How I prevent burnout at Forthright
Written by katie test davis
I really like being a company founder and CEO. But my CEO position isn’t the most important thing about me. Instead, my most important roles are friend, daughter, wife, volunteer, potter and neighbor.
I love what I do all day for work – but the person I am outside of work is much more important to me. And that’s exactly the way it should be.
In fact, the time I spend outside of work caring for myself, my communities and my family makes me a BETTER CEO and a more effective communicator.
So when I started Forthright five years ago, I made a commitment to myself that my roles outside of work would be honored as important, if not more important, than my roles AT work. That’s what sparked our policy of charging more for work we perform outside of our business hours.
As our clients know, when we’re billing hourly on a project, we charge more for work requested to be performed outside of our business hours (8:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. EST). We’re upfront and transparent about it from the beginning of the relationship.
I recently shared more insights about what it took to create the policy and how it’s evolved with Buffer. You can read my post here:
As I wrote in my 2020 blog post announcing the policy, Why We Charge More for Work We Perform Outside of Business Hours, “I know that our teammates serve our clients best when they are well-rested and recharged for work… Asking them to work a full day and then add on more hours on top of that – without monetarily acknowledging what we’re asking of them and compensating them for that – feels, frankly, wrong.
Even in non-pandemic times, I know that our brains benefit from time off, sleep and that our productivity and creative ideas stem from our hobbies and unfocused time. This is even more important for our BIPOC teammates, who bear an additional burden from internalized trauma due to racism. So when client work regularly cuts into that critical time away from work — everyone, including the client, eventually suffers.”
We’ve grown so much as a team, as a company, since I first introduced the policy four years ago. Yet our core value of People First has always remained at the center of who we are and how we show up in the world.
As we head into the next five years, and we look to an uncertain future in many ways, I’m very sure of one thing. We’ll continue upholding policies that support our amazing team.
That starts with ensuring we protect our health and happiness, and the roles we play outside of work.
POPULAR POSTS LIKE THIS
The news…well, it’s news-ing. And if I had to guess, you need an easy way to keep up with all of it!
That’s why we’re sharing our recommendations for the best media monitoring tools to use, along with a step-by-step guide for getting started.
Not all media monitoring programs are created equal — and they certainly aren’t all free. There are lots to choose from. Our team at Forthright has used everything from Cision to Meltwater to all the options in between. There are pros and cons to each program, and depending on your budget, there are a range of bells and whistles.
No matter where you turn, the election is buzzy.
The final two weeks before the election are some of the most important – and therefore, some of the most challenging.
Here are a few reminders as you barrel towards November.
I have a short, cautionary tale brought to you by my early-career mistakes. Here’s what’s in it for you:
My blunder is your happy guide to modeling a culture where asking great questions empowers everyone and makes your work better.
Early in my career in the U.S. Senate, I got a call from another Senate office asking my boss to sign onto important legislation.
There was just one teeny tiny problem… I didn’t know what to do next.
I am really good at communication. I am TERRIBAD at math.
Accounting, even for my own business, takes A LOT of focus and explanations for me to understand. My eyes glaze over at spreadsheets.
I’m telling you this so you believe me when I say that if I’m writing you an entire email about a tax form, it is directly relevant to your communications.
I don’t just dilly dally in tax forms for funsies. No ma’am, no way. But times they are a-changin, and as communicators, we need to tap into the 990 game.
But let’s start at the beginning, shall we?
Have you noticed that people… aren’t reading stuff very closely right now? (Not you, you’re doing a great job reading this blog so far!)
Do you notice colleagues are more checked out than usual?
Burnout, compassion fatigue, cognitive overload – you name it, our audiences have it. We’ve got short attention spans, and even shorter fuses.
So what’s a communicator to do to get attention? Throw a party, of course.
While ghostwriting is absolutely one of my favorite projects, it's taken me years to get it right. (Or should I say write?). Today, I'm sharing some of my favorite best practices.
I’ve ghostwritten for more superintendents, CEOs and leaders than I can count. Here are the steps I never skip.
And for you CEOs and leaders who are getting ghostwritten for – these same tips apply!
My first job after college was at a PR agency.
I was working with – and I’m not sure how else to phrase this – men’s men. Think: veterans starting their own government contracting businesses, construction CEOs, cybersecurity leaders and more. There was plenty of little lady-ing.
But there were also many, many lessons that I’m still using in my career today, 15 years later. I’m including one of my favorites, and some additional best practices, below.
You know those days where you just want someone to tell you where we're going to dinner?
Sometimes, I get really tired of making decisions – partly because as busy leaders, we make decisions at work all day, every day.
We ask questions such as:
Should we complete this grant application?
Which events should we go to?
Is that conference worth it?
And sometimes, your teammates don’t agree on the answer.
That’s why at Forthright, we use – you guessed it – a data-backed approach to make these decisions.
In our world of child and family advocacy, few communicators have navigated the trenches quite like Marrianne McMullen.
From managing high-stakes crises in the Obama administration to shaping narratives at DC Public Schools – where I had the immense privilege of working for her – Marrianne has spent her career masterfully championing policies that support children and families. Today, she serves as the Director of Communication & Dissemination at Chapin Hall, an independent research and policy center focused on child and family well-being.
To celebrate the two-year anniversary of her book, Persuasive, I sat down with my former boss and mentor to reflect on what it takes to effectively move the needle.
When I say the word hope, I can hear some of you out there sighing through the internet tubes. And honestly, fair enough. In our field right now, hope can sometimes get packaged up like a vague platitude or a promise that misses the point.
But, hear me out. Today, I’m talking about the kind of hope that’s fierce and very, very practical.
Data consistently tells us that messaging has to trigger a sense of hope if you want to make sure your audiences don’t default to defensiveness.
Age gaps exist all across the organization.
From your eager intern to your seasoned board members (and your program staff to your executive director), you're likely communicating across up to 40 years of generational differences.
Here are some tips and tricks to help you stay aligned.
When we launched our research process – the one that led to our new Frenemies + Jargon: Breaking the Habits That Stall Child and Family Advocacy report – I had suspicions about what we’d find.
We heard that as a field, we’re often fake friends.
Let’s break down what we heard and what we can do about it.
Our average coaching client is a communications director. For the sake of this blog, let’s call her Chloe.
Chloe typically works at a public school district, a foundation or a nonprofit.
She landed in her director role coming from the policy, program or development team. She may only have a few years of direct communications experience, but she’s a natural.
Most of the time, she’s a team of one, and she’s carrying everything communications for her organization.
That’s where we step in as a coach.
Here’s a behind-the-scenes peek at what we normally help out with.
So, you need to tell your board of directors or your school board some bad news.
First, blerg. Sorry about that!
Second, we’re here to help.
I've had the opportunity to be involved in some excellent examples of how to do this well – and, unfortunately, I’ve also had to help clean up a few, um… shall we say, less-than-stellar attempts.
Here is a key approach that I’ve seen work well over the years.
We know that right now, the families you serve, the partners you need, the funders you want to attract and the policymakers who need to know your work have completely changed how they use the internet.
The way they use conversational search on platforms like ChatGPT, Google's AI Overviews, and Gemini means we simply need to make sure your organization is the trusted AI citation your audiences find.