing reach and impact of a film. Outreach is, however, its own field and focus. But what’s the difference between outreach, marketing and promotion? According to Merriam Webster’s dictionary, marketing is “the process or technique of promoting, selling, and distributing a product or service.” But the American Marketing Association also defines marketing as the “activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large.”

Marketing then is an umbrella term that includes promotion. Promotion is the practice of creating demand for a product or service and keeping it in the mind of the customer or, in this instance, the public television viewer. Outreach, on the other hand, is concerned with using the product—your film—to further engage viewers in the topic or focus of your
film as it relates to their lives or their community.

Outreach encompasses a broad spectrum of activities from informational events, such as a screening accompanied by a presentation or discussion, to well-researched and carefully executed social marketing (find out more about social marketing on page 10) efforts.

These efforts in social marketing—a process that applies techniques to create, communicate, and deliver value to influence audience behaviors—are designed to change behaviors in a select audience, such as public health campaigns to combat diabetes and AIDS, or campaigns to encourage the use of seatbelts. By its nature, outreach is more targeted than broadcast programming. It requires you to know what you want your campaign to achieve and whom you want to impact.

Outreach efforts are typically designed to:
• Raise awareness
• Change attitudes and/or
• Change behavior

Outreach professionals often say “begin at the end,” meaning know what you want the outcome of your effort to be and then work backward to determine what road map you need to get there. This guide will help you do just that.

How is Outreach done?

Outreach puts you and your production in touch with the community. It reaches new audiences, adds to your promtion and marketing beyond the TV viewer, and is rewarding to the community you need to reach most.— Frank Blythe, Retired Executive Director of Native American Public Telecommunications.

Start at the beginning.
To create a seamless, well-conceived effort, include outreach during the conceptual stage of your process—before you seek funding for your film. In fact, consider including outreach in your initial funding proposal. This will enhance your proposal and build a strong foundation with potential partners. If you are already in production, don’t worry, there are definitely still options, covered in this guide, for building outreach into your plan.

Know your limits.
What resources—staff, financial, partners or in kind resources— are available? If you have little or no resources, outreach is still possible especially if you partner with organizations whose work dovetails with the topic covered in your film. For instance, a wellchosen partner may be able to incorporate the film or clips from the film, along with materials they already have, into their ongoing work or at a special screening.

On the other hand, it is best if you have a budget for outreach, even if modest, so do consider including outreach in your initial funding proposal for your film. If you include outreach as part of your initial funding proposal, think about developing two to three options—from a low-cost (screenings, collateral print or Web material) to a high-cost plan (special events and activities, extensive materials, multiple sites where you hold events, grants to public television stations and/or partners). By doing this, you’ll be better prepared to offer a range of strategies to funders that will fit their particular interests and budget.

What’s your time frame? Most outreach professionals agree the best way to enlist local support through public broadcasting stations and/ or community organizations is to offer a competitive grant process. If you’re thinking of offering grants, you’ll need to plan on at least a year’s timeframe from beginning to end, including:
• a month to draft your request for proposal or RFP (see a sample of an RFP on page 18),
• three to four months to promote the opportunity to stations or community organizations, allowing for applicants to draft and submit their applications and to review and award the grants,
• at least six months for stations or community organizations to plan and mount local activities and events, and
• two to three months for reporting on local efforts and drafting reports for funders.

Creating an outreach advisory group.
Getting input from practitioners in your project topic area is one of the best ways to insure that your film reaches its intended audience and has the impact you desire. An outreach advisory group can be very helpful in suggesting ways to craft your outreach campaign, and help you discern how your outreach can address the interests and needs of various audiences.

Be sure you select a group that represents the needs and concerns of the demographics you wish to reach. Ask the group to help identify resources already in place, and suggest areas where your film can meet a need that is not yet addressed. Advisors can also tap their networks to help you publicize and promote your film and related outreach campaign.

Setting goals.
A goal is a written statement describing a direction that will indicate success or improvement of the targeted issue. It’s necessarily broad, but should include the target audience you want to reach. Consider this example: March Point is a Native Lens production by Swinomish youth focusing on how oil refineries affect the health of water, land and their tribe’s cultural traditions. The outreach goals for March Point might mirror the film by focusing, as shown below, on youth documenting environmental issues affecting their community:
1. To familiarize Native youth with audio and video production as a form of self expression.
2. To encourage Native youth to use audio or video production to document environmental issues in their community. As broadcasters, we’re often involved in a project for the short term. So be clear and realistic about what’s possible to achieve with finite resources and time. For instance, improving the health of a target population or ending hunger are not goals that can be achieved with a year-long outreach effort.

Hint: The greater the impact you desire, the more planning and resources will be required. If your goal is to raise awareness, you can easily achieve this through your film and collateral material or events. If you aim to change people’s behavior, you’ll need to carefully target your audience, learn what inhibits members of your target audience from changing their behavior and seek to overcome those barriers through your outreach effort (see section on social marketing on page 10).

Finding Outreach Professional: If you’d like help conceptualizing an outreach plan and budget or to develop and manage your outreach effort from beginning to end, a number of consultants specialize in this work. If you need specific outreach help and have funds to hire a consultant, contact the National Center for Outreach. NCO maintains a list of industry consultants and can help you come up with several to contact. Be sure to ask for background information including what projects they’ve worked on, results of their efforts, how they charge, plus names of clients who can serve as references. Some consultants provide a proposal and cost estimate free of charge, others may charge you for that service.

Tapping and Partnering with Organizaions: Organizations working in the field may have some great ideas for outreach, and may be able to fold your ideas into what they are already doing. Ask these groups whether and how they might envision using your film to further their work. For example, if the film is about drug use on the reservation, several Native organizations, including the National Congress of American Indians, have programs or initiatives that could aid you in getting the word about your film and use the film to educate people on issues surrounding the problem of drug use. Building on these organizations’ efforts can be a win-win for both of you. Note that many outreach projects partner with national organizations to tap expertise, promote the project and build on existing networks. This is a great idea, however, avoid creating a long list of partner organizations.

Be strategic. Determine which organizations are a great fit and have an interest in working with you. Organizations with local chapters can help with networking at the grassroots. Be aware that word may not get out to affiliates quickly or efficiently and each affiliate or chapter may operate independently—like public broadcasting.

The long term relationships that exist nowas a result of the outreach that was done years and years ago translate to a dedicated team of community outreach partners committed and ready to tackle the next public television project. They are some of our station’s best friends! Together, public television and community outreach partners make real and lasting changes in our society. — Linda Dielman, TV Program/Outreach Manager, WGCU/Mt. Pleasant, Michigan.

Creating a vision for results.
Once you’ve determined the goals, create a vision of what you want to happen as a result of the outreach—also called your outcomes. Many organizations use a planning and evaluation tool called a “logic model.” The model provides a flow sheet to plan how your effort will use resources and activities to impact the problem, issue or topic and yield the outcomes you desire.

Determining outcomes.
As filmmakers, you may have a particular outcome in mind when you set out to make a film. Whether it’s to move people to make an internal change, to encourage individual or collective action, you likely are motivated by wanting to impact others in some way. Outcomes are the specific changes you want to see in your target audience as a result of your effort.

Using the March Point example above, you can see how the goal statements provide a framework: they describe the direction you intend to go, the audience you want to reach and may even hint at a type of activity, such as a training or series of workshops for youth to learn the basics of audio/ visual documentation.

Next, you’ll want to name the potential outcomes for your project. Using the March Point example, outcomes might include:
• Participating youth gain audio or video production skills.
• Participating youth learn about local environmental issues.
• Participating youth learn about the impact of environmental policies on their community.

Developing activities.
Once you have determined the project’s outcomes, you can develop activities or strategies that will achieve the results you’ve envisioned. Here’s an example of an activity for March Point:
• Hold a series of half-day audio or video production training sessions that focus on covering local environmental issues for at least five Native youth in 10 communities.

It’s not enough to have a good idea or a great project. You have to get it out there and share it with those for whom it is meaningful. As a Native
woman, I feel that outreach is the single most important contribution I can make to my community. It connects me to the people who matter most to me and keeps me honest about the programs in which I am involved. Is this topic meaningful? Will this project benefit Native communities? If the answer to those questions is “no,” then maybe my time is better spent elsewhere. —Patty Loew, Assoc. Professor, UW-Madison, Dept. Life Sciences Communication.

How do you initiate activities, who takes the lead and what’s the incentive for involvement?
These are key questions you’ll need to answer. Most producers offer grants to public television stations or community organizations as incentives for mounting local outreach around a film or series. NAPT has developed relationships with several stations across the nation, and, in some cases, can help you facilitate creating a partnership. Grants are the best incentive for encouraging participation in your effort. In fact, grants have become so popular that stations carefully pick and choose their projects. For that reason, you’ll need to “sell” your grant and project to stations or local organizations.

Stations gauge their interest in outreach projects based on the station mission, interest of management or staff in the topic, community interest/focus on the topic, current workload, knowledge of the producer and their work and the amount of the grant. Be aware that some stations will not consider small grants—below $2,00 for small stations and below $5,000 for large markets—because they feel the work involved in applying for the grant, mounting local activities and reporting results is not worth that level of funding. If you have a small amount of money and want to provide grants, concentrate on smaller markets where the grant will make a bigger difference.

Also, check with some of the stations you want to target and ask if they would be interested in the grant program at the grant level you are offering. It may be that the combination of the topic, target audience and grant opportunity are an appealing package, regardless of the size of the grant.

Whether you work with public television stations or community organizations, think about whether it makes sense to dictate a specific activity, such as the March Point example of production training sessions (see the sidebar at right for more examples of activities) or whether your project lends itself to letting local stations or organizations and their partners decide what outreach focus makes the most sense for their community. An example of the latter approach is the Robert Wood Johnson-funded New Routes to Community Health (www.newroutes. org/projects), which seeks to improve the health of new immigrants and refugees using locally-focused media. The benefit of leaving the decision to your grantees is greater ownership and interest in the project.

Sample benefits of working with a station
• Experienced working with film producers and video outreach
• Established audience and name recognition in the community
• Knowledge of how to reach viewers and staff to assist
• Existing networks through Web site, program guide and other communications
• Facilities and resources that may be useful for promotion and outreach

Sample benefits of working with organizations
• Established networks and connections in the community, at the local or national level
• Interest in your topic that aligns with their goals
• Adds value to their planned events and activities
• Adds credibility to your efforts on a local, regional or national level
• Potential to share costs for promotion and outreach undertakings

Types of outreach activities

Workshops and conferences
Town hall meetings, leadership forums and community summits
Conversation cafés
Fairs
Training programs (including teacher trainings for credit)
School events and campaigns
Recognition programs
Contests such as writing scripts, videos, essays or creating artwork
Art exhibits
Performances
Public readings
Active family events such as walks, geo cache contests
Local history, science or nature tours
“How to” workshops such as cooking, crafts, digital storytelling or exercise and health

Online Grant Submission and Management

NCO’s online PlanIt! (www.ncoengage.org/plan_measure/index.cfm) grant management feature offers producers and funders a standard application tool where stations can apply for specific grants. PlanIT! is a Web-based planning and assessment tool developed by the NCO and available free of charge to public television producers and stations.

For more information, contact Cristina Hanson at NCO, cristina.hanson@
ncoengage.org, 608.263.0297. In addition to grant management, you’ll want to post your effort to the NCO pipeline, which provides visibility of your film and outreach within the system.

Thinking About Money

When you plan your outreach, you’ll want to develop a realistic budget for expenses. Here are some items to consider in your spreadsheet:
• Staff and contract personnel
• Grants to stations or organizations
• Studio rental (if you produce a short outreach reel for meetings and events)
• Outreach consultant
• Evaluation consultant
• Facility rental for activities (if not included in grant-funded activities)
• Food or promotional give-away costs
• Equipment costs, such as renting AV equipment
• Promotion and ad placement
• Advisor stipends (if you offer to provide honoraria for proposal review)

A Word About Social Marketing

It’s good because we get to express ourselves, the way we live and the way we live as Native people. — Nick Clark in March Point

Social marketing borrows techniques from the commercial world to impact public health and social issues by changing individual behavior. Not to be confused with social networking Web sites, such as My Space and Facebook— which are tools for marketing, promotion and outreach to reach audiences through the Web. Social marketing is an approach to outreach that seeks to change the behavior of a highly targeted audience. Social marketing strategies have been used successfully for campaigns such as anti-smoking programs and AIDS prevention and substance abuse to name a few. It focuses on:
• carefully identifying the audience,
• finding out from the target audience what barriers inhibit behavior change (e.g. mothers of toddlers who are overweight may cite lack of time as a barrier to exercise)
• finding out what the competition to behavior change is (e.g. watching television instead of exercising); and
• identifying a plan that will overcome the barriers and “beat” the competition. This approach typically focuses on a smaller audience than awareness building efforts, and requires careful research and planning up front. If you choose to use this technique, consider hiring a social marketing expert to help guide your work. You can find information and subscribe to a listserv on the Social Marketing Institute Web site www.social-marketing.org.

A Word About Promotion

Like every activity that competes for the public’s attention, successful outreach requires promotion, frequently and persistently. NAPT will help you promote your film. If you plan to use an outside PR professional in addition to NAPT, be sure to ask them about their experience promoting outreach efforts as well as films. Most PR professionals who work in public television have experience with outreach. If you are on a tight budget, you’ll want to use every network available to get your message out about activities and events, screenings and workshops.

One of the most cost-effective strategies is to use the networks that community organizations already have in place. Consider inviting these groups to be your “communication partners” and let them help you spread the word. Many groups like to be associated with filmmakers, and welcome the visibility that comes from a public association of their group with your film. Many public institutions are open to promotion of worthy, educational events, so check with your local library, as well as cafés, book stores, churches and schools or community colleges. Look to promote wherever people congregate, and especially, where you’ll find your target audience.

Evaluation

A Few Words of Advice

• Depending on the requirements of your funder, you may need to bring in an outside evaluator at the start to build evaluation into your initiative, mount a more comprehensive evaluation effort and provide a neutral third party to assess your impact. (See page 15 for questions to ask a potential evaluator.)
• Correlate your survey questions with your goals. Ask only those questions you need answered—avoid long surveys with questions that don’t add value.
• If you want to document a change in awareness, attitude or behavior, you’ll need to do a pre- and post-evaluation toshow the change.
• Don’t worry about getting a “bad” evaluation. All the information—“good” and “bad”—can help you build a better campaign next time.

Final Words

Outreach is a great way to help you extend the value and impact of your film. While it’s not rocket science, it does require you to identify what you want to happen as a result of your effort and to then determine what resources, partners and activities it will take to achieve your outcome. Working with local public television stations and/or local community organizations will help you reach your target audience(s) through their local contacts and networks.

Public television stations and local community organizations often look for synergies—ways to build on existing local efforts. So do some legwork upfront or tap your outreach consultant to identify ways to build an effort that can be part of or create a larger effort (e.g. Check the NCO Pipeline for programs that could be packaged with yours. Contact the producer about collaborating. Check with other minority consortia to determine if there are programs/ projects that may deal with a similar topic you could package together and share resources).

As a producer, you leave a legacy, a story, a message that ripples through the minds and hearts of those who watch your film. Outreach can help make that ripple into a wave. The partnership of producers and outreach professionals can deepen the impact of your work and spread your story throughout even more communities.

Sample Documents and Worksheets

Project Planning Worksheet

Finding An Outreach Consultant

Partner Organization Letter Template

EVENT COORDINATOR CHECKLIST (PDF)

SAMPLE CUSTOMIZABLE FLYER (PDF)

SAMPLE NEWS RELEASE (PDF)

OUTREACH RESOURCES

Native American Public Telecommunications (www.nativetelecom.org)
• The Producers Resources (www.nativetelecom.org/handboo /index.html) section of the NAPT site includes a pdf of this guide as well as an Enhancing Education: A Producer’s Guide (www.nativetelecom.org/handbook/index.html), an educational outreach guide produced by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. National Center for Outreach (www.ncoengage.org) Contact NCO (www.ncoengage.org/connect/contact_nco.cfm) to:
• find an outreach consultant;
• use PlanIT! (www.ncoengage.org/plan_measure/index.cfm) to promote your project to public television stations, allow stations to apply for your grants, plan and evaluate their projects;
• post your project to the Pipeline (www.ncoengage.org/pipelin /index.cfm). Social Marketing Institute (www.social marketing.org/index.html) This site provides resources on social marketing, including:
• an accepted definition of social marketing (www.social marketing.org/sm.html);
• information about the institute (www.social-marketing.org/aboutus.html) and a place to sign up for its listserv (www.social marketing.org/aboutus.html);
• examples of successful social marketing efforts (www.social marketing.org/success.html) and;
• conferences and research papers (www.social marketing.org/papers.html) and related sites (www.social-marketing.org/relatedsites.html).

ORGANIZATIONAL RESOURCES

A sample of Native American organizations:
• AIO-Americans for Indian Opportunity
• American Indian Higher Education Consortium
• American Indian Chambers of Commerce-CA, NM, OK, MN, etc.
• American Indian College Fund
• American Indian Graduate Center
• American Indian Library Association
• A.I.S.E.S.-American Indian Science and Engineering Society
• Association of American Indian Physicians
• Indian Arts & Crafts Association
• Indian Land Tenure Foundation
• Indian Law Resource Center
• NCAI-National Congress of American Indians
• National American Indian Housing Council
• National Indian Council on Aging
• NIEA-National Indian Education Association
• NIGA-National Indian Gaming Association
• National Center for American Indian Enterprise Development
• National Council of Urban Indian Health
• National Environmental Coalition of Native Americans
• National Indian Health Board
• National Indian Justice Center
• National Association of Tribal Historic Preservation Officers
• National Native American AIDS Prevention Center
• Native Americans in Philanthropy
• NARF-Native American Rights Fund
• Native American Journalists Association
• National Native American Veterans Organization
• UNITY-United National Indian Youth Council

A sample of non-Native organizations that would have an interest in Native issues:
• American Arts Alliance
• American Diabetes Association
• American Fisheries Society
• American Heart Association
• Arts Education Partnerships
• Center for Alternative Mining Development Policy
• Habitat for Humanity
• Sierra Club